Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1 November 1981
Little Whinging, Surrey

Petunia Dursley

Petunia Dursley hated being reminded that she had a sister, which made Hallowe’en a particularly difficult time of year for her, and one she swore got longer every year. The shops had been full of disgusting paranormal confectionery and plastic tat for over a month this time around.

For the first couple of years after she and her newly-wed husband Vernon had moved into Number Four, Privet Drive, they had refused to participate in the ridiculous tradition of trick-or-treating at all. They had only started answering the door and grudgingly handing over a single wrapped lollipop to the minor extortioners after Number Four had been the only house on Privet Drive to be both egged and toilet papered and the neighbours had started whispering that Mr and Mrs Dursley were tight-fisted.

This year, Petunia had been spared the worst of the experience. At five o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Vernon had presented her with a new book, a cup of steaming cocoa and informed her that the bath was running upstairs. He had even put the radio on the windowsill, and its tinny sound almost managed to drown out the incessant chimes of the doorbell. When she had emerged two hours later, wrinkled as a prune having refilled the bath twice, he informed her that he had fed Dudley and put him to bed, then led her into the kitchen where the table was set with a delicious dinner for two. He hadn’t cooked it himself, thank goodness, but she had gone to bed feeling more relaxed than she could ever remember feeling on Hallowe’en before.

She should have known it was too good to last.

The first reminder of Lily came early the next morning, as a tawny owl fluttered past the window whilst she took Vernon breakfast in bed. But by the time Petunia  had cooked a French onion soup for lunch, vacuumed the house, washed up Vernon’s breakfast things and dressed Dudley, she had managed to forget the owl - and her sister - and present the perfect picture of a happy, normal family to the world.

She fastened a screaming Dudley into his carseat, and smiled politely when Mrs Nextdoor (whose children were all moody teenagers now) commented that it would only get worse once he learned to talk. Then Vernon drove the three of them to Greater Whinging, muttered under his breath about people who took parent-and-child spaces when they didn’t have children, and eventually parked across two spaces further down the road.

“The usual for me, Petunia,” said Vernon, as he unfolded his newspaper.

Petunia nodded, unbuckled Dudley from his carseat, wrestled him into his pushchair, and set off for the butcher’s. A bell tinkled as she pushed open the door, and Petunia squeezed inside to join the queue. The butcher’s wife cooed over Dudley in between serving customers, and slipped him a piece of chicken whilst her husband dressed Petunia’s chosen joint of beef.

The bell rang again as Petunia opened the door to leave, but she stopped dead in the doorway. A group of people in strange clothes and funny cloaks were clustered beneath the old oak tree at the edge of the village green.

“They’ve been there all morning,” said the butcher’s wife. “I asked Tom to go and tell them to stop loitering, but he said they’re not doing any harm.”

“Oh,” said Petunia. She tried to think what Vernon would say. “I hope they haven’t been putting off your customers.”

The butcher let out a deep chortling laugh. “They might be a bit old to be playing dress-up, but live and let live, I say.”

Petunia tried not to look at the people in cloaks as she walked to the bakery, taking the long way around the parking bays. She was determined not to let a few selfish individuals ruin her weekend after she’d had such a lovely evening yesterday.

The bakery was even busier than the butcher’s, but the girl behind the counter must have spotted Petunia in the queue, because she had Vernon’s lardy cakes ready when she reached the till.

“He’s getting big now,” the girl said conversationally as she rang up Petunia’s order. “Did you get many trick-or-treaters last night?”

“No,” Petunia said curtly. She snatched the paper bag off the counter and stalked out of the shop.

She only realised that she had taken the shortcut across the green when Dudley’s pushchair bounced off the legs of one of the people in cloaks. Dudley began to scream. Petunia scooped him out of his pushchair and cradled him close to her chest, staring in wide-eyed horror at the ugly woman the pushchair had collided with. She looked like just the sort who would demand to take Dudley home to boil in a pot, even if she wasn’t one of his.

“S-sorry,” Petunia stammered.

The woman’s mouth split in open in a toothless smile.

“Don’t be sorry, my dear,” she croaked, her horrible voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard. “A hundred screaming infants could not upset me today! For they will never know fear and sorrow as I have! There is no more need to scream, little one”— Petunia held Dudley as far from the woman’s leering stare as she dared —“for yours is now a world of peace and love. And joy! Joy to you both, for You-Know-Who is gone at last!”

Dudley stopped screaming.

“He’s gone?” Petunia asked, before she could stop herself.

The woman threw back her head and cackled, causing several passers-by to turn and stare.

“You see, Agnes? They know! Even the Muggles know what a magnificent day this is!”

Petunia hurried away before anyone else could see her talking to the deranged woman, not bothering to stop to return Dudley to his pushchair. She was panting when she reached the car.

“Ridiculous!” Vernon exclaimed, when she sat down next to him.

Petunia blinked. She had assumed - had hoped - that he hadn’t noticed anything. If there was one thing Vernon hated as much as she hated being reminded of her sister, it was the idea that someone else might learn just who - and what - she was related to.

“Council are halving their street cleaning capacity,” growled Vernon. “What exactly are we paying taxes for?”

“Oh,” said Petunia. “Yes, how ridiculous.”

Vernon nodded to himself and folded up his newspaper.

Petunia said nothing else on the drive home. As much as she would usually try to forget anything like what had happened on the green, the woman’s words kept playing over and over in her head. Petunia had a sneaking suspicion she Did-Know-Who, and she almost asked Vernon to turn around so she could go back and ask the woman to confirm it. He would have been furious, of course, if he knew she’d spoken to one of them  - in public, no less - but part of her thought it might be worth it. It was a very small part, however, and Petunia settled for assuming her interpretation was correct and silently seething that Lily hadn’t thought to tell her that the danger had passed.

Vernon parked on the drive and took the shopping and Dudley’s pushchair, leaving Petunia to take Dudley himself. She was halfway up the path when there was a dull thud. A moment later, the cob she had bought to go with their soup rolled past her.

Petunia looked at the doorway and almost dropped Dudley in surprise. Someone was standing in the doorway, inside the house, smiling out at the Dursleys as though he were not a total stranger.

“I realise it’s awfully rude of me to have come inside uninvited,” the stranger said pleasantly. He was wearing long robes and a purple cloak, and he didn’t seem to realise that he was in a house where everything from his long silvery hair to his high-heeled, buckled boots was unwelcome. “However, I thought I might draw a little attention if I waited on the doorstep. Please, come in.”

Vernon had been rooted wordlessly to the spot, but being invited into his own home by a complete stranger restored his speech.

“I demand that you leave at once, sir!” he said in a furious whisper. “You are breaking and entering!”

“I am afraid that I cannot leave,” said the stranger. “Not yet. I have some very important and, I am afraid, difficult business to discuss with Petunia.”

Vernon made a strange, rasping noise. Something clawed into Petunia’s chest and strangled her hope that they were safe at last.

“Please, come in,” the stranger repeated.

“How dare you!” Vernon growled. But he wasn’t speaking to the peculiar old man. His furious red face was turned to Petunia, who clutched Dudley tightly to her chest. “How dare you tell someone like - like this - where we live!”

“I didn’t, Vernon, I swear,” Petunia said in a very quiet voice.

She was telling the truth; she might have been willing to send the odd letter to Lily behind Vernon’s back, but she hadn’t had anything more to do with her sister’s world since that awful wedding. She looked desperately at the stranger. Surely Lily knew better than to send one of them here rather than putting whatever difficult business he had in a letter.

 “Please, sir,” said Petunia. “We don’t want anything to do with your business. You should leave, whoever you are.”

“Oh, how very rude of me once again,” said the man. Rather than leaving, he stepped down onto the doorstep and held out a hand to Petunia. “We’ve exchanged letters, of course, but I’ve never had the privilege of meeting you. I am Professor Albus Dumbledore.”

Dudley began to shriek and wail as Petunia almost dropped him once again. The unshaken hand which Professor Dumbledore had extended now reached for him.

“Allow me.”

“Stop right there!” shouted Vernon, as Petunia pulled Dudley tightly to her chest once more. “I forbid you to touch him!”

Professor Dumbledore retracted his hand.

“My apologies,” he said politely, as though he had not noticed that Vernon’s shout had sprayed his silvery beard with spittle. “Please, I must insist that you come inside. Harry will be arriving soon, and I should like you to know why before he gets here.”

“Harry?” Petunia repeated faintly. “Harry’s coming here?”

Professor Dumbledore nodded sadly.

“No he bloody well isn’t!” shouted Vernon.

Petunia hardly heard him. She could think of few reasons why Professor Dumbledore would be in her house, and fewer still for him to be awaiting Harry’s arrival. She took in a shuddering breath and clutched Dudley more tightly still. Then she took a step forwards and followed Professor Dumbledore into the house.

“Petunia!” bellowed Vernon, trampling his lardy cakes as he stamped after her. “Petunia, what the hell are you doing? We’re not staying in here with him! Tell him to leave!”

“As I have said already, I am unable to leave until I have concluded my business with Petunia,” Professor Dumbledore said firmly. “Once I have done what I came here to do, I will of course cease my impolite intrusion on your hospitality.”

Petunia didn’t hear what her husband said in response. She had carried the still-screaming Dudley into the living room, where the news was playing on the television. She placed Dudley in his playpen, which stood in front of her seat on the sofa. Then she closed the windows in the hope that the sounds of raised voices would not be audible outside; Vernon would be even more furious if a concerned neighbour called the police. Dudley shook the bars of the pen, his shrieks becoming happy burbling sounds.

Petunia turned off the television, where the weatherman was talking about shooting stars, replaced the remote on Vernon’s table, then sat down on the sofa. She watched her son bobbing happily in his pen, as though pretending the two of them were alone in the house could make it the truth.

A couple of minutes later, Petunia started in surprise. Professor Dumbledore had joined her in the living room. He was carrying two steaming cups of tea, one of which he now placed on the small table beside Petunia’s seat. The other, he balanced on his knee after easing himself into the chair opposite the sofa.

Vernon was still standing in the hall, his face now an intense puce and screwed up with rage. His hands were clenched into tight fists, one of them still holding his keys. At any other time, the sight of him would have caused Petunia to quake, but she barely registered his presence. Her fearful eyes had already drifted back to Professor Dumbledore as she waited to hear him confirm her suspicions.

“I am very sorry to tell you that your sister and her husband are dead,” Professor Dumbledore said gently.

“Good riddance!” said Vernon.

Professor Dumbledore’s expression, which had been one of tender compassion, became at once harsh and cold. His head whipped around to look at the doorway, and Vernon’s face drained to chalk-white.

“How?” whispered Petunia. “Did - did he…?”

“Lord Voldemort found them,” said Professor Dumbledore. A little of the coldness lingered in his expression, but his voice was once again soft and sympathetic. “I am sure this news comes as quite a shock. I know it will be little consolation to you now, but you should know that Lily and James died honourably. It appears that James attempted to fight Lord Voldemort off, and I believe Lily gave her life to save her son.”

Petunia reached forward and grasped one of Dudley’s small hands in hers. With her other hand, she brushed away a tear. Then she glared at the man who had taken her sister away from her, and said, “She was supposed to be safe. She said you’d found a way for them to hide.”

“What’s this?” demanded Vernon. “When did she tell you that? Have you been—”

“It is usually considered polite to offer condolences when someone loses a close relative,” Professor Dumbledore said in a steely voice. “Your wife needs support and answers, not questions.”

Vernon gaped at him like a fish. Professor Dumbledore ignored him and turned back to Petunia, his expression returning to that sad smile.

“I’m afraid no magic is infallible,” Professor Dumbledore said gravely. “Lily and James placed their trust in the wrong person. It appears Sirius Black”— Petunia was too upset to flinch —“told Lord Voldemort where to find your sister. The Aurors are looking for him. Which is why I must ask that you allow Harry to come and live with you. He has no other living—”

“He’s not coming here!” Spots of pink had returned to Vernon’s face, and he had taken two steps into the room to point a quivering finger at Professor Dumbledore. “If that’s all you came here for, you can get out. We’re not taking him.”

Professor Dumbledore ignored him. So did Petunia. Her chest felt too tight for her to pay him any attention. Surely Professor Dumbledore didn’t really mean for her to take the boy in here, with Dudley?

“As I was saying, Petunia, he has no other living relatives. He needs—”

“What about his godmother?” asked Petunia. “Harry doesn’t need me. He should be with someone like - someone like him.”

“Mary McKinnon was killed four months ago,” said Professor Dumbledore.

“What about Alice?” Petunia said shrilly. “She said her friend Alice had a boy, too.”

“For the next few months at the very least, Alice Longbottom and her husband will be too busy, and too much in the public eye, to be able to take Harry in.”

Petunia stared frantically across the room.

“And Harry needs you,” Professor Dumbledore said firmly. “The sacrifice his mother made carried a powerful protection, one which caused Lord Voldemort to lose his powers when he attempted to kill Harry as well. And that is why he will be safest here with you.”

Petunia glared at him. “Safest with me? Not one of their friends? They were fighting Voldemort as well, weren’t they?” She cast her mind back, but she’d tried to bury the names of the men who’d no doubt encouraged Sirius Black to humiliate her. “Piers and Regus, or whatever their names were.” Her voice was bitter as she said, “Surely one of them could protect him better than someone like me.”

“I’m afraid Remus has a serious medical condition which I believe he would see as making him an unsuitable guardian.”

Petunia opened her mouth to argue, but Professor Dumbledore carried on talking.

“I believe Lord Voldemort’s followers will try to find Harry, to finish the deed their master could not. But so long as he is permitted to live with you, to call your house his home, they will not be able to harm him here. By offering him your home, you can give him the most powerful protection he could ask for. You can honour Lily’s final act and strengthen its power.”

Petunia picked up her cup in trembling hands. She took several mouthfuls of tea, then cradled the cup in her lap. “Will he be like them?”

“It is entirely possible that he will not have inherited his parents’ powers,” said Professor Dumbledore. “We may not know for sure for several years. He will be in danger either way.”

“Will Dudley be safe? If he turns out to be like them?”

“Did Lily ever hurt you?” Professor Dumbledore asked gently.

Petunia studied the cup in her lap for several long seconds. Could she subject Dudley to the same kind of childhood she’d endured? But if she didn’t, Lily’s son would be in danger.

Finally, she gave a tiny nod. “We’ll take him.”

“LIKE HELL WE WILL!” bellowed Vernon. “I DON’T WANT ANY MORE FREAKS IN THIS HOUSE EVER AGAIN!”

Petunia didn’t see Professor Dumbledore do anything or hear him say a word, but the air suddenly began to shimmer around him as though his furious gaze were blistering the very air between him and Vernon. The colour drained from Vernon’s face, washed away by the arrival of terror.

“Harry Potter will likely not live to see his second birthday if he is not welcome here,” said Professor Dumbledore in a dangerously quiet voice.

Petunia felt a chill that she had even considered turning him away, but she didn’t dare affirm her decision. She looked from Professor Dumbledore to Vernon through damp, fearful eyes. The air still appeared to be boiling between them, but no sooner had Petunia wished it wasn’t than it stopped.

“If people are really looking for the brat,” said Vernon, sounding as though he didn’t believe a word of it, “then won’t taking him in put Dudley in danger, too?”

Petunia looked sharply back at Professor Dumbledore; she hadn’t considered that. The Professor looked fondly at Dudley, who was now shaking a rattle emphatically.

“So long as Harry can call your home his own, that home will be the safest place Dudley can be,” said Professor Dumbledore. “I will not pretend that taking Harry in will make you and Dudley any safer in your daily lives, but nor do I think doing so will increase the danger to you. I am afraid it is likely that you would all be targets for Lord Voldemort’s supporters for a time, either way.”

“Preposterous!” muttered Vernon, but Petunia knew he was beginning to cave. If Professor Dumbledore was telling the truth that Dudley would be safer with Harry here, there was no way Vernon would continue to object. Proving her right, he growled, “Fine, but I’m not paying a penny towards the brat.”

“Although Lily and James made no specific provisions to financially support Harry’s guardian,” said Professor Dumbledore, and Vernon huffed as though he expected nothing less, “they left him a sufficient sum to cover a stipend for your increased living costs. And to pay his fees for Hogwarts, in the event he is offered a place. I should be happy to make the arrangements when I inform the Minister for Magic that you have consented to be Harry’s guardian. If you are still consenting?”

Petunia looked at Vernon and, for the first time since she had learned her sister was dead, he touched her, sitting beside her and placing a trembling hand on her knee. He gave a very small, stiff nod.

“I am,” said Petunia.

Professor Dumbledore beamed at her. “Thank you, Petunia.”

He took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. “Hagrid should be here any minute.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than a low rumbling sound drifted through the open window. It grew steadily louder as Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet and gazed out of the window; it swelled to a roar as Petunia rose to stare too - and a huge motorbike entered Privet Drive and came to a halt on the drive in front of Number Four.

Petunia recognised the motorbike immediately, and let out a soft gasp, before she realised the man astride it was not its owner. Unless that was just another lie he’d told. She recognised the huge, wild-looking man as well, though she didn’t know his name. She could remember how the windows had rattled when he’d clapped at Lily’s wedding. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

Professor Dumbledore strode into the hall. Petunia remained in the living room, peering up and down the street to check that none of the neighbours had seen the motorbike or its enormous rider. Vernon was still in his seat, looking as though he had been frozen in place, with a dull, stunned expression on his face.
“Hagrid,” Professor Dumbledore said in the hall, sounding relieved. “At last. No problems, were there?”

“No, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” came a deep, rumbling voice that sounded very similar to the motorbike’s engine. “House was almost destroyed but old Mrs Bagshot told me she’d got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was drivin’ past Bristol.”

“Wherever did you get that motorbike?”

Petunia let out a yelp of surprise. The voice that had asked the question belonged to neither Professor Dumbledore nor the giant. It was unmistakably female.
Professor Dumbledore returned to the living room, followed by a rather severe-looking woman wearing an emerald cloak. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun.

“Borrowed it, Professor,” said the giant as he squeezed himself through the door into the living room. Once past the doorframe, he straightened, his head grazing the ceiling. “Young Sirius Black lent it me. Said I’d get here quicker if I flew, but I didn’ want ter get stopped fer breakin’ the Statute o’ Secrecy, not wi’ this one with me.”

The black-haired woman made a strange scoffing noise. “Really, Hagrid, you chose today of all days to obey the rules? Nobody else seems to have bothered. Even the Muggles have noticed something’s—”

The woman appeared to have only just noticed that she and the two men were not alone in the room. She was staring at Petunia with a perplexed expression. As though suddenly remembering that it was rude to stare, she turned instead to look at Professor Dumbledore.

“Albus, what are we doing here? Hagrid said you’d told him to meet you here, but—”

“Minerva, Hagrid, allow me to introduce Mrs Petunia and Mr Vernon Dursley,” said Professor Dumbledore, giving Petunia a friendly smile. “Lily’s sister and her husband.”

Understanding flooded the severe-looking woman’s face.

“Petunia, this is Professor Minerva McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid.”

Petunia did her best to pretend she was pleased to have Professor McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid in her home. She gave them each a polite nod as they were introduced. Vernon stared at the giant.

“And this must be Harry,” said Professor Dumbledore, taking the bundle of blankets from Hagrid.

Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle, and let out a soft gasp. “Is that where—?”

“Yes,” said Professor Dumbledore. “He’ll have that scar for ever.”

“Couldn’t you do something about it, Albus?” asked Professor McGonagall.

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Scars can come in useful. I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground.”

Petunia found it entirely unbelievable that Professor Dumbledore had ever taken the London Underground.

“Well - here we are,” said Professor Dumbledore, walking delicately across the room. He held the bundle of blankets out to Petunia. “Petunia, this is your nephew.”

Inside, just visible, was a baby boy. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead she could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. As Petunia took the swaddled boy from Professor Dumbledore, his eyes flickered open. Any hope she might have had that there had been some kind of mistake evaporated. The boy’s eyes were the exact same shade of green as her sister’s. Petunia let out a sob.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Professor McGonagall. “Lily and James… I can’t believe it… I didn’t want to believe it.” She looked at Professor Dumbledore, and asked incoherently,  “Albus, is this - I mean - this place is so very Muggle. And Harry will be famous - a legend - I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in fut—”

“Which would be enough to turn any boy’s head,” said Professor Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. “Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won’t even remember! Can’t you see how much better off he’ll be, growing up away from all that until he’s ready to take it?”

Petunia looked back down at the boy in her arms. His green eyes had closed again, making the scar on his forehead once again the feature that drew her attention. That scar, she realised, would make him difficult to hide, if the people Professor Dumbledore expected to come looking for him knew about it. Might it also make him think himself special, just as his powers would? Well, she would have to make sure that he knew neither his scar nor his powers - and hopefully he wouldn’t have those after all - made him any better than anyone else.

A great howl interrupted her thoughts. “S-s-sorry,” sobbed Rubeus Hagrid, taking out a large spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. “But I c-c-can’t stand it - Lily an’ James dead - an’ poor little Harry… Could I - could I say goodbye to him, Mrs Dursley?”

Petunia gave a startled nod. Rubeus Hagrid bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss.

“Well,” said Professor Dumbledore. “That’s that. We’ve no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations.”

“Yeah,” said Rubeus Hagrid in a very muffled voice. “I’d best get this bike away. G’night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir.”

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Rubeus Hagrid squeezed back through the door into the hall.

“I shall see you soon, I expect, Minerva,” said Professor Dumbledore, nodding to Professor McGonagall. She blew her nose in reply and followed Rubeus Hagrid out.

A couple of seconds later, an engine roared into life. Petunia looked anxiously through the window for any nosy neighbours, as the motorbike rose into the air and off into the night. There was no sign of Professor McGonagall on the drive, but she could not possibly have fit on the motorbike with the giant. As a tabby cat trotted down the driveway of Number Four, Privet Drive, Petunia decided that the woman must simply have vanished just as suddenly as she had appeared, just as Lily had claimed she could do.

“Please write to me if you need anything,” said Professor Dumbledore.

Petunia jumped. She had assumed the man had disappeared along with Professor McGonagall, but he was still standing only a couple of paces away.

“Forgive me one more instance of rudeness,” he said. “I’m not really appropriately attired for this neighbourhood, so if you don’t mind, I’ll Disapparate from inside.”

Petunia had no idea what he meant. However, she had no desire for Professor Dumbledore to linger any longer. She nodded her agreement.

“Good luck, Harry,” murmured Professor Dumbledore. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak and a popping sound he was gone.

Petunia put Harry down beside Dudley in the playpen. Vernon let out a long, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Vernon said stiffly.

Petunia had a second to feel shocked, before the grief she had been holding at bay consumed her. Vernon’s arms wrapped around her as she surrendered to it and cried for the sister she ought to have loved better.

Chapter Text

1981

November

Daily Prophet: Chief Auror confirms Dark Lord’s death, claims remains removed from Potters’ Godric’s Hollow home

Daily Prophet: Elizabeth Pettigrew accepts Order of Merlin, First Class, on behalf of hero son Peter

Quibbler: Black sentencing marks death of Rule of Law, shows Emergency Powers extend too far

December

Daily Prophet: Lucius Malfoy cursed to obey Death Eaters’ commands against his will, Wizengamot concludes

Acta Strige: MN Abraxas Malfoy proud to reaffirm son Lucius as Heir

Acta Strige: Wizengamot approves Special Council of Magical Law to consider Death Eater trials to avoid conflicts of interest and reduce backlog

1982

April

Daily Prophet: Death Eaters who tortured Longbottoms were searching for Dark Lord

Daily Prophet: Council of Magical Law orders life imprisonment for Death Eaters who tortured Longbottoms

Acta Strige: Charlotte Black (b. Lestrange, 1891) confirmed as Steward following Lestrange brothers’ imprisonment

June

Daily Prophet: Ministry announces end to State of Emergency as final Death Eater trials conclude

December

Acta Strige: Quigley Warlockship extinguished as Enora Crouch follows disgraced son to grave

1985

March

Witch Weekly: Exclusive interview with dashing debutant author Gilderoy Lockhart

1986

November

Daily Prophet: Bagnold running to continue in office “in absence of a suitable alternative”

1987

June

Daily Prophet: Bagnold comfortably retains Ministry premiership

Quibbler: Dark Lord attacked me on holiday in Epiri, claims toadstool specialist

1988

April

Daily Prophet: International Confederation of Wizards elects MH Albus Dumbledore as Supreme Mugwump for third time in half a century

1989

March

The Inside Snitch: From Bludgers to memos, Ludovic Bagman appointed Head of Department for Magical Games and Sports

September

Acta Strige: Stewardship of Lestrange Warlockship passes to Lucienne (b. 1892) following sister Charlotte’s death

1990

July

Daily Prophet: Fudge appoints wife Alyssa to Wizengamot in first act as Minister for Magic

August

Daily Prophet: Canada triumph over Scotland in close-fought Quidditch World Cup Final

Daily Prophet: Wizengamot elder MH Fitzgerald resigns in protest at Alyssa Fudge’s appointment, Minister appoints Lucius Malfoy in her place

Acta Strige: MN Arcturus Black refutes claims of ill health

1991

February

Acta Strige: MN Arcturus Black names daughter Lucretia Steward, affirms convict grandson as heir

Chapter Text

23 June 1991
Little Whinging, Surrey

Harry Potter

Harry woke with a start. His aunt was rapping on the door.

“Up!” she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside the door.

“Are you up yet?” she demanded.

“Nearly,” said Harry.

“Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy’s birthday.”

Harry groaned.

“What did you say?” his aunt snapped through the door.

“Nothing, nothing….”

Dudley’s birthday - how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept. Next he pulled on a pair of Dudley’s old jeans, one of Dudley’s old t-shirts, and slipped his feet into a pair of grey slippers which one of the few things he owned which had never belonged to Dudley.

He peeked into the dining room as he walked past on his way to the kitchen, and wondered where they were supposed to eat their breakfast. Aunt Petunia  didn’t stand for eating down from the table, but the table was hardly visible beneath a mountain of Dudley’s presents. Of course, it looked like Dudley had got everything he’d asked for, even the racing bike, which made Harry smile. He doubted Dudley would get further than Magnolia Crescent before deciding cycling was too hard work. Perhaps, if Dudley didn’t throw too big a tantrum, he might be allowed to use the bike on Saturday mornings when his aunt and uncle took Dudley to watch matches at his school.

Harry never went with them. The best thing that had ever happened to him was when Dudley had started at St Bartholomew’s Prep School. Harry had stayed at St Gregory’s Primary School, and although Dennis Cuttleworth and Gordon Hitchens still made fun of his baggy clothes and emptied his rucksack at every opportunity, it was a much nicer place without Dudley and Piers Polkiss around. As an added bonus, he no longer had to worry that his school reports would compare him to Dudley, which meant he no longer flunked his spelling tests on purpose. Most of Dudley’s new friends didn’t even know Harry existed, so whenever Dudley had a school thing, Harry went to stay with Mrs Figg, an elderly neighbour with too many cats. Dudley had never been picked for any of the school teams, but ever since Harry had let on how badly Mrs Figg’s house smelled of cabbages, he had insisted on watching every single match.

It wasn’t just their schools that divided Harry and Dudley. Where Dudley was fat and blond like his father, Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes, and looked even skinnier than he really was in Dudley’s hand-me-downs. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Sellotape because Aunt Petunia had stopped replacing them the third time Dennis Cuttleworth broke them. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He’d had it as long as he could remember and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had got it.

“In the car crash when your parents died,” she had said. “And don’t ask questions.”

Don’t ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon, and barked at Harry, as he usually did, to comb his hair. As usual, Harry ignored him; after ten years living with the Dursleys he had learned when his uncle was making genuine demands and when he was simply pointing out his faults, which was one of his favourite things to do.

Dudley always seemed to know when meals were being served. He came downstairs just as Harry put the plates of egg and bacon onto the small bit of table which was free of presents. Dudley immediately began counting his presents. His face fell, and he began to argue with his parents. Harry wolfed down his breakfast before it could be thrown across the room.

Dudley’s temper had just been appeased when the telephone rang. Aunt Petunia went to answer it, whilst Harry pretended to be interested in what Dudley was unwrapping. Unless it was something Dudley could use to hit him, he couldn’t care less what Dudley had got for his birthday. Besides, if there was anything he was particularly interested in, Dudley would probably break it on purpose as soon as he lost interest himself.

“Bad news, Vernon,” said Aunt Petunia, who had returned to the dining room looking angry and worried. “Mrs Figg’s broken her leg. She can’t take him.” She jerked her head in Harry’s direction.

Dudley’s mouth fell open in horror, but Harry’s heart gave a leap. If he wasn’t going to Mrs Figg’s whilst the Dursleys went to the zoo, perhaps he could have a go with Dudley’s new remote-control aeroplane before Dudley managed to crash it. He allowed himself to daydream about the possibility whilst Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon tried to think of someone they could send him to.

“You could just leave me here,” he put in hopefully, when they were running out of ideas.

Aunt Petunia looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon. “And come back and find the house in ruins?” she snarled.

“I won’t blow up the house,” said Harry, but they weren’t listening.

When it became apparent that there was no alternative but for Harry to go with them, Dudley began to protest loudly between pretend sobs. He only stopped when his friend Piers Polkiss arrived.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon spent another twenty minutes trying to think of anything else to do with him, but they came up short. Uncle Vernon took Harry aside as the others headed out to the car, and Harry felt a familiar surge of panic when Aunt Petunia closed the door behind them.

“I’m warning you,” said Uncle Vernon, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry’s. “I’m warning you now, boy - any funny business, anything at all - and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.”

Harry thought that might actually be one of the threats Uncle Vernon would follow through on, since there were only a few weeks of term left before the summer holidays. St Gregory’s wouldn’t send someone to look for him if he didn’t come back after the summer, because he was supposed to be starting at the local comprehensive, Stonewall High.

“I’m not going to do anything,” he protested. “Honestly…”

The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry, and it was no use telling the Dursleys he didn’t know how they happened. The first time he could remember was when Sarah Stebbins had shown him the daisy chains she was making during breaktime, and the daisies had started to dance. Harry knew it must have just been the wind, but the two of them had been convinced at the time that he was the one making the daisies dance.

Sarah asked him to do it again to show her friends the next day, but unluckily for Harry she did so at just the moment a freak tornado hit Little Whinging. Sarah and her friends had run screaming from the small funnel that appeared out of nowhere, claiming that Harry was trying to kill them. Aunt Petunia had been furious that the school had let them go outside in dangerous weather, even though the tornado hadn’t done any more than throw the bins around a bit. The strangest thing was, when Harry spoke to Sarah about it a few days later, neither she nor her friends remembered any of it.

Even though Harry had never tried to make daisies dance again - or regrow his hair, jump onto the school roof, or shrink a jumper, for that matter - strange things like that just kept happening. He’d learned early on to keep quiet when they did. Aunt Petunia alternated between breaking down in tears begging him to behave and shouting for him to go to his cupboard without any dinner. Uncle Vernon, on the other hand, would shout and send him to his cupboard if Aunt Petunia was around and take a slipper to him if she wasn’t.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. Nothing usual had happened to Harry for at least three months, unless you counted the strangely-dressed man who had bowed to him outside the supermarket last week.  It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs Figg’s cabbage-smelling living-room.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia, not about Harry but about the motorbike which roared past them.

“I had a dream about a motorbike,” said Harry, remembered suddenly. “It was flying.”

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right round in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache, “MOTORBIKES DON’T FLY!”

Dudley and Piers sniggered.

“I know they don’t,” said Harry. “It was only a dream.”

But he wished he hadn’t said anything. The Dursleys hated any mention of anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it was a dream or a cartoon. Even Dudley was banned from playing any video games that weren’t grounded firmly in reality like football, fighting, or stealing cars.

It was a very sunny Sunday and the zoo was crowded with families. Aunt Petunia bought all three of them ice-creams at the entrance, and Harry didn’t care that he only had one scoop, because it was his favourite flavour - chocolate. Harry thought the day couldn’t get any better as they watched a gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn’t blond.

Harry had the best morning he’d had in a long time. Dudley usually tried to pretend he didn’t know Harry in public, but he’d got Harry to take a photo of him and Piers with theirs head through the lion face-in-hole board. Then they’d eaten in the restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory wasn’t big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.

Harry felt, afterwards, that he should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in here, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon’s car and crushed it into a dustbin - but at the moment it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

“Make it move,” he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, right next to the ‘please do not touch the glass’ sign, but the snake didn’t budge.

“Do it again,” Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

“This is boring,” Dudley moaned, and shuffled away.

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake him up - at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry’s.

It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren’t. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly: “I get that all the time.”

“I know,” Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn’t sure the snake could hear him. “It must be really annoying.”

The snake nodded vigorously.

“Where do you come from anyway?” Harry asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at another sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

“Was it nice there?”

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on:

This specimen was bred in the zoo.

“Oh, I see - so you’ve never been to Brazil?”

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump.

“DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

Dudley came waddling towards them as fast as he could, and barged Harry onto the floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw quite how - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.

Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out on to the floor - people throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, “Brazil, here I come… Thanksss, amigo.”

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

“But the glass,” he kept saying, “where did the glass go?”

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong sweet tea, while he apologised over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. Harry hardly heard what they were saying, because Uncle Vernon spent the whole time glaring at him, even before Piers said, “Harry was talking to it, weren’t you, Harry?”

He waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. Aunt Petunia was already pouring him a large brandy as he managed to sputter, “Go - cupboard - stay - no meals” at Harry.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn’t know what time it was and he couldn’t be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. He’d heard Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon arguing long after Dudley had gone to bed, their voices dropping back to furious whispers every time they had reached a volume he could hear, so that all he had been able to tell was that the argument had about him. Until they were asleep, he couldn’t risk sneaking into the kitchen for some food.

As he strained his ears for the sound of snoring or whispered voices, he daydreamed about life after the last few weeks of school and the summer holidays. Everyone said Stonewall High was the worst school in Surrey, but Harry didn’t care, because almost nobody there would know him. He could just be Harry, not Dudley Dursley’s scrawny cousin. From what Harry had seen, half the children at Stonewall High wore uniforms three sizes too big for them and although he might be the only there without parents, he wouldn’t be the only one without people who loved him.

Even better, Dudley and Piers were going to Uncle Vernon’s old school, Smeltings. Harry didn’t understand why everyone else was so pleased about this, because it seemed like Dudley was only going there because the headmaster had told Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon he probably wouldn’t pass the exam to stay at St Bartholomew’s. But Harry was very pleased because Dudley was going to be boarding, which meant Harry wouldn’t have to see him except for the holidays and some weekends. Harry only wished he could go to boarding school instead, so he didn’t have to see Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.

Chapter Text

22 July 1991

Petunia Dursley

Petunia managed to convince Vernon to let Harry go to school the next day. Thankfully, Vernon had been three brandies deep when the letter arrived saying that Piers and the zookeeper had been dealt with, and she’d managed to read and burn it without him noticing. She’d managed to convince him that maybe it wasn’t Harry this time, and when she’d pointed out that the school might send someone around if he was off again, he had reluctantly agreed that Harry could leave his cupboard for school, and twice a day - four times at weekends - to go to the bathroom. Vernon hadn’t even complained when she’d given Harry a few books that Dudley had been using for target practice with his Super Soaker and started replacing his bread and water with proper meals.

To her relief, Vernon agreed to lift Harry’s restrictions completely when the school holidays arrived. Dudley insisted on having Piers over almost every day, and since Piers didn’t remember what had happened at the zoo, he was more than happy to join Dudley in rapping on Harry’s door and jumping up and down on the stairs. It was far less stressful to have Harry out of the house when Piers was there than to worry what he might do if they pushed too far. She knew telling Dudley to leave his cousin alone would only cause another argument with Vernon, who maintained that if Harry was so dangerous Dudley couldn’t tease him a bit then he was too dangerous to have in the house.

As she dyed some of Dudley’s old clothes Stonewall grey in the sink, Petunia found herself wondering if he might actually have to wear them. She hadn’t bothered buying a real uniform because it was painfully obvious that Harry had the abilities she had so desperately hoped he wouldn’t, but it was two years since she’d last heard from Professor Dumbledore, and she was certain Lily had known she was going to Hogwarts several months before she started.

She looked down at the contents of the tub and sighed. Perhaps she would have to write to Professor Dumbledore to ask him to release some more of Harry’s funds. The boy couldn’t go off to school wearing this.

Harry had come into the kitchen for breakfast and was peering into the tub. “What’s this?”

“Your new school uniform,” snapped Petunia.

“Oh,” said Harry. “I didn’t realise it had to be so wet.”

Petunia fought the urge to slap him and settled for telling him not to be stupid. It was hardly a lie to say his clothes would look just like everyone else’s; she’d seen the state of the Stonewall kids who had terrorised the coffee shop by the bus stop so badly it had closed down. Perhaps she should have returned a school selection form after all.

A few minutes later, Petunia took Vernon a mug of coffee to wash down his breakfast. She vaguely registered that Harry had kept a single envelope when he handed Vernon the post. It was only when Dudley shouted “Dad! Harry’s got something!” that she realised this was unusual. Her relief was chased away by the pallid look of horror on Vernon’s face as he read the letter he had seized from Harry.

“P-P-Petunia!” gasped Vernon.

Petunia took the letter before Dudley could grab it, and read it quickly. She was very confused when it said precisely what she had expected. It took only a moment for her to realise that Vernon had actually hoped the letter would never come, and that she had perhaps been a little too effective in keeping the extent of Harry’s abilities from him. They hadn’t discussed Harry going to Hogwarts, of course. She hated thinking about him going to that awful place, and the only times Vernon liked to talk about Harry was to complain about him.

“Vernon!” said Petunia, clutching her throat. She’d never dreamed they might argue about this. “Oh my goodness - Vernon!”

“I want to read that letter,” said Dudley, hitting Vernon on the head with his Smeltings stick.

“I want to read it, as it’s mine,” Harry protested.

“Get out, both of you,” croaked Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

“I WANT MY LETTER!” Harry shouted, staying where he was.

“Let me see it!” demanded Dudley, also refusing to move.

“OUT!” roared Vernon, manhandling the two boys into the hall and slamming the door behind them.

Petunia picked up the envelope and stared at the address:

Mr H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

“Vernon,” she said quietly, “look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don’t think they’re watching the house?”

The idea that Professor Dumbledore knew where Harry slept made her feel sick. She knew, of course, that the cupboard under the stairs wasn’t a suitable bedroom, but Vernon had refused to back down and she’d stopped begging years ago.

“Watching - spying - might be following us,” Vernon muttered wildly. He began to pace.

“But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back?” She knew Vernon hated her writing to Dumbledore. “Tell them we don’t want—”

“No, no, we’ll ignore it,” said Vernon. “If they don’t get an answer… yes, that’s best… we won’t do anything…”

Petunia stared at him. That wasn’t what she’d meant at all. The Ministry had sent someone to Lily to explain things long before she’d received her letter from Hogwarts, but apparently they’d assumed she would have explained things to Harry. She didn’t have the first idea how to break the news to him.

“But—”

“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”

Petunia bit her lip. Surely Vernon realised they already had one in the house, and that he’d spend a lot less time there if they let him go off to Hogwarts. She knew better than to argue with Vernon when he was like this, however. She decided to give it a couple of days for his temper to calm down, and then slowly bring him round to seeing that things would be much better if Harry went to Hogwarts.

When Vernon got home from work, he complained that his sandwiches had been stale and sent Petunia to the shops to get a fresh loaf of bread. When she got back, she was astonished to learn that Harry had moved his things into Dudley’s second bedroom. She discovered this fact from Dudley bawling at her, “I don’t want him in there… I need that room… make him get out…”

Vernon said nothing to her about the move, even when Dudley threw a terrible tantrum at breakfast the next morning. She shot her husband dirty looks over the table, but she didn’t want to say anything in case he changed his mind. If he was worried what Professor Dumbledore thought about Harry having spent the last ten years living in a cupboard, perhaps he’d be more willing to let the boy go to school.

Unfortunately, any hopes Petunia had that Vernon would calm day in a day or two evaporated when Dudley, who had been sent to get the post, shouted from the hall, “There’s another one! Mr HJ Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive—”

With a strangled cry, Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall. He wrestled the letter off Dudley, taking several hits from Dudley’s Smelting stick and after a minute of confused fighting, wheezed, “Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom,” at Harry. “Dudley - go - just go.”

Vernon was still in too foul a mood when he returned from work for her to even consider trying to discuss the topic, and when he went to bed, he set his alarm clock for five o’clock.

“Got to beat the brat to his letter,” he snarled when she opened her mouth to ask what he was doing.

When the alarm clock went off, Petunia watched Vernon pick up a sleeping bag from beside his bed and tiptoe out of the room. She rolled her eyes and went back to sleep, but was woken a little over an hour later by horrible shout. She hurried downstairs to find Vernon bellowing at Harry, who had apparently snuck out of his cupboard to wait for the postman.

Vernon didn’t go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the letter-box.

“See,” he explained to her through a mouthful of nails, “if they can’t deliver them they’ll just give up.”

“I’m not sure that’ll work, Vernon,” said Petunia, hoping her letter to Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t take too long to arrive. She handed Vernon a slice of fruit cake.

“Oh, these people’s minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they’re not like you and me,” said Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the cake she’d just given him.

On Thursday, no letters arrived for Harry, but when Petunia opened the front door to collect the milk, an envelope was nestled between the two bottles on the doorstep, addressed to her. She slipped it into her pocket and carried the milk inside.

When Vernon had left for work, whistling happily, Petunia pulled out the letter and opened it. It read:

Dear Petunia,

I must confess to some disappointment that you have neglected to inform Harry he is a wizard. However, I agree that it makes sense for someone to explain things to him before he reads his invitation.
I can assure you that Harry’s outbursts of magic will be far less frequent once he has learned to control his powers. Harry and your son will both be safer if he takes up his place at Hogwarts.
Kindly let me know via the usual method when is convenient for someone to attend your house.

I am, yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore

Petunia hastily pulled a sheet from her writing pad and wrote a reply.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

There’s no need to send anyone to the house. I’ll bring Harry to the Seedelwood Park playground playground on Monday evening.

Thank you
Petunia Dursley

She spent the rest of the day muttering resentfully about people who dumped babies on strangers and then judged the way they raised them, to distract herself from the gnawing guilt in her stomach.

Professor Dumbledore’s agreement came on Saturday, and Petunia spent the day deciding how to broach the topic with her husband.

“Vernon, dear, do you remember me saying that Hog— Lily’s school was a boarding school?”

Vernon glared at her. “Preposterous!” he growled, which she took as confirmation that he didn’t remember.

“Well… I was thinking… Dudley’s going to be away a lot, and it would be lovely to have some more time to ourselves…”

Vernon watched her shimmy out of her dress and licked his lips. She gave him a nervous smile as she pulled on her laciest nightgown.

“It’s almost a pity they’ve stopped writing to the brat,” said Vernon, “but I suppose we could ask Mrs Figg to take him overnight occasionally.”

“I had a letter today,” said Petunia. “From Professor Dumbledore.” Vernon’s glare returned, but Petunia continued, “He said Harry won’t be as - odd - if he goes to that school. He’d only be here during the holidays, and we wouldn’t have to pay a penny for his tuition.”

She paused to give Vernon time to object, but he seemed to be considering the idea.

“I’m not sure he’ll accept no as an answer,” she said cautiously. She didn’t want to get Vernon’s back up too much, but if he was going to become angry, she would rather it was directed at Dumbledore than her. “If they know where Harry sleeps, surely they can find us anywhere. Maybe we should just give them what they want. Let Harry go to that school, and enjoy finally having some peace and quiet about the house.”

“I’m not having another bloody freak come to the house to tell him about that nonsense,” said Vernon.

“Neither am I!” Petunia said quickly. “I could meet them somewhere nearby - somewhere nobody would recognise us. And you could take Dudley to see Marge, seeing as she’s not coming to us this summer.”

Petunia had been there when the Ministry representative had told Lily what she was, and there was no way she was going to let Dudley be there when it happened to Harry.

“Right,” said Vernon.

She rolled over and stroked a hand over his chest.

“So… what do you think?”

“I - er…” Vernon was staring at the gap down the front of her nightgown. “I suppose…”

29 July
Greater Whinging, Surrey

Harry Potter

Harry felt very nervous when Aunt Petunia parked on Seedelwood Road. They were in a part of Greater Whinging that his aunt and uncle usually avoided, and Aunt Petunia hadn’t said a word to him on the drive here. He could see in the rear view mirror that her lips were drawn into a tight line.

“Why are we here?” he asked, after several long moments had elapsed without her moving.

“We’re meeting someone,” snapped Aunt Petunia.

Harry’s eyes widened and he looked around. They were parked near the sagging gate to a children’s playground, from which hung a bicycle frame which had been relieved of both of its wheels. On the other side of the road, several teenagers were skateboarding on a couple of graffitied ramps.

“Here?” asked Harry.

Aunt Petunia sniffed and unbuckled her seatbelt. Harry gaped at the gleaming motorcycle which stood proudly on the other side of the broken gate, wondering who in their right mind would leave something like that here. He supposed they’d taken Aunt Petunia’s rather worn old car out of the garage in the hopes it wouldn’t meet the same fate as the bicycle. They crossed the deserted playground, which consisted of a couple of broken swings and a rusty old seesaw, heading for a picnic area.

Harry barely had time to register the figure on one side of a picnic bench as a person before a wide mouth opened in the middle of a mass of shaggy black hair, and bellowed, “Harry! There yeh are!”

Harry stared at the speaker. He couldn’t help it; he had never seen so enormous a man before in his life. The picnic bench was leaning precariously to one side under the giant’s weight, despite the fact that a slender woman was sitting on the other side. She was wearing a very old-fashioned looking dress, and leaped up to hurry towards them. The bench tipped a little further in her absence.

To Harry’s great surprise, the woman stopped when she reached him and Aunt Petunia, and bowed. Aunt Petunia looked furious.

“Mr Potter, it’s an honour to meet you.”

“Er, is it?” asked Harry.

“But of course!” said the woman, who looked shocked at the question.

“I’m Harry’s aunt,” Aunt Petunia said irritably. “Can we get this over with?”

The woman’s smile faltered, then she offered another, smaller bow. “Of course, Mrs Dursley. Come and sit down, Mr Potter, and we’ll fill in the gaps, answer any questions your aunt hasn’t been able to.”

Harry gaped at her. Only his teachers had ever invited questions from him before. It was no surprise to him that Aunt Petunia looked even more irritated.

“I’m Maud Mercer,” said the woman, as they approached the bench. “I’m in First Contact at the DME. And this is Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts.”

Rubeus Hagrid beamed at Harry as he squeezed onto the bench between Maud Mercer and Aunt Petunia. The bench creaked and settled into an almost upright position. Before Harry could tell Maud Mercer that had no idea what the DME or Hogwarts were, the giant opened his fat caterpillar-like lips.

“Las’ time I saw yeh, yeh was only a baby,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.”

Harry knew he was staring again, but he couldn’t seem to make his voice work. He wanted to ask how this giant knew his parents - he’d never met anyone who knew his parents before. He didn’t think he could be any more shocked, until Aunt Petunia said stiffly, “Pleased to see you again, Mr Hagrid.”

“It’s an honour, Harry,” said Rubeus Hagrid, “ter be the one ter bring yeh yer letter. Couldn’ say no when Dumbledore asked me. Great man, Dumbledore.”

Harry was no longer looking at Hagrid. He was staring at his aunt, wondering if the giant had something to do with the letters his uncle had done everything in his power to stop him opening.

“Who’s Professor Dumbledore?” asked Harry, still looking at Aunt Petunia.  “And what’s Hogwarts?”

Maud Mercer let out a small sigh. When Harry looked at Rubeus Hagrid, he looked shocked.

“Sorry,” Harry said quickly. Beside him, he could have sworn he felt Aunt Petunia wince. He bit his lip.

“Sorry?” barked Rubeus Hagrid. “It’s them as should be sorry! Yer aunt said yeh didn’ know everythin’, but I never thought yeh wouldn’t even know abou’ Hogwarts, fer cryin’ out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learnt it all?”

“All what?” asked Harry.

“ALL WHAT?” Rubeus Hagrid thundered. “Now wait jus’ one second!”

Hagrid leapt to his feet, which threw the other side of the picnic bench into the ground with such force that Harry’s jaws snapped together.

“Do you mean ter tell me,” Rubeus Hagrid growled at Aunt Petunia, before she could interject, “that this boy - this boy! - knows nothin’ abou’—”

“Perhaps I should start at the beginning,” Maud Mercer said quickly. “Hagrid, Mrs Dursley did say Mr Potter would need a full explanation. That’s why Professor Dumbledore asked—”

“But I didn’ think he’d know NOTHIN’!” roared Rubeus Hagrid.

“I know some things,” Harry said indignantly. He still had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t a total idiot. “I can, you know, do maths and stuff.”

“We know,” said Maud Mercer. “You won’t need to take the English and maths assessments before starting at Hogwarts. If you choose to go to Hogwarts, of course. You’re within the catchment for three Ministry schools, and it would save you a lot of money if you— not that you need to worry about that.”

Harry blinked. Hogwarts was a school? But he was supposed to be going to Stonewall High. He looked at Aunt Petunia again, who was staring at Maud Mercer with a rather disgusted expression.

“Ah, yes, of course,” said Maud Mercer, seeming rather flustered. “The basics. Mr Potter, you are— hold on, where’s the other boy?”

“Dudley?” Aunt Petunia asked breathlessly. “You mean… he’s one, too?”

A look of elation had come over her face. It vanished as Maud Mercer laughed.

“No, of course not! But it’s much easier to tell the whole family at once.”

“I’ll tell Dudley,” Aunt Petunia said coldly.

“But—”

“I’ll tell Dudley.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Tell him what?” asked Harry, who wished someone would just explain what was happening.

“Mr Potter, you are extraordinarily gifted,” said Maud Mercer. “I mean, extra-extraordinarily, in your case. The world around you is much more than it seems, and I am honoured beyond words to invite you to explore it, when you are old enough to purchase your first wand.”

“My first what?” asked Harry, certain he’d misheard her.

“Wand, Mr Potter,” Maud Mercer repeated. “Your first wand, with which you will be able to perform magic at will, rather than in the haphazard manner you have done so far.”

“Magic?” asked Harry.  If Aunt Petunia didn’t disapprove of pranks, he might have looked around for the hidden cameras. Slowly, things were clicking into place, and yet the places they settled made no sense. “It’s magic, what I can do?”

“O’ course,” said Rubeus Hagrid, his booming voice drowning out whatever his companion had said. “An’ yeh’ll be able to do much more, I’d say, once yeh’ve been trained up a bit. At Hogwarts. Yer mum an’ dad wouldn’ wan’ yeh to go anywhere else.”

“As I said, you’ve got a choice of three Ministry schools as well, Mr Potter,” said Maud Mercer. “The headmistress of Rosebells is a close friend of mine. I’d be happy to arrange a tour of the—”

“My mum and dad went to this Hogwarts?” Harry asked Rubeus Hagrid.

The giant beamed at him. “They did.”

“Then I want to go there,” said Harry.

He heard Aunt Petunia let out a small sigh, but he didn’t turn to see whether she looked relieved or exasperated, because Rubeus Hagrid had reached into his coat. He pulled out a yellowish envelope from inside his coat, and handed it to Harry. It looked just like the ones that had been sent to Privet Drive.

Harry unfolded the letter and read in small emerald green ink:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WICCHENCRAFT

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

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

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Wicchencraft. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 2 September. We await your owl by no later than 30 June.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

Harry’s hands were trembling by the time he finished reading. He pinched his arm. Then he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, counted to three, and opened them again. He was still sitting on the picnic bench opposite a giant, holding an invitation to attend a magic school, and Aunt Petunia, when he turned to look at her, looked… pleased?

“What does it mean, they await my owl?” asked Harry.

“Gallopin’ Gorgons, that reminds me,” said Rubeus Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from a pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl - a long quill and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note which Harry read upside-down:

Dear Mr Dumbledore,

Given Harry his letter. Hope you’re well.

Hagrid

The giant rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, and threw it into the air.

“There will be certain ground rules, of course,” said Aunt Petunia, as Harry gaped at the receding owl. “If you are going to go to… that school.”

“What rules?” asked Harry, who was willing to spend every minute until the second of September in his cupboard with only bread and water if that was what was needed.

“You will not use… anything you learn in my house. You will not talk… about… what you are.”

“So I’m just going to pretend like you did?” Harry asked indignantly, as realisation suddenly came over him. “You knew!”

Aunt Petunia flinched.

“Of course I knew! I hoped if you didn’t know anything about your parents, maybe you wouldn’t turn out the same way. I thought if you never heard of… that stuff… you’d be normal. But you’ve never been normal, and Dumbledore says you won’t learn how to control your… control yourself, without going to school. Look what happened at the zoo! If you’re going to continue living under our roof, you will learn how to act like you’re normal.”

“Act like a Muggle,” said Rubeus Hagrid, as though this was the most ridiculous idea he’d heard.

“A what?” asked Harry.

“A Muggle,” said Hagrid. “It’s what we call non-magic folk like her.”

Harry wasn’t sure if he imagined that Aunt Petunia flinched again. Her mouth was in that sucked-a-lemon shape again, and the look in her eyes would usually fill him with dread.

“And it’s the law,” said Maud Mercer firmly. Harry turned to look at her, and the strict expression on her face suddenly became nervous for some reason. “Mr Potter, the Statute of Secrecy requires all wicchen  - that is, witches and wizards - to take steps to ensure that Muggles do not learn of our existence. The exceptions are the cohabiting relatives of underage wicchen”— she nodded towards Aunt Petunia —“and the spouses or anticipated spouses of adult wicchen. The Ministry of Magic has intervened in your uncontrolled use of magic on eight occasions.”

Harry gaped at her, realising that must explain why nobody but the Dursleys ever seemed to remember the strange things that happened around him.

“Since you were both ignorant of your abilities, and too young to control them, you were not at fault,” Maud Mercer continued. “And since your guardian is incapable of preventing your use of magic from being witnessed by uninitiated Muggles, neither is she.”

Aunt Petunia was glaring at the woman again, but she didn’t seem to notice. It sounded like she was reciting from memory, as she carried on, “You must not tell any Muggle that you are a wizard. Once you begin your education, you must not use magic outside the school grounds or the supervision of an approved Ministry educator. Any illegal use of underage magic will be—”

“Ah, come on,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “This is Harry Potter! Nobody’s goin’ ter mind if he gets a bit overexcited now an’ then when he’s not at school.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry.

The giant stared at him. “I’m not sure I’m the right person ter tell yeh - but someone’s gotta,” he shot Aunt Petunia a pointed look. “Yeh can’t go off to Hogwarts not knowin’. Well, it’s best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh - mind, I can’t tell yeh eveythin’, it’s a great mystery, parts of it… It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it’s incredible yeh don’t know his name, everyone in our world knows—”

“Who?” asked Harry

“Well - I don’ like sayin’ the name if I can help it. No one does.”

“Why not?”

Rubeus Hagrid looked at Maud Mercer, as though asking for her help, but the woman - the witch, Harry realised with a start - looked utterly bewildered.

“Gulpin’ gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went…bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was…”

Rubeus Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.

“Could you write it down?” Harry suggested.

“I can’t spell it. Can you?” Rubeus Hagrid asked Maud Mercer.

“Voldemort,” Aunt Petunia said flatly.

Maud Mercer squeaked and covered her mouth with a trembling hand.

“Voldemort?” Harry repeated.

“Shh!” hissed Rubeus Hagrid. “Yeah, tha’s it,” he continued, when he’d composed himself. “Anyway, this - this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin’ fer followers. Got ’em, too - some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o’ his power, ’cause he was gettin’ himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn’ know who ter trust, didn’t dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… Terrible things happened. He was takin’ over. ’Course, some stood up to him - an’ he killed ’em. Horribly. One o’ the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore’s the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn’ dare try takin’ the school, not jus’ then, anyway.

“Now, yer mum an’ dad were as good a witch an’ wizard as I ever knew. Head Boy an’ Girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the mystery is why You-Know-Who never tried ter get ’em on his side before… probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin’ ter do with the Dark Side”

Harry and Maud Mercer were both listening raptly.  Even Aunt Petunia was leaning forward slightly on the bench, her sour expression softening slightly.

“Maybe he thought he could persuade ‘em… maybe he just wanted ‘em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Sam— er, Hallowe’en - ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an’ - an’ -”

Rubeus Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirt, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

“Sorry,” he said. “But it’s that sad - knew yer mum an’ dad, an’ nicer people yeh couldn’t find - anyway -

“You-Know-Who killed ‘em. An’ then - an’ this is the real mystery of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin’ by then. But he couldn’t do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh - took care of yer mum an’ dad an’ yer house, even - but it didn’t work on you, an’ that’s why yeh’re famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill ’em, no one except you, an’ he’d killed some o’ the best witches an’ wizards of the age - the McKinnons, the Boneses, the Prewetts - an’ you was only a baby, an’ you lived.”

Rubeus Hagrid reached over the table and offered his enormous spotted handkerchief to Aunt Petunia. Harry was astonished when she took it, and blew her nose into it. She kept her eyes lowered as the giant resumed talking.

“Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter yer aunt’s house, where Dumbledore’d explained everythin’ an’ was waiting for yeh. An’ so that’s what happened, Harry,” Rubeus Hagrid continued loudly. “Then You-Know-Who vanished, the same night he tried ter kill yeh. Makes yeh even more famous. That’s the biggest mystery, see… he was gettin’ more an’ more powerful - why’d he go?

“Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he’s still out there, bidin’ his time, like”— Aunt Petunia and Maud Mercer both shivered —“but I don’ believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of ’em came outta kinda trances. Don’ reckon they could’ve done if he was comin’ back.

“Most of us reckon he’s still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. ’Cause somethin’ about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin’ goin’ on that night he hadn’t counted on - I dunno what it was, no one does - but somethin’ about you stumped him, all right.”

Rubeus Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes. Harry, whose eyes were wet with tears, wondered if there had been some sort of mistake. He could believe that he was a wizard, but he couldn’t possibly live up to the expectation in Rubeus Hagrid’s gaze.

“Yeh’ll love Hogwarts,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “Yeh’ll be right famous.”

That didn’t make Harry feel much better. As he imagined how Uncle Vernon would sneer at the idea of him being famous, he realised something.

“I can’t go to Hogwarts,” he said in a small voice. “Thank you, Mr Hagrid. I’m really grateful for the offer, but I can’t afford to—”

“Yes, you can,” Aunt Petunia said quickly.

“Yer parents paid yer first two years of fees as soon as yeh were born, ter secure yer place,” rumbled Rubeus Hagrid. “An’ yeh’ll be able ter use the money they left yeh ter pay the rest.”

Harry stared at the giant in delight. He didn’t know how much school fees actually cost, but the way Dudley had boasted about going to Smeltings, he was sure his parents must have left him a lot of money if he could afford seven years at Hogwarts. Assuming wizard schools ran for seven years, he supposed.

“Well, that’s sorted then,” Maud Mercer said, somewhat reluctantly. “Mr Potter, when do you want me to escort you to buy your school supplies? You won’t be able to buy a wand for a couple more days as you need to be—”

“Don’ worry about it,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “I’ll take him shoppin’ on his birthday.”

Harry pulled a second page out of the envelope and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WICCHENCRAFT

First-year students will require:

Uniform
1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for ceremonial wear
3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupils’ clothes should carry name tags

Set Books
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble

Other Equipment

1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales

Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST-YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

“Where can we get all of this?” Harry wondered aloud.

“In London,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “Yeh jus’ need ter know where ter go.” He looked at Aunt Petunia, and asked, “Can yeh find the Leaky Cauldron?”

Aunt Petunia nodded stiffly.

“Great,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “I’ll meet yeh outside the Leaky Cauldron at ten o’clock on yer birthday, Harry.”

“Hagrid, I really think Mr Potter should be accom—”

“Who d’yeh want ter go with, Harry?”

Harry looked from the woman beside him to the enormous man opposite.

“Thank you, Mrs Mercer, but I’d like to go with Mr Hagrid.”

The woman sniffed.

Rubeus Hagrid beamed. He reached over the table and squeezed both of Harry’s hands in one of his own. “Well, I’ll see yeh then, Harry. I best be off or I’ll be flyin’ the last hundred miles in the dark.”

Petunia hurried him out of the park before Harry could overcome his awe at the idea of flying. He turned and gave the witch and the giant a little wave when they reached the gate. Then he got into Aunt Petunia’s car, wondering how he had been so lucky.

Chapter Text

31 July 1991

Harry Potter

Harry woke early on the morning of his eleventh birthday. He was filled with a horrible sort of fear. Neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon had said anything about what had happened in the park or what Hagrid and Maud Mercer had told him, other than Aunt Petunia telling him not to tell Dudley anything until she said it was OK. It was only two days since he’d learned that he was a wizard and Harry’s arm was covered in bruises where he’d pinched himself every five minutes since to check he wasn’t dreaming.

He walked nervously into the kitchen, where Uncle Vernon was reading the newspaper and eating a mountain of bacon and eggs. Aunt Petunia was cooking more bacon. Neither of them even acknowledged him, let alone wished him a happy birthday, which was a first. He usually got a toiletry set and a very cheap card.

“Er,” said Harry.

“What?” snapped Aunt Petunia.

“Are we going to London today?”

Uncle Vernon lowered his newspaper.

“You’re taking him with you?” he barked at Aunt Petunia.

“Yes, Vernon,” she said, topping up his bacon. “We’re going to drop him off with Hagrid whilst Duddy and I go window shopping.”

Uncle Vernon glared at Harry. “Not a word to Dudley,” he growled under his breath, as Aunt Petunia disappeared into the hall.

“OK,” said Harry.

“I mean it, boy,” growled Uncle Vernon. “If you say anything, we’ll write to this Professor Dunderbore and tell him you’re not going after all.”

The confirmation that he hadn’t dreamed everything - unless he was still in the same dream - made Harry so delighted that he struggled to look suitably obedient. It didn’t help that his imagination was playing through what he thought Rubeus Hagrid might say to Uncle Vernon if he heard him tell Harry he wasn’t allowed to go to Hogwarts after all.

The back of Uncle Vernon’s hand struck Harry across the face and he staggered backwards.

“Don’t you dare smirk at me like that,” snarled Uncle Vernon. “You might think you’re special, but you’re nothing but a freak.”

Harry hurried for his cupboard, and ran headfirst into Dudley.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, but Dudley didn’t look at all upset at being run into. He was smiling.

“Happy birthday,” he said, holding out a large box wrapped in shiny blue paper.

Harry stared at it. He couldn’t remember Dudley giving him a present before in his life.

“Go on,” said Dudley, extending the box further toward him.

Harry took it. It was very heavy. He pulled off the paper and lifted up the cardboard flaps.

Dudley slammed a hand into the bottom of the box and what felt like ten gallons of something bright and gloopy covered Harry from head to toe.

“HA!” shouted Dudley. “HA HA HA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“Oh, Dudley,” said Aunt Petunia, appearing on the stairs. “It’s all over the carpet!”

Harry spat out a mouthful of gunge, and said, “It’s all over me!”

“Go and have a shower,” ordered Aunt Petunia. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes.”

Dudley stopped laughing at stared at her.

“He’s coming with us?”

“Only to London, Diddykins,” said Aunt Petunia. “We’re taking him to see someone, and then you and I will have a lovely day together.”

Harry hurried up the stairs, as Dudley started to argue with his mother. It took the full fifteen minutes to get the slime out of his hair, and he hurriedly pulled on some clean clothes as Aunt Petunia shouted for him to hurry up.

When he came back down, she had cleaned up the worst of the slime, and Dudley was still muttering angrily about not wanting Harry to go with them.

“Come on!” snapped Aunt Petunia, as though it was his fault they were running late.

Uncle Vernon drove them to the train station, where they ran across the platforms and managed to make it onto their train just before the doors closed. Dudley was wheezing heavily from the effort. He elbowed past Harry to take the last seat in the carriage, and Harry and Aunt Petunia spent the journey standing in the aisle. Thankfully, it was a fairly short train ride to London.

They swapped to the Underground, where Dudley complained loudly that it was too hot and stamped on Harry’s foot every time he had to move to let someone on or off. Then they got out at Charing Cross, and Aunt Petunia led them down a few roads before coming to a stop in front of a dingy looking pub. Aunt Petunia peered at it, but her gaze seemed to be focussed on something much further away.

“I think this should be it,” she said, and looked expectantly at Harry.

Harry looked at the sign above the pub door. An iron cauldron hung from a pole, swaying slightly in the breeze, and above it letters read Th L aky C uld on.

“The Leaky Cauldron,” he realised aloud, remembering where Rubeus Hagrid had asked to meet. He supposed the giant must be waiting inside.

Dudley let out a squeak of terror and stared at the pub. A nervous look appeared on Aunt Petunia’s face as her gaze settled on the door.

“Wait out here for us, Dudley,” she ordered.

“But—”

“Wait here,” snapped Aunt Petunia. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Harry reached forward and pushed open the heavy door.

It was very similar inside to out - dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old barman, who was quite bald and looked like a gummy walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone stared.

Harry stared back. He’d never seen such a strange assortment of people in his life.

“Can we help you, dear?” one of the sherry-drinking old women asked Aunt Petunia.

“We’re meeting Mr Hagrid,” Aunt Petunia said in a very small voice.

“Ah, you must be Mr Potter’s aunt!” exclaimed the barman, hurrying over.

The effect of these words on the already quiet pub were remarkable. The Leaky Cauldron had gone completely still and silent.

“Welcome back, Mr Potter, what an honour,” said the barman, seizing Harry’s hand with tears in his eyes.

There was a great scraping of chairs and, next moment, everyone in the Leaky Cauldron surged forwards to shake Harry’s hand.

“Doris Crockford, Mr Potter, I can’t believe I’m meeting you at last.”

“So proud, Mr Potter, I’m just so proud.”

“Always wanted to shake your hand - I’m all of a flutter.”

Harry could see Aunt Petunia growing more and more irritated, as his cheeks grew redder and redder. Rubeus Hagrid had told him he was famous, but it seemed there was nobody in the pub who didn’t know who he was.

“Delighted, Mr Potter, just can’t tell you. Diggle’s the name, Dedalus Diggle.”

“I’ve seen you before!” said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle’s top hat fell off in his excitement. “You bowed to me once in a shop.”

“He remembers!” cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. “Did you hear that? He remembers me!”

Harry shook hands again and again - Doris Crockford kept coming back for more. Several of the patrons shook Aunt Petunia’s hand as well, despite the fact that she was wearing what Harry well knew to be a leave-me-alone expression.

“Harry!” a booming voice rang out across the pub. Rubeus Hagrid stooped through a doorway and closed the door, which was labelled, ‘wizards’. “Yeh made it!”

He beamed at the press of people around Harry, then noticed one in particular and pulled him forwards. He was a very nervous-looking pale young man with one eye that kept twitching.

“Professor Quirrell!” said Hagrid. “Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts.”

“P-P-Potter,” stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry’s hand, “c-c-can’t t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.”

“What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?” Harry asked politely.

“D-Defence Against the D-D-Dark Arts,” muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he’d rather not think about it. “Starting this year. N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-Potter?” He laughed nervously. “You’ll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I’ve g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself” He looked terrified at the very thought.

“There’s a room in the back,” said Rubeus Hagrid, nodding past the bar. He clapped Harry on the back and started steering him towards it.

“I’m not going to stay,” called Aunt Petunia, who had not moved from her position near the back. “When should I pick Harry up?”

The giant pulled a tiny pocket-watch from one of the many pockets on his overcoat and studied it. “Three o’clock work for yeh?”

Aunt Petunia nodded curtly, and hurried from the pub. Taking advantage of the fact that they had stopped moving, people closed in around them again and Harry found himself doing another round of introductions.

Twenty minutes later, Harry’s head was spinning. Since they’d left the pub, Rubeus Hagrid had led him past shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments he’d never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…

“Gringotts,” said Rubeus Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy-white building which towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was -

“Yeah, that’s a goblin,” said Rubeus Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps towards him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.

“Like I said, yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it,” said Rubeus Hagrid.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the bronze doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins on brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Rubeus Hagrid led Harry to the counter.

“Morning,” said Rubeus Hagrid to a free goblin. “We’ve come ter take some money outta Mr Harry Potter’s safe.”

“You have his key, sir?”

“Got it in here somewhere,” said Rubeus Hagrid and he started emptying his pockets on to the counter, scattering a handful of mouldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

“Got it,” said Rubeus Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.

The goblin looked at it closely.

“That seems to be in order.”

“An’ I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore,” said Rubeus Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault sever hundred and thirteen.”

The goblin’s expression softened; he read the letter carefully.

“Very well,” he said, handing it back to Rubeus Hagrid, “I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!”

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Rubeus Hagrid had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook towards one of the doors leading off the hall.

“What’s the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?” Harry asked.

“Can’t tell yeh that,” said Rubeus Hagrid mysteriously. “Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore’s trusted me. More’n my job’s worth ter tell yeh that.”

Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downwards and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks towards them. They climbed in - Hagrid with some difficulty - and were off.

At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn’t steering.

Harry’s eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

“I never know,” Harry called to the giant over the noise of the cart, “what’s the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?”

“Stalagmite’s got an ‘m’ in it,” said Rubeus Hagrid. “An’ don’ ask me questions just now, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

He did look very green and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Rubeus Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees trembling.

Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze coins.

“All yours,” smiled Rubeus Hagrid.

All Harry’s - it was incredible. Harry couldn’t imagine his aunt and uncle knew just how much money his parents had left him. He was certain Uncle Vernon would have insisted on taking the lot.

Before Harry had taken a step towards the safe, Griphook began to pluck coins from the vault in his long, clawed fingers. He tossed each coin into a pouch attached to his belt with a thin, golden chain, muttering as he did so. His hands and lips moved so quickly that Harry could hardly follow them, but it seemed he was counting; for when he had finished, he said loudly, “Nineteen Galleons, two Sickles and twenty-one Knuts in accrued charges, now settled. It’s all yours, sir.”

The safe was too small even for Harry to stand in, and the opening just large enough for Rubeus Hagrid’s massive hands to pull fistfuls of gold forwards for Harry to put in the pouch Rubeus Hagrid handed him. The pouch seemed to be enchanted not to change shape or size no matter how many coins were piled into it, which was just as well because some of the coins were quite large.

“The gold ones are Galleons,” Rubeus Hagrid explained. “Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o’ terms, we’ll keep the rest safe for yeh.” He turned to Griphook. “Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?”

“One speed only,” said Griphook.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine and Harry leant over the side to try and see what was down at the dark bottom but Rubeus Hagrid groaned and pulled him back up by the scruff of his neck.

Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.

“Stand back,” said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.

“If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they’d be sucked through the door and trapped in there,” said Griphook.

“How often do you check to see if anyone’s inside?” Harry asked.

“About once every ten years,” said Griphook, with a rather nasty grin.

Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top-security vault, Harry was sure, and he leant forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least - but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Rubeus Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

“Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don’t talk ter me on the way back up, it’s best if I keep me mouth shut,” said Rubeus Hagrid.

Diagon Alley, London

Draco Malfoy

Draco Malfoy had never been in Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions before. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever setting foot in a store which proclaimed such multifunctionality. Unfortunately, Madam Malkin’s had been the exclusive Hogwarts supplier for at least five generations of Malkins, which meant that Draco had to endure the indignity of shopping here. He supposed if both his parents had endured it, he could too.

The latest Madam Malkin was was a squat, smiling witch dressed in mauve. The corners of her mouth tightened in the way that told Draco she felt a little out of her league serving such an esteemed customer. He huffed irritably as he was shown to the back of the shop, and glared at the witch who told him to hop onto a stool. Surely the Hogwarts supplier would at least have a curtain to hide their customers from the gawking masses?

“I’ll go and pick up your books,” said father. “I’ll come back in a few minutes to settle up and we can go and meet your mother.”

Draco wouldn’t have minded going to the bookshop as well, but he supposed he would have a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips in just a few weeks. The Hogwarts library was supposed to be even more extensive than the Malfoy family libraries, though Draco thought that was probably an exaggeration.

“Would you like to try anything in addition to the school uniform, sir?” asked Madam Malkin’s assistant as she lifted a robe over Draco’s head.

He stared at her silently, until she realised how insulting the question was, slipped the robe over his head and arms, and hurriedly bent down to pin the bottom.

The sound of footsteps brought Draco a brief hope that the silly witch pinning his hem was about to be reprimanded for her ridiculous suggestion. He shouldn’t have expected so much from the proprieter, however; she was slipping a robe over the messy-haired head of a skinny boy in very Muggle clothing.

“Hullo,” said Draco. It wasn’t the boy’s fault Madam Malkin clearly had no idea when it was appropriate to personally serve customers, and his parents had told him how important his friendships at Hogwarts would be. Not that this Mudblood-looking runt would bring much to his network. “Hogwarts too?”

“Yes,” said the boy.

Well, so much for making conversation.

“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street looking at wands,” said Draco, not bothering to keep his irritation at having to carry the conversation from his voice. “Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first-years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into helping me smuggle mine in somehow.”

The boy said nothing. In fact, he looked a little baffled. Perhaps he was destined to be a goody-two-shoes Ravenclaw and perturbed by the idea of breaking the rules.

“Have you got your own broom?” Draco pressed on, looking for anything he and the boy might have in common.

“No.”

“Play Quidditch at all?”

“No.”

Perhaps the boy was just slow. Vince rarely managed to string more than a few syllables together. Draco decided to carry on as though he was talking to him or Greg.

“I do - Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you’ll be in yet?”

“No,” said the boy. Then, miraculously managing to say more than yes or no, “I don’t know what the Houses are, actually.”

Now Draco understood why father complained about Mudbloods attending Hogwarts. He had never dreamed they would this ignorant. “But you are a wizard, aren’t you?” he asked pointedly.

“Yes,” said the boy. “I just didn’t know I was because my aunt didn’t tell me. My parents were killed by Voldemort.”

Draco’s eyes widened and flicked up to the scar he could see hidden beneath the boy’s messy black hair. “You’re Harry Potter,” he said stupidly.

“Yes,” said Harry Potter.

“I’m Draco Malfoy,” Draco said, puffing out his chest proudly. Potter might be famous, but Draco hadn’t seen him featured in any wizarding magazines. “You said your Aunt never told you… She’s a Muggle, I assume?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said Draco, and he couldn’t help feeling a little smug that he was explaining such a basic concept to Harry Potter, “there are four Houses. I know I’ll be in Slytherin, all my family have been. All the best wizards were in Slytherin. Ravenclaw wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose, they’ve produced several Minsters of Magic, but I don’t think I could deal with being around so many know-it-alls.” Potter’s lips twitched. Draco ignored it and carried on, “Your father was in Gryffindor, I think, and I suppose I wouldn’t go home immediately if I were put there, but if I were put in Hufflepuff I think I’d just leave.”

He probably wouldn't have to leave if he were put in Hufflepuff; father would either march up to the school and demand that the Sorting Ceremony be repeated, or he’d be whisked off to Durmstrang after all. He glanced towards the window, wondering whether father had finished buying his schoolbooks yet. An enormous man was standing there, holding two ice creams in his gigantic hands.

“I say, look at that man!” said Draco.

“That’s Mr Hagrid,” Potter said proudly. “He works at Hogwarts.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “I’ve heard of him. He’s sort of a servant, isn’t he?”

“He’s the gamekeeper,” said Potter.

“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s a bit wild - lives in a hut in the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic and ends up setting fire to his bed.” Draco leaned forward on his stool conspiratorially. “Did you know he was expelled?”

“I think he’s great,” said Potter, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Do you?” asked Draco, wondering whether the curse that scarred the boy’s forehead had left him slightly mad.

“That’s you done, my dear,” said Madam Malkin.

Draco jumped down from his stool and looked up at Potter. The boy was of good wizarding blood, even if it had been sullied by his mother. Perhaps Harry Potter would be a good addition to his network.

“A word of advice, Potter,” he said helpfully. “If you want to make friends at Hogwarts, you should get yourself something decent to wear at the weekends. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb in those Muggle things.”

Draco sauntered over to the counter, where his father had just arrived and was handing over coins to Madam Malkin.

“I guess I’ll see you at school,” Draco called back to Harry.

“See you,” said Harry.

Draco could feel disapproval rolling off his father in waves as he asked, “Who was that boy, Draco?”

“That,” Draco said hesitantly, remembering the rumours he’d heard about his father, “was Harry Potter.”

Father stopped dead. A wizard in a luminous orange robes walked headfirst into him, swore, looked up, paled, and backed away stammering his apologies. Father didn’t seem to notice.

“Father?”

Father’s head snapped around to Draco. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him I was hoping to play on the House Quidditch team, and then I explained the Houses to him, and I suggested he buy some robes other than his uniform.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. And then he said the Dark Lord’s name!”

Draco had never seen his father look so astonished; father’s emotions were usually hidden behind a serene mask. He allowed himself a second to enjoy the sight, then continued, “He mostly let me speak, though. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about half the time!”

“And so he’ll be very grateful for you explaining things,” father said thoughtfully. “Well done, Draco. Very well done. Let’s go and meet Narcissa.”

Draco walked along to Ollivander’s with a little spring in his step. He knew someone else who’d be at Hogwarts - someone whose reports of him probably wouldn’t find their way back to his parents. And father seemed pleased rather than disappointed by the idea that Harry Potter might be part of his Hogwarts friendship group.

Even the fact that none of the six elm or three ash wands his mother had persuaded Mr Ollivander to let him try accepted him couldn’t dampen Draco’s spirits.

“As I said, Madam Malfoy, it will likely take more than a month for Master Malfoy’s wandwork to advance sufficiently to win a new wand’s allegiance. Please don’t be discouraged; for hawthorn to choose your son marks him as a wizard of particular talent - though of course none would doubt—”

“I like my wand,” Draco said loudly, tucking his fingers up his sleeve to finger the handle which protruded from the holster there. The wand seemed to thrum at his words. “You told me your wand didn’t choose you until you left Hogwarts, father. Perhaps I need to prove myself at school, as you did, before I earn another.”

“Your son is wise,” said Mr Ollivander, offering Draco a small bow. “I look forward to seeing what he can do with this wand.”

“So do I,” said father, and Draco’s heart swelled with pride.

Harry Potter

Harry had left Madam Malkin’s feeling rather dejected, and Hagrid’s reassurance that other students from Muggle families learned quickly enough did little to cheer him up. By the time he’d bought several textbooks in Flourish and Blotts, a cauldron and numerous fascinating ingredients in the unpleasant-smelling apothecary, and Hagrid had (despite his protests) bought him a snowy owl in Eeylops Owl Emporium, he felt a lot better. He couldn’t stop stammering his thanks, sounding like Professor Quirrell.

“Don’ mention it,” said Rubeus Hagrid gruffly. “Don’ expect you’ve had a lotta presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer wands, Ollivanders, an’ yeh gotta have the best wand.”

A magic wand… this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.

The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single spindly chair which Rubeus Hagrid sat on to wait. Harry felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions which had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

“Good afternoon,” said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Rubeus Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

“Hello,” said Harry awkwardly.

“Ah yes,” said the man. “Yes, yes, I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Harry Potter.” It wasn’t a question. “You have your mother’s eyes. It was only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work.”

Mr Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.

“Your father, on the other hand, favoured a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favoured it - it’s really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course.”

Mr Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.

“And that’s where…”

Mr Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead with a long, white finger.

“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,” he said softly. “Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands… Well, if I’d known what that wand was going out into the world to do…”

He shook his head and then, to Harry’s relief, spotted Rubeus Hagrid.

“Hagrid! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again…Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn’t it?”

“It was sir, yes,” said Rubeus Hagrid.

“Good wand, that one. I suppose they confiscated it when you got expelled,” said Mr Ollivander, suddenly stern. “Did you ever get it back?”

“Er - actually they snapped it in half,” said Rubeus Hagrid, shuffling his feet. “I’ve still got the pieces, though,” he added brightly.

“But you don’t use them?” said Mr Ollivander sharply.

“Oh, no, sir,” said Rubeus Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.

“Hmm,” said Mr Ollivander, giving Rubeus Hagrid a piercing look. “Well, if you want to buy a replacement, I can—”

“No, thank you,” said Rubeus Hagrid loudly. “I’ve got no need fer a wand, me.”

Mr Ollivander studied him again for several seconds, before turning to Harry. “Well, now - Mr Potter. Formalities first, I suppose. Do you have your letter of acceptance or wand ownership licence?”

“Er,” said Harry. He pulled from his pocket the crumpled letter he’d read three dozen times since Hagrid had delivered it. “You mean this?”

Mr Ollivander took the letter, smoothed it out, and smiled.

“Ah, Hogwarts, I see. Not that I would have expected anything less, of course. Yes, this is all in order. Let me see.” He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. “Which is your wand arm?”

“Er - well, I’m right-handed,” said Harry.

“Hold out your arm. That’s it.” He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, “Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons or phoenixes are the quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand.”

Harry suddenly realised that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr Ollivander was fitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

“That will do,” he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. “Right then, Mr Potter. Whilst I find some candidates, I need you to sign this.”

Mr Ollivander passed Harry a form bearing the logo of a highly stylised ‘M’ encircled with what looked like Latin text. The entire form might as well have been written in Latin for all Harry could understand what it meant. It was written in complicated legal language.

“What’s an ‘authorised confidant’?” Harry asked, looking up from the parchment.

Mr Ollivander, who was standing on the top rung of a rickety-looking ladder, running his fingers over a shelf of dusty boxes, did not seem to hear him.

“No idea,” said Rubeus Hagrid.  He bent down to read the parchment over Harry’s shoulder, and his bushy beard tickled the back of Harry’s neck. “Oh, it means people like yer aunt and cousin. Muggles who’re allowed ter know about us, because they’re living with an underage witch or wizard.”

Harry carried on reading.

“Have you finished with that?” Mr Ollivander asked a minute later.

Harry jumped. He hadn’t heard Mr Ollivander walk back to the front of the shop. He spilled the mountain of dusty wand boxes he was carrying onto the counter.

“Er,” said Harry.

“There are three simple rules,” Mr Ollivander said, slightly impatiently. “One, never perform magic in front of a Muggle. Two, never let a Muggle hold your wand. And three, you can’t use magic away from school until you’re an adult.”

“Right,” said Harry. “Do you have a pen?”

Mr Ollivander looked at him blankly. Rubeus Hagrid pulled a quill and inkpot from one of his many pockets and handed them to Harry, who clumsily scratched his name in the box at the bottom of the form. Mr Ollivander whisked the form away. The parchment rolled itself up tightly, then zipped across the shop and disappeared into a particularly dark corner.

“Try this one,” said Mr Ollivander, handing Harry one of the less dusty boxes. “Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave.”

Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.

“Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try —”

Harry tried - but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr Ollivander.

“No, no - here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out.”

Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr Ollivander was waiting for. He’d exhausted the wands Mr Ollivander had first brought to the counter and the pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair. Far from becoming frustrated,  he more wands Mr Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here somewhere - I wonder, now - yes, why not - unusual combination - holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”

Harry took the pale wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well… how curious… how very curious…”

He put Harry’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, “Curious… curious…”

“Sorry,” said Harry, “but what’s curious?”

Mr Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother - why, its brother gave you that scar.”

Harry swallowed.

“Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter…After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great.”

Harry shivered. He wasn’t sure he liked Mr Ollivander too much.

“As it’s your first wand, Mr Potter, it’s seven Galleons, but for another two you can get a seven-year servicing plan,” said Mr Ollivander.

“Er, do most people get the servicing plan?”

“Most? No, they don’t… but they should. Regular servicing will keep your wand in top condition.”

“Right,” said Harry. He counted out nine golden Galleons and handed them over.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr Potter,” said Mr Ollivander. “I think that wand will serve you well for general wandwork, but do come and see me again if you’d like anything specialist.”

“You all right, Harry? Yeh’re very quiet,” said Rubeus Hagrid as they walked back towards the Leaky Cauldron.

Harry wasn’t sure he could explain. He’d just had the best birthday of his life - and yet - he gazed around, trying to find the words.

“Everyone thinks I’m special,” he said at last. “All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr Ollivander… but I don’t know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I’m famous and I can’t even remember what I’m famous for. I don’t know what happened when Vol - sorry - I mean, the night my parents died.”

Rubeus Hagrid wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulders, which felt like having a sapling dropped onto Harry’s back. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.

“Don’ you worry, Harry. You’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, yeh’ll be just fine. Jus’ be yerself. I know it’s hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, an’ that’s always hard. But yeh’ll have a great time at Hogwarts - I did - still do, s’matter of fact.”

Rubeus Hagrid tapped the wall that led to the Leaky Cauldron. They stepped back into Muggle London and Harry watched with a strange sense of loss as the hole closed behind them.

“Yer ticket for Hogwarts,” said Rubeus Hagrid, handing Harry an envelope. “First o’ September - King’s Cross - it’s all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she’ll know where to find me… See yeh soon, Harry.”

Harry walked through the pub, hurrying to avoid another round of introductions and hand-shaking, and stepped through the door onto Charing Cross Road. A cacophony of traffic noise and fumes hit him at the same time as Dudley’s yelp.

“It’s OK, Duddydums,” said Aunt Petunia, ruffling Dudley’s hair. Dudley looked as terrified as though he had just watched Harry appear out of thin air.

“Are you ready?” Aunt Petunia asked Harry.

He nodded, dumbstruck by the sudden return to the mundane world where he lived with the Dursleys.

The train ride back to Privet Drive took forever. A signal failure meant that most of the afternoon’s trains had been cancelled and Harry and the Dursleys’ seat reservations meant nothing as they squeezed into an overcrowded carriage. Harry’s owl drew several strange looks but thankfully the rest of his shopping, in an assortment of paper bags, looked indistinguishable from Dudley and Aunt Petunia’s.

Dudley stood as far away as he possibly could from Harry, pressing himself backwards into a tall man with a suit until the man moved aside. Dudley almost fell over, and for the rest of the journey he cowered behind the man’s briefcase, staring at Harry in the way you might stare at a venomous snake that had appeared in your bed.

Aunt Petunia bought pizzas on the way home from the station, and Dudley barely ate two slices of his before he excused himself to go to bed. Harry had never seen his cousin leave food. Uncle Vernon glared at Aunt Petunia, crammed his last slice of pizza into his mouth, and headed upstairs after Dudley.

“I have explained everything to Dudley,” said Aunt Petunia.

“Oh,” said Harry. That explained why Dudley had been behaving so oddly.

“I also told him that you are not permitted to do… magic… under this roof.”

Harry tried to recall whether he had heard Aunt Petunia say that word before. He didn’t think so.

“I don’t even know how to do any magic yet,” he said. At Aunt Petunia’s sharp look, he quickly carried on, “And I know I agreed not to. Or talk about it. I won’t forget.”

Aunt Petunia nodded, and packed the leftover pizza into the fridge.

Harry unpacked his bags slowly. He put the cage containing his snowy owl on top of his rickety chest of drawers, and offered her a few of the ‘owl pellets’ he’d bought in Eeylops. He ran his hand over his robes before folding them into a drawer. He wondered vaguely whether the fabric had crease-resistant properties, or whether he could convince his aunt and uncle to get him a wardrobe. He put his pointed hat on his head, and looked at his reflection in the small, cracked mirror on the wall. He laughed and laughed, and he only stopped laughing when he heard Dudley moving in his bedroom next door.

The pile of books went next to the owl on top of his drawers, but Harry took The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk and opened the first page. He carried on reading late into the night.

Chapter Text

1 September 1991
Kings Cross Station, London

Ron Weasley

Ron Weasley had been to Platform Nine and Three Quarters before, but today was the first day he’d be allowed to get on the train waiting there. He watched Percy run through the wall dividing platforms nine and ten of Kings Cross Station with a sense of growing excitement and more than a little impatience. He’d bet a Galleon (if he had one) that mum would let her favourite go first next year, but of course this year, like every other, she insisted that the children enter the platform in age order.

“Now, Fred, you go next whilst the Muggles aren’t looking,” mum ushered loudly.

“I’m not Fred, I’m George,” said Fred. “Honestly woman, call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m George?”

“Sorry, George, dear,” mum said at a normal volume.

“Only joking, I am Fred,” said Fred, and off he went.

Ron looked around as George followed, checking that the coast was clear for him to make his own run.

A skinny boy with messy black hair was staring at him. The boy looked so convincingly Muggle that for a moment, Ron was afraid he’d managed to break the Statute of Secrecy on the most important day of his life. Then he spotted that the boy was carrying a cage containing a large snowy owl. He hauled the trunk he was dragging in the other hand towards the Weasleys.

“Excuse me,” said the dark-haired boy.

“Hullo, dear,” mum said in a friendly voice. “First time at Hogwarts? Ron’s new too.”

She pointed at Ron. He gave the stranger an awkward wave.

“Yes,” said the boy. “The thing is - the thing is, I don’t know how to —”

“How to get onto the platform?” mum asked kindly. The boy nodded.

Ron looked at the boy with renewed interest, suddenly realising why mum had been saying things like Muggle so loudly - they made the trek to Kings Cross each year rather than simply going to Exeter so that mum could could make sure any lost Muggle-borns found their way onto the platform. New Muggle-borns always got the Hogwarts Express from London the first time, which meant this boy must be a first-year as well as Muggle-born. And that meant he wouldn’t care that Ron was basically a nobody, in Hogwarts terms. He might even be a scholarship student; his clothes looked like hand-me-downs, like Ron’s own.

“All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten,” mum was telling the boy. “Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. Go on, go now before Ron. Just check that nobody is watching too closely, and run straight at the wall.”

The boy looked around, then started to walk towards the wall. He looked very nervous, and Ron thought he was about to stop, when instead he broke into a run, and a moment later he had disappeared through the brickwork.

Ron checked for any watching eyes again, then went to follow at last. Mum stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“What?”

“I doubt that boy knows anyone else going to Hogwarts,” said mum. “He could probably do with a friend - why don’t you invite him to share your compartment on the train?”

“Yeah, I will,” said Ron. He’d been planning to anyway. The twins wouldn’t want him around cramping their style, and Percy had already told him at least three times that the Prefects had their own carriage.

After another, final check, he ran towards the barrier and onto the platform.

It was very crowded. Ron looked around for the boy. He was already most of the way down the platform, trying to haul his trunk onto one of the last carriages. Ron started through the crowd towards him, picking up the pace when Fred and George began to help with the boy’s trunk. If the boy hadn’t seen much magic before, there was no knowing what might happen if Fred and George tried one of their pranks on him.

“Ron, where’s he gone?”

Mum and Ginny were right behind him. Ron stopped, set down his trunk, and gestured towards the compartment his brothers had disappeared into.

“Fred and George helped him onto the train.”

“Oh, good,” said mum. “You can go see if he wants some company in a minute. But first—” she pulled him into a smothering embrace. “Have fun, Ron. Listen to Percy, don’t listen to the twins, and write to let us know how the Sorting goes.”

“I will,” Ron promised.

“Good, good,” said mum. She glanced at the train. “I do hope Fred and George aren’t making trouble for that poor boy.”

Mum hurried towards the compartment Ron had indicated. Ron bent down to give Ginny a hug, remembering how it had felt to watch his brothers go off to school in previous years, whilst they were left behind.

“I wish I could go,” Ginny said miserably. “It’s going to be so boring at home.”

“You won’t have to wait too long,” Ron lied. The last year had felt like the longest of his life. “And you’ll be fed up of us before the Christmas holidays are over.”

Ginny gave him a tearful smile, and hurriedly wiped her eyes as mum and the twins appeared. Mum pulled out her handkerchief, but rather than offering it to Ginny—

“Ron, you’ve got something on your nose.”

Ron tried to jerk out of the way, but mum grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose with the handkerchief.

“Mum - geroff!” he protested, wriggling free.

“Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?” asked Fred, jumping down from the train.

“Shut up,” said Ron.

“Where’s Percy?” asked mum.

“He’s coming now.”

Percy was striding down the platform. He’d already changed into his school uniform, and, of course, placed his freshly-polished Prefect badge prominently on his chest.

“Can’t stay long, mother,” said Percy. “I’m up front, the Prefects have got two compartments to themselves—”

“Oh, are you a Prefect, Percy?” interrupted Fred. “You should have said something, we had no idea.”

“Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,” said George.

“Once—”

“Or twice—”

“A minute—”

“All summer—”

“Oh shut up,” said Percy.

“How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?” asked George.

“Because he’s a Prefect,” mum said fondly. Ron met Ginny’s eyes and had to stifle a laugh. “All right, dear, well, have a good term - send me an owl when you get there.”

As soon as Percy had extracted himself from a hug and a kiss, mum turned to the twins.

“Now, you two - this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling you’ve - you’ve blown up a toilet or—”

“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.”

“Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”

“It’s not funny. And look after Ron.”

Ron scowled. He didn’t need looking after, and even if he did, Fred and George were only two years older than him and the worst people he could think of for the job.

“Don’t worry, ickle Ronnickins is safe with us,” said George.

“Shut up”, Ron said again.

“Hey, Mum, guess who we just met on the train?” asked Fred.

“You know that black-haired kid who was near us in the station?” asked George. “Know who he is?”

“Who?” asked mum.

“Harry Potter!”

Ron snorted, but Ginny said excitedly, “Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please…”

“You’ve already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?”

“Asked him. Saw his scar. It’s really there - like lightning.”

“Poor dear - no wonder he was alone,” said mum, obviously buying the story. “I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform.”

“Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?”

Mum gave Fred one of her sternest looks.

“I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don’t you dare. As though he needs reminding of that on his first day at school.”

“All right, keep your hair on.”

The train whistle sounded, and Ron hurriedly picked up his trunk and headed to the carriage the twins had left. If the boy really was Harry Potter, no doubt everyone would want to sit in his compartment, and there was no way he’d want Ron there. But if he wasn’t, maybe he and Ron would be as good friends after spending the train ride together as Lee and the twins were.

“Don’t, Ginny, we’ll send you loads of owls,” Fred said through the window.

“We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.”

“George!”

“Only joking, Mum.”

The train began to move. Ron squeezed between the twins to wave out of the window. Mum waved back and Ginny ran, half laughing, half crying, alongside the train until it gathered too much speed.

As the train rounded a corner and mum and Ginny disappeared, Ron’s excitement was replaced by sudden nervousness. Before the twins could notice, he hurried along the corridor, looking for the compartment with the dark-haired boy in.

The boy was alone at the end of the carriage. Ron slid the door open.

“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite the boy. “Everywhere else is full.”

The boy shook his head, so Ron sat down. He glanced at the boy, trying to see if there really was a scar underneath his mess of black hair. The boy looked up, and Ron hurriedly looked out of the window.

“Hey, Ron.”

Fred was leaning through the compartment door.

“Listen, we’re going down to the middle of the train - Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” said Ron, making a mental note to avoid the middle of the train at all costs.

“Oh,” said George, “did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then.”

“Bye,” said Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

“Are you really Harry Potter?” Ron blurted out, before he could stop himself.

Potter nodded. Ron realised he probably looked like a complete idiot.

“Oh - well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George’s jokes,” said Ron. “And have you really got - you know…”

He pointed at Potter’s forehead.

Potter pulled back his fringe, revealing a thin, red scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. Ron knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it.

“So that’s where You-Know-Who - ?”

“Yes,” said Potter, “but I can’t remember it.”

“Nothing?” asked Ron, unable to help himself.

“Well - I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”

“Wow,” said Ron. He sat and stared at Potter for a few moments, then, realising what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.

“Are all your family wizards?” asked Potter.

It took Ron a moment to think, he was so surprised that Harry Potter had any interest in his family. “Er - yes, I think so,” he said. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him. But you live with Muggles, what are they like?”

Potter shrugged. “Horrible  - well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. I wish I’d had three wizard brothers.”

“Five,” Ron said glumly. “I’m the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I’ve got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left - Bill was Head Boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy’s a Prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they’re really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new either, with five brothers. I’ve got Bill’s old robes, Charlie’s old wand and Percy’s old rat.”

He searched inside his jacket and pulled out Scabbers, who was predictably fast asleep.

“His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl for being made a Prefect, but my parents couldn’t aff- I mean, I got Scabbers instead.”

Ron went back to staring out of the window. If he’d had any chance of Harry Potter wanting to be his friend, he must have blown it now. Perhaps oversized clothes were fashionable in the Muggle world, because there was no way the sole heir to the Potter fortune could be wearing hand-me-downs.

“I never had any money in my life, until a few weeks ago,” said Potter. “And my aunt and uncle never buy anything new for me - I get all my cousin’s old clothes and toys. The ones he hasn’t ruined, anyway.”

Ron turned around to stare at him.

“And I never got a proper birthday present until Hagrid bought me Hedwig.” Potter nodded up at the snowy owl in her cage. “And until Hagrid told me, I didn’t know anything about being a wizard or about my parents or Voldemort—”

Ron gasped.

“What?” said Potter.

“You said You-Know-Who’s name,” Ron said incredulously. Even Fred and George had never dared to say it. “I’d have thought you, of all people—”

“I’m not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name,” said Potter. “I just never knew you shouldn’t. See what I mean? I’ve got loads to learn… I bet…” In a lower voice, he continued, “I bet I’m the worst in the class.”

“You won’t be,” Ron assured Potter, as Percy had assured him when he’d been worried he would be the worst in the class. Mum had barely left him alone long enough to try out any spells since he’d got his wand. “There’s loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough.”

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, “Anything off the trolley, dears?”

Ron muttered something about his sandwiches, as Potter leapt enthusiastically out of his seat and into the corridor. It was at least a couple of minutes before Potter returned, his arms overflowing with sweets, which he tipped into an empty seat.

“Hungry, are you?” Ron asked, hoping he didn’t sound as jealous as he felt.

“Starving,” said Potter, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.

Ron unwrapped his sandwiches, and groaned. “She always forgets I don’t like corned beef.”

“Swap you for one of these,” said Potter, holding up a pasty. “Go on —”

“You don’t want this, it’s all dry,” Ron protested. “She hasn’t got much time,” he added quickly, “you know, with five of us still at home.”

“Go on, have a pasty,” said Potter.

Ron didn’t need any more persuading. He picked up a pasty, and for several minutes the two of them ate their way through an impressive portion of the pile.

“What are these?” asked Potter, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. “They’re not really frogs, are they?” He sounded nervous.

“No,” said Ron. “But see what the card is, I’m missing Agrippa.”

“What?”

“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know - Chocolate Frogs come with card, you know, to collect - Famous Witches and Wizards. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”

He watched eagerly as Potter unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card.

“So this is Dumbledore!” said Potter.

“Don’t tell me you’d never heard of Dumbledore!” said Ron. He turned to the pile of unopened Chocolate Frogs. “Can I have one? I might get Agrippa - thanks -”

Ron unwrapped the frog, sighed when he saw yet another Agrippa, and ate the frog whilst Potter read the back of Dumbledore’s card. When Potter turned the card back over, he looked shocked.

“He’s gone!”

“Well, you can’t expect him to hang around all day,” Ron said reasonably. “He’ll be back. No, I’ve got Morgana again and I’ve got about six of her… do you want it? You can start collecting.”

His eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped. He’d never been allowed two frogs in the same day before.

“Help yourself,” said Potter. “But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos.”

“Do they? What, they don’t move at all?” Ron asked, wondering why anyone would want a photo that didn’t do anything. “Weird!”

Ron was more than happy to help Potter build up his collection of cards by eating the frogs that accompanied them. He’d eaten so much chocolate by the time they moved on to the next sweets that he didn’t mind that he hadn’t found a single new card for his own collection.

“You want to be careful with those,” Ron warned Potter, when he reached for a bag of Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans. “When they say every flavour, they mean every flavour - you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a bogey-flavoured one once.”

Ron picked up a green bean, inspected it carefully, then bit into a corner.

“Bleaargh - see? Sprouts.”

Ron enjoyed watching Potter’s reactions to the different flavours. He even nibbled the end off a funny grey one Ron wouldn’t have touched with a barge pole, which was apparently just pepper.

The countryside now flying past the windows was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and a round-faced boy came in. He looked tearful, and vaguely familiar.

“Sorry,” said the boy, “but have you seen a toad at all?”

When they shook their heads, he wailed, “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting away from me!”

“He’ll turn up,” said Potter.

“Yes,” said the boy miserably, “well, if you see him…”

He left.

“Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” said Ron. “If I’d brought a toad I’d lose it as quick as I could. Mind you,” he added, when Harry glanced obviously at the grey rat beside him, “I brought Scabbers, so I can’t talk. He might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference. I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn’t work. I’ll show you, look…”

He rummaged about in his trunk and pulled out his wand.

“Unicorn hair’s nearly poking out,” he commented, before Potter could. “Anyway —”

He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her Hogwarts robes.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville Longbottom’s lost one,” she said.

Well, that explained why Ron had recognised the boy. He’d probably been at cousin Owen’s wedding last year. He didn’t recognise the girl. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth.

“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” said Ron, but the girl wasn’t listening. She was looking at the wand in his hand.

“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.” She sat pushed some empty Chocolate Frog wrappers off a seat and sat down.

Ron hadn’t bargained on having more of an audience, but he didn’t want to look like a coward in front of Potter. “Er - all right,” he said. He cleared his throat.

“Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow”

He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed grey and fast asleep.

“Are you sure that’s a real spell?” said the girl. “All of the ones I’ve memorised so far are based on Latin. I tried a couple once we got on the train, and they both worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, Hogwarts is the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard - I’ve learnt all our set books off by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I’m Hermione Granger by the way, who are you?”

She said all of this very fast, and it took Ron a moment to process the fact that she’d asked him a question.

“I’m Ron Weasley,” he muttered.

“Harry Potter,” said Potter.

“Are you really?” said Hermione Granger. “I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books for background reading and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of The Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”

“Am I?” said Potter. He looked rather dazed.

“Goodness, didn’t you know? I’d have found out everything I could if it was me,” said Granger. “Do either of you know what House you’ll be in?” Without giving either of them a chance to reply, she carried on, “I’ve been asking around and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best, I hear Dumbledore himself was one, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad… Anyway, I’d better go and look for Longbottom’s toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we’ll be there soon.”

And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.

“Whatever House I’m in, I hope she’s not in it,” said Ron. Potter nodded in agreement. “Stupid spell - George gave it to me, bet he just made it up.”

“What House are your brothers in?” asked Potter.

“Gryffindor,” said Ron. “Mum and dad were Gryffindors, too. I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not,” he admitted. “I don’t suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in —”

The compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn’t the toadless Longbottom boy or Hermione Granger this time.

Three boys entered and Ron recognised the middle one at once, even though he’d never met him before. He studied their robes and grimaced when he found no House markings; apparently, Draco Malfoy and his friends were also first-years.

“There you are,” said the boy familiarly. “I wondered if I’d bump into you on the train, and then people started saying Harry Potter was in this compartment.”

“Hello,” Potter said, “Draco, wasn’t it?”

The boy looked slightly taken aback, then he smirked, and held out a hand. “Yes, Draco Malfoy.”

Ron stared incredulously as Harry shook the offered hand. How in the world was Harry Potter friends with Draco Malfoy?

“Oh, this is Vince - Vincent Crabbe - and this is Greg - Gregory Goyle,” said Malfoy carelessly, as Potter looked over his shoulder. The boys flanking him were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of him, they looked like bodyguards. “Who’s the Weasley?”

Malfoy smirked again as Ron bristled and Potter raised a questioning eyebrow. “There aren’t many of the old British wicchen families left, so we tend to recognise each other. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair and freckles, and more children than they can afford.”

“My father told me the Malfoys have tongues more silver than their eyes,” Ron retorted, “and don’t believe there’s any problem you can’t solve by throwing money at it.”

Potter gave him a reproachful look. Ron took a deep breath, and then held out his own hand. “I’m Ron. Weasley, as you said.”

Malfoy crushed Ron’s hand. Neither of the other boys offered a hand or even a smile to either Harry or Ron.

“Would you like a Chocolate Frog?” Potter offered.

Crabbe or Goyle, Ron didn’t care which was which, grabbed three of them. The other boy eyed up the rest of the pile of sweets.

“What did your father say about the Potters?” asked Potter.

Malfoy frowned slightly, no doubt carefully choosing what to say. “Nothing that I can remember. There aren’t exactly many of them.”

“Plenty in the Muggle world,” said Harry. “Are you sure you don’t want a Chocolate Frog?”

Ron looked pointedly at the empty space where the Chocolate Frogs had been. “Or anything else,” Potter continued. “I’ve never tried any wizard sweets, so I went a bit overboard.”

Malfoy smirked, and helped himself to a Liquorice Wand. “Yes, it must be very strange, being new to our world… You know, if you want any help… adjusting… I’d be more than happy to help you out, explain how things work.”

Ron rolled his eyes, but nobody was looking at him. Crabbe and Goyle were still eyeing up the remaining sweets, and Malfoy was eagerly waiting for Potter’s reply.

“Thank you,” said Potter. “And thanks for your help in Madam Malkin’s.”

“Thanks for the wand,” said Malfoy. “I suppose we should get back to our compartment. And speaking of Madam Malkin’s, you should probably get into your robes.”

The two bodyguards took another handful of sweets each before they left, spilling some onto the floor. Ron glared after them. He was trying to decide whether to warn Potter against being friends with people like Malfoy, or if he’d just look jealous, when Potter spoke.

“What do your brothers do, now they’ve left school?”

“Charlie’s in Romania, studying dragons,” said Ron, reaching up to tug his robes from his trunk. “And Bill’s in Africa with Gringotts. Did you hear about Gringotts?” he added, suddenly remembering the article. “It’s been all over the Daily Prophet but I don’t suppose you get that with the Muggles - someone tried to rob a high security vault in London.”

Potter stared. “Really? What happened to them?”

“Nothing, that’s why it’s such big news. They haven’t been caught. My dad says it must’ve been a powerful Dark wizard to get around Gringotts, but they don’t think they took anything, that’s what’s odd. ‘Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who’s behind it.”

Potter got changed in silence, looking thoughtful. Ron decided to try broaching the Malfoy subject.

“What did Malfoy help you with in Madam Malkin’s?”

“Oh, he said I should get some robes to wear at weekends,” Potter explained. “I’m glad he did - my cousin’s a lot bigger than I am. I bet everyone would have made fun of me if Draco hadn’t said anything.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wearing hand-me-downs,” said Ron, even though Potter obviously already knew that. “And if you’ve only met him once before, he’s Malfoy, not Draco. You don’t use people’s first names unless you know them well.”

“Oh, right,” said Potter. “See, this is why I need people like him to help me. There’s so much I don’t know.”

“You don’t need him,” said Ron. “I told you, you’ll learn quick enough. And you can call me Ron, because I’m your friend.”

“Thanks,” said Potter, looking delighted. “And you can call me Harry.”

Ron would’ve been happier if Harry had said so before he’d called Malfoy by his first name, but he didn’t want to ruin things by looking even more jealous than he had already. He decided to change the subject.

“What’s your Quidditch team?”

“Er — I don’t know any,” said Harry.

“What!” Ron asked incredulously. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have never even seen a Quidditch match before. “Oh, you wait, it’s the best game in the world… Fred and George are hoping to make the Gryffindor team this year.”

He began to explain all about the four balls, the six hoops and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he’d been to with his brothers and the broomstick he’d like to get if he had the money. He was just taking Harry through the finer points of the game when Hermione Granger came back.

“What’s been going on?” she asked, looking at the sweets all over the floor.

“Nothing,” said Ron. He and Harry started tidying up, stuffing the unopened sweets into Harry’s rucksack and piling the empty wrappers neatly on a single seat.

“Well, the driver says we’re nearly there,” said Granger. “I just thought I’d see if Longbottom’s toad has turned up?”

“No,” said Harry and Ron together.

She left, and Ron flashed an exasperated look at Harry, but Harry was peering out of the window. It was getting dark. Ron could see mountains and forests under a deep-purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.

A voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogsmeade in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Ron couldn’t help feeling pleased to see that Harry looked even more nervous than he felt. Percy might have given him some tips but even he had been rather circumspect about what happened next. They joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way towards the door and out onto a tiny, dark platform. Ron shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students and Ron heard a booming voice: “Firs’-years! Firs’-years over here! All right there, Harry?”

A large, hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. Ron had thought Fred and George had been exaggerating how big the Hogwarts gamekeeper was, but Hagrid stood head and shoulders above even the oldest students.

“C’mon, follow me - any more firs’-years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’-years follow me!”

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was very dark. Longbottom, the boy who’d lost his toad, sniffed once or twice.

Behind him, Ron heard someone whisper “Lumos!”

He turned around, and saw a pair of teenagers at the rear of the group. The second lit her wand and raised it above her head to light the way for the younger students in front.

“Yeh’ll get yer first sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder. “Jus’ around this bend here.”

There was a loud, “Ooooh!”

The narrow path had opened suddenly on to the edge of the Black Lake, which, like Hagrid, was even bigger than Ron had imagined. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Longbottom and Granger. Nobody was brave enough to join the boat with the two older students.

“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself, “Right then — FORWARD!”

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy which hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbour, where they clambered out on to rocks and pebbles.

“Oi, you there! Is this your toad?” said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

“Trevor!” cried Longbottom blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid’s lamp, coming out at last on to smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a steep and exceedingly long flight of steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

“Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

Chapter Text

Hogwarts School, Hogsmeade

Draco Malfoy

The doors swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. There was no mistaking Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House and one the teachers Draco’s father had warned him not to mess with.

“The firs’-years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide. The Entrance Hall was vast, even by Malfoy standards. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the ragged stone floor. Draco could hear the sound of the rest of the school drifting through a doorway to the right, but Professor McGonagall showed the first-years into a small empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses.”

Draco was only half-listening, as he scanned the rest of the students for familiar faces. Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass and Teddy Nott were there, of course, all scanning the room as he was. Terry Boot gave him a small nod as their eyes met. Ernest MacMillan, on the other hand, scowled and wrenched his gaze back to Professor McGonagall. Well, no surprises there.

Professor McGonagall came to the end of her speech and told them all to smarten themselves up. Draco watched the flurry of movement that followed these words with a bemused smile.

“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall. “Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber, and Draco smiled to himself as panicked whispers blew through the room. At least half the students had no idea what the Sorting Ceremony entailed, apparently.

He was glad that several other people screamed when the ghosts made their entrance, hiding his jump of surprise. The ghosts seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying, “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance —”

“My dear Friar, haven’t we already given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost - I saw, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first-years.

Nobody answered.

“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be sorted, I suppose?”

A few people nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” said the Friar. “My old house, you know.”

Draco stifled a snort of derision. It was almost two centuries since a Malfoy had been Sorted into Hufflepuff, so at least he wouldn’t be seeing much more of the ridiculous-looking little man.

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” Professor McGonagall told the first-years, “and follow me.”

Draco strode confidently out of the chamber, leading the group back across the hall and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall. He snatched a glance up at the famous star-studded ceiling as they walked to the front of the Hall. Professor McGonagall brought them to a halt in front of the teachers’ table, and they stood in a line facing the rest of the students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver.

Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first-years. On top of the stool she put the Sorting Hat. It didn’t look particularly impressive; it was frayed and dirty. But Draco knew better than to judge a magical object based on its appearance. He was one of the few first-years who didn’t gasp when the hat’s ripped brim opened wide, and it began to sing:

"Oh you may not think I'm pretty
but don't judge on what you see.
I'll eat myself if you can find
a smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black
your top hats sleek and tall,
for I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
and I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head
the Sorting Hat can't see,
so try me on and I will tell you
where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor
where dwell the brave at heart.
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
set Gryffindors apart

You might belong in Hufflepuff
where they are just and loyal.
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
and unafraid of toil

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw
if you've a ready mind,
where those of wit and learning
will always find their kind

Or perhaps in Slytherin
you'll make your real friends.
Those cunning folks use any means
to achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
for I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The whole Hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four pairs of tables and then became quite still again.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said. “Abbot, Hannah!”

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment’s pause —

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.

The tables on the right cheered and clapped as Abbot went to sit down at one of the Hufflepuff tables. The Fat Friar waved cheerily at her.

“Bleakley, Naenia!”

“GRYFFINDOR!” shouted the hat, and the tables on the far left exploded with cheers.

“Bones, Susan!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again, and Bones scuttled off to sit next to Abbot. She looked like a Hufflepuff, only too pleased to get out of the spotlight.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

The tables second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Boot as he joined them.

Mandy Brocklehurst went to Ravenclaw too, then Lavender Brown to Gryffindor. Then Millicent Bulstrode became the first Slytherin and walked to one of the furthest tables on the right with a look of what appeared to be relief. Draco was beginning to feel a little nervous himself. What if the Hat didn’t listen to him? He barely noticed the students who went to tables other than the one he expected to join, wishing the Hat would hurry up. When it took over a minute to decide where to send Seamus Finnigan, he began to tap his foot in irritation.

When Neville Longbottom was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide again with Longbottom, and Draco was astonished when it finally shouted “GRYFFINDOR”. Longbottom ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to Morag MacDougal.

Draco tried to convey confidence when he walked up to the stool, thinking as hard as he could, “Slytherin, put me in Slytherin.”

Mother’s advice worked; the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, “SLYTHERIN!”

Draco went to join Vince and Greg at one of the Slytherin tables, nodding his thanks to the loud welcome he received.

They were about halfway through now The new fifth-years he’d spotted crossing the Lake both went to Ravenclaw. Nott and Parkinson were sent to Draco’s table, then a pair of twin girls - wealthy Patils - went to different Houses, then Sally-Anne Perks, Maia Pickering and then—

“Potter, Harry!”

Whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

“Potter, did she say?”

“The Harry Potter?”

Students all around the Great Hall craned their heads to get a good look at Potter. Draco leaned forward intently, hoping the boy would become his Housemate. Father had confirmed that Potter’s father had been in Gryffindor, but the Potters didn’t particularly favour one House over another. Surely the Boy Who Lived was destined for Slytherin?

Harry Potter

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the Hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult, very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting… So where shall I put you?”

Despite that horrible little voice in the back of his head telling him the Hat had got him confused with someone else when it mentioned a good mind and talent, Harry desperately wanted it to be true. A thirst to prove himself… He had never really had a dream before, even though little boys were supposed to want to grow up to be astronauts or famous footballers. He had just wanted to get a job that paid him enough to move out of the Dursleys’ house. But since his world had been turned on its head by that first meeting with Rubeus Hagrid, he’d begun to have… well, a dream was probably overstating it… but he wondered what it would be like, to really be the hero everyone had thought he was when they shook his hand in the Leaky Cauldron.

“Hmm, yes,” said the Sorting Hat, in response to his thoughts, “Slytherin would help you on the way to greatness.”

Greatness. The word sent a thrill through him. Harry had spent his entire life being laughed at, ignored or beaten. But now he had money - lots of money - buried under London, he knew the strange things he could make happen were magic and was surrounded by people who could do it too, and, for the first time in his life, he had a friend.

Harry remembered what Ron had said on the train, that he didn’t know his parents would react if he wasn’t in Gryffindor. If Ron had really meant it that they were friends, then it wouldn’t matter if they went to different Houses, would it?

“You could do well in Gryffindor,” the Hat said, as though it had been listening to his thoughts.

Harry waited for it to say more, but it seemed to be waiting for him. He vaguely wondered whether this way why some of the students had taken so much longer to place than others. If he didn’t come to a decision, would the Hat choose for him, or would Professor McGonagall take it off his head and send him home, saying there had been some kind of mistake?

He tried to remember the Hat’s song. Gryffindor was for the brave, but Harry felt anything but courageous right then. Perhaps, he thought, he was brave enough to try, if it meant being with his new friend. But what if he convinced the Hat to put him in Gryffindor and then Ron ended up somewhere else?

Slytherin was where he’d make his real friends… Well, Draco was in Slytherin, and if he and Harry weren’t exactly friends yet, they seemed well on the way to it. And Slytherin could help him on the way to greatness. The great things Mr Ollivander expected of him, perhaps? The great things everyone expected.

“Yes, yes,” said the Sorting Hat, sounding as though it had reached a decision. “Well, that settles it. SLYTHERIN!”

Harry heard the Hat shout the last word to the whole Hall. He took off the Hat and walked shakily towards the Slytherin tables. He was so relieved not to have been sent back to London , he hardly noticed he was getting the loudest cheer yet, or the whispers that radiated from the other House tables. Draco Malfoy got up and shook his hand vigorously, while a tall, slim boy Harry didn’t recognise yelled, “We got Potter! We got Potter!” Harry sat down opposite a ghost he hadn’t seen earlier, whose body was draped in translucent chains and ancient robes were covered in stains of some kind. The ghost patted his arm, giving Harry the sudden, horrible feeling he’d just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Rubeus Hagrid, who caught his eye and, after a couple of seconds, gave him the thumbs-up. Harry grinned back. And there, in the centre of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Harry recognised him at once from the card he’d got out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore’s silver hair was the only thing in the whole Hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

There were still at least a dozen people left to be sorted. Sophie Roper and Esther Runcorn sat opposite Harry at one of the Slytherin tables, Lisa Turpin became a Ravenclaw and three more students went to Hufflepuff. Perhaps it was his imagination, after all he’d heard about Hufflepuff, but Harry thought they looked a rather dim-witted lot. Finally, it was Ron’s turn. He was pale green by now. Harry crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”

Despite feeling disappointed for himself, Harry clapped loudly as Ron collapsed into a chair near Granger. He watched Ron’s brothers continue congratulating him quietly as Blaise Zabini was made a Slytherin and came to take the seat next to Harry. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realised how hungry he was. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had got to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!”

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“If he - a bit mad?” Harry asked Draco uncertainly.

“Mad?” said Draco. “Of course he’s mad. But he’s probably also the greatest wizard alive today, and to think, he wasn’t even a Slytherin! Potatoes, Harry?”

Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup and, for some strange reason, mint humbugs.

Harry had never really gone hungry at the Dursleys, but he’d never been able to eat as much as he liked. Besides, Dudley had usually taken anything that Harry really wanted, even if it made him sick. Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the humbugs.

“Have you never seen Summoned food before?” asked a skinny boy with dark blond hair. Harry wasn’t sure if it was just the candlelight, or the boy was sneering at him.

“No,” said Harry. “I haven’t seen much magic at all.” Yes, that was definitely a sneer.

“Harry was raised by his aunt,” Draco said quickly. “But I’m making sure he knows which end of his wand is which.”

“Oh, that’s awfully kind of you, Malfoy,” said black-haired Esther Runcorn. “Goodness, I can’t imagine living with Muggles.”

“They’re absolutely awful,” said Harry. “My uncle is—”

“I’m pleased we’re in the same House, Draco,” the skinny boy said loudly, talking over Harry.

Harry began to eat, only half-listening to the conversation going on around him. He was used to being ignored, and he didn’t know when he’d next have an opportunity to eat food like this.

 “Of course,” the boy continued, “there wasn’t really much question of a Malfoy and a Nott ending up anywhere else, but it’s good to—”

“I didn’t realise Thaddeus had a son,” a dark-haired girl interrupted.

“He’s not Thaddeus’s, Tessie,” said Draco. “He’s the Nott heir.”

“But I thought Thaddeus was the heir,” said Runcorn.

“That’s because Aunt Gloria didn’t tell anyone about Teddy until a couple of years ago,” said the boy Harry was eighty percent sure was Greg. “Not after—”

“How is Uncle Richard?” the skinny boy asked very loudly. “Mother said she hoped she’d have time to visit him, now that she doesn’t have me underfoot.”

“Do you know everyone already?” Harry whispered to Draco.

“Everyone worth knowing,” Draco replied with a smirk. He nodded at the skinny blond. “That, as you’ve probably realised, is Teddy Nott. The other big names are Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass.”

He pointed out two girls sitting slightly further up the table. Pansy had a snub nose and dark brown hair. Daphne’s hair was lighter and hung in loose curls. The two girls talking to them seemed to be hanging off their every word.

“They’re your second cousins once removed,” said Draco.

Harry’s mouth dropped open. He wasn’t sure what second cousins once removed actually meant, but he’d never imagined he might have two of them right here in his House.

“Am I related to anyone else?” he asked Draco hungrily.

“Well,” said Draco, with a slight smirk, “you’re my second cousin once removed, too. Your paternal grandmother was my great grandmother’s sister. Which means you’re true second cousins with the Selwyns. That’s James Selwyn - with the curly hair.” Draco pointed at a group of older students at the far end of their table. “And Greg must be your… fourth cousin, I think.”

Greg looked as astonished to hear this as Harry was.

“He is?” asked Greg.

“I am?” asked Harry, feeling rather dazed.

Draco smirked again. “Well, you’re from an ancient wicchen family. Of course you’re related to most of us.”

Harry stared at him. “But… how do you know how I’m related?”

“Because I could name the last five generations of every Wizengamot family by the time I was eight,” Draco said proudly.

“I could do it by the time I was seven,” said Teddy Nott. “But then, I am an heir apparent rather than successive.”

Harry was finding all this talk of heirs very confusing. He was just about to ask what Nott meant, when someone else asked for him.

“What’re you heir to?” asked Sophie Roper, her dark brows furrowing over small eyes.

The sniggers that followed made Harry very glad he hadn’t been the one to ask. He decided to keep any other questions to himself to ask Draco in private.

“My family’s estate and seat in the Wizengamot, of course,” said Nott. “Who’s your family, anyway? I’ve never heard of the Ropers.”

Roper’s cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink. “My dad’s Muggle-born,” she said quietly, “but I’m descended from the Aragons on my mum’s side.”

“Really?” said Nott dismissively. “Well, at least the Sorting Hat hasn’t lowered its standards completely.”

Roper was now too busy eating her dinner to say anything further.

“That looks delicious,” said the ghost with the chains miserably, watching Roper eat.

“Can’t you —?”

“I haven’t eaten for nearly a thousand years,” said the ghost. “I don’t need to, of course, but seeing such delicious food reminds me of what I’ve lost. Well, the least part of it.” He looked across the Hall with a blank stare. Harry waited for him to say something else, but he kept staring.

“That’s the Baron,” whispered Draco, glancing nervously at the ghost, who didn’t seem to hear him. “Nobody can remember his name, so he just goes by ‘the Baron’, or -” he lowered his voice further “- the Bloody Baron, if he’s not around.”

Harry glanced at the stains on the Baron’s robes and shivered. He didn’t need to ask where the moniker came from.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later, the puddings appeared. Blocks of ice-cream in every flavour you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, rice pudding…

As Harry helped himself to treacle tart, talk turned to the House Cup. “We’ve won the last six years running,” explained a girl with her hair in cornrows, who was old enough to look rather out of place sitting between the new students and those who looked only a year or two older. She was speaking quite loudly, so Harry was able to hear her although she was several seats away. “It’s important that we get off to the right start, so mind you all follow the rules.”

Harry noticed a small badge pinned to the front her robes with a P on it. Unlike Percy Weasley’s, hers was green and silver. Harry realised that all the Slytherins except the first-years had green and silver borders on their cloaks, and some of them were wearing green and silver ties or scarves beneath their robes.

“Are you a Prefect?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the girl. “I’m Gemma Farley. Of the Fawley Farleys,” she added.

The first-year sitting next to her, who Harry thought was Muriel Drayton, began to list the Fawleys she was related to, and Harry, feeling rather sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes - and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.

“Ouch!” Harry clapped a hand to his head.

“What is it?” asked Draco.

“N-nothing.”

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had got from the teacher’s look - a feeling that he didn’t like Harry at all.

“Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?” he asked Draco.

“Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you?” Draco said this quite loudly. He looked at the teachers’ table, then carried on at a more conversational volume, “That’s Professor Snape, no wonder Quirrell looks so nervous - Snape wants his job! Snape’s Head of Potions but my father says he’d take the Dark Arts job if it was offered, even with the curse.”

“The curse?”

“Well, that’s what everyone says. There’s hasn’t been a teacher who made it more than one year in the post for over thirty years. Some of them die, some of them end up quitting under strange circumstances… some of them just disappear.”

“And Snape still wants the job?” Harry wondered why anyone would want a job where they had a chance of dying in a year.

Draco shrugged. “Apparently. You’ll be seeing a lot of him, he’s our Head of House.”

Harry watched Snape for a while but Snape didn’t look at him again. Professor Quirrell was now facing the other way and Harry could almost see the stutter on his lips as he spoke to a small witch with enormous glasses.

Finally, Harry reached the point where he couldn’t eat another bite. He looked at the small wedge of treacle start still left on his plate, sighed and put down his fork. Two of the girls sitting further up the table were whispering to each other, but they’d had to raise their voices to hear each other over the growing noise levels in the Great Hall as other people gave up on their desserts.

“I’m the first in my family to come to Hogwarts,” a girl with braided hair was saying. “My parents said Slytherin was the place to make connections, but I can’t believe how many big names there are this year.”

“I know!” Muriel Drayton whispered back to her. “And to think Harry Potter is one of them.”

The girls sneaked a look at him, and Harry’s cheeks turned red as they caught him looking right back at them.

“Do you remember anything about it?” asked Drayton.

“About what?” asked Harry.

“The night you defeated him,” said Drayton.

“Who, Voldemort?”

A hush fell over their section of the table as everyone stared at Harry. He felt his cheeks grow redder still as he remembered people didn’t usually say Voldemort’s name.

“Just a load of green light,” Harry admitted, feeling rather uncomfortable with everyone looking at him. “But I don’t remember anything else.”

“So you don’t know how you did it?” demanded Nott.

Harry shrugged. “No, sorry.”

Everyone looked ready to ask more questions, but to Harry’s relief, the puddings suddenly disappeared and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The Hall fell silent.

“Ahem - just a few more words now we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

“First-years should note that the forest in the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins, at the table on the far side of the Hall.

“I have also been asked by Mr Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

“Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch.

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the South-Eastern third-floor corridor is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Harry laughed, but he was the only one at his table who did.

“He’s not serious?” he muttered to Draco.

“Must be,” said Draco, frowning at Dumbledore. “Its odd, he didn’t say why we’re not allowed to go there… My father didn’t mention anything either and he usually knows what’s going on in Hogwarts. He’s the head of the governors.”

“And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

The Slytherin first-years followed Gemma Farley through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall and down a long stone staircase. Harry’s legs felt like lead as they had before the Sorting, but at least now it was because he was so tired and full of food, rather than nerves. He was glad to be going downstairs rather than up. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the people in the portraits along the walls whispered and pointed as they passed, now dragging their feet along a corridor lined with what looked rather like prison cells.

Suddenly they stopped. Harry almost trod on Sophie Roper’s robes.

“This,” said Farley in a hushed voice, “is the Slytherin Wing, home to our common rooms and dormitories.” Farley faced a stretch of wall with no portraits or doorways on it, and said, “Filius Salazaris”.

The wall opened onto another staircase, even though Harry was sure they must be three floors below the Entrance Hall by now. They descended the steps into a large, handsome room. It was furnished how Harry supposed one might imagine a common room for wizards to be furnished, with lots of dark, ornate furniture, and decorated with skulls and serpents. The torches on the walls burned with a greenish light, and the far wall had several windows, despite the room having the feeling of being underground.

“That’s the Black Lake,” said Farley, noticing where he was looking. “In daylight, you can see into the lake, sometimes you can see the giant squid or other creatures.” She grinned. “We like to feel that our common room has the aura of a mysterious, underwater shipwreck. Now, before I show you to the dormitories, there are two very important rules.”

Harry listened intently, not wanting to break any rules through ignorance.

“One, never share the location of the Slytherin Wing or the password with anyone outside our House. Two, if you’ve got a problem with another Slytherin, you forget about it in front of the other Houses. Slytherins present a united front to the rest of the school, no matter how many rivalries we might have once you get back to our Wing. If you break one of these rules you will face the wrath of Slytherin House.”

Her dark eyes met each of their gaze in turn as she spoke, and her voice filled with menace as she said, “You have been warned.” Then her serious face cracked into a toothy smile. “Now, I’ll finish showing you around and then you can go sort your things in your dormitories.”

Farley walked past several dark leather sofas with dark green buttons and a fireplace large enough for half the group of first-years to stand in, and led them through a pair of mahogany doors and along a corridor.

“Bathrooms are on the right,” explained Farley, when the doors had closed on the noisy common room. “And on the left are the Prep Rooms - yours is the first one. They’re available for quiet study any time up to the second curfew bell, at eleven, and you’ll have scheduled Prep for an hour every weekday after dinner.  The only acceptable reason for missing it is detention, which I hope you will all do your best to avoid earning.”

She gave them a stern look, before continuing around a corner and stopping at the top of a staircase.

“You’re not to use this staircase without express permission, or in an emergency,” she announced, with another stern look.

They followed her excitedly down yet another flight of stairs, wondering what was down here that meant they weren’t usually allowed.

The corridor at the bottom of the staircase looked identical to the one they’d just left, however.

“This area can also be accessed through the Senior Common Room - I’ll show you in a bit,” Farley explained once they’d all crowded into the corridor around her “But remember what I said - if you’re caught in a Senior area before fifth year, you’ll earn yourself a detention.

“That is the Duty Prefect’s bedroom.” She pointed at the door closest to the staircase. “If you have an emergency overnight, come and wake whichever of us is on duty. Mind that you only use it for emergencies, though, or you’ll find yourself in here.”

She led them into a room lined with more proud, smiling photographs. Harry spotted that those framing the fireplace - which was much smaller than the ones in the common rooms, but no less splendid - also bore badges with the letters ‘HB’ or ‘HG’ beside their Prefect badges. Six handsome desks stood in the middle of the room, and beyond them, looking no less proud that the photographs of their forebears, were five smiling Prefects.

“These are the other Slytherin Prefects,” said Farley. “Try to remember our faces, because we won’t always have our badges on when we’re out of uniform.”

The other Prefects introduced themselves one by one. There were a boy and girl from each of the fifth, sixth and seventh years. The only one Harry managed to remember, besides Gemma Farley, was Simon Selwyn, who Harry supposed might also be his second cousin; he had the same curly auburn hair as the boy Draco had pointed out at dinner.

“Well then,” said Farley, when the introductions were over. “I’ll show you back through the Senior Common Room so you know the way, and then I’ll show you to your Dormitories.”

The noise of the Senior Common Room hit them as soon as Farley opened the door at the end of the corridor, but it quieted almost immediately, as people broke off their conversations to stare at them. A couple of older students exchanged waves with Nott and one of the girls Draco had told him was related to him - he’d already forgotten which was Daphne and which Pansy. Draco was looking around imperiously and nodding greetings in every direction. Even more than at the Welcome Feast, it felt like everyone else knew each other.

They were herded up the staircase in the corner of the room, which was much harder work than going down had been. Harry hoped there weren’t too many more stairs between him and his bed, because he thought his legs might drop off before he got there if that was the case.

Farley led them over to another staircase, and Harry steeled himself for another leaden-legged climb, but rather than heading up it, she stopped near it and pointed to a door to its right.

“Boys dormitories are along there,” she said. “Girls are around to the left. You’ll find your names on the door. You can swap if everyone agrees, but no trying to get into someone else’s dormitory.”

Harry was anxious to see who he’d been put with. He hadn’t seen enough of Draco’s friends Vince and Greg to care either way about bunking with them, but he’d much rather share with Draco than the snooty Nott boy. Draco had already thrown open the door Farley had indicated and headed along the corridor beyond.

The first few doors Harry passed must have been for students in the other years, because Harry didn’t recognise a single name on them. He was still peering at the list on the second door when one of Draco’s friends said, “I thought we’d be sharing with Draco.”

Harry hurried along the corridor to where the rest of the first-year boys were clustered around a door bearing three names, written in chalk.

Vincent Crabbe
Gregory Goyle
Theodore Nott

“It’s fine, Teddy will swap with Draco, won’t you?” Vince asked the skinny boy.

“If he makes it worth my while,” said Nott.

“I’m fine with my assignment,” Draco said loftily. “Zabini, if you want to swap with Vince or Greg, I’d be—”

“I’m not moving unless Greg does too!” Vince said stubbornly.

“Me either,” said Greg.

“Then I suggest we all stick with our assigned dormitories,” Zabini said smoothly, before pushing open the door to the neighbouring dormitory.

Harry gave Draco a grateful smile and followed him into the room. It contained four four-poster beds hung with dark green velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought down, but there must have been a mix-up, because Draco dragged his to the door and left it in the corridor outside. A few moments later, there was a knock on the door, and Draco retrieved an almost identical trunk, which he carried over to his bed with a satisfied expression.

Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pyjamas and fell into bed.

“Oh, wait - Hedwig,” Harry said, sitting up in the bed.

“Your owl?” Draco asked. When Harry nodded, he smiled. “Don’t worry, she’ll be in the Owlery. But you can bring her down later if you want - there’s an enchanted channel so the owls can get in and out through the window even though we’re under the Lake.”

Harry relaxed and leaned back into the pillows. He went to sleep almost immediately.

Perhaps he had eaten a bit too much, because Harry had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban, which kept talking to him, telling him how pleased it was that he was in Slytherin. When he opened his mouth to reply, it slipped down over his face, smothering him, getting tighter and tighter. He could hear a girl laughing at him as he struggled with it, and then the laugh turned high and cold - there was a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.

He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke the next day, he didn’t remember the dream at all.

Chapter Text

2 September

Ron Weasley

“Come on, it’s this way.”

“No, it’s definitely down here.”

The first-year Gryffindor boys had already got lost on their way to breakfast. Ron peered down the staircase Dean Thomas had pointed at.

“Come on, let’s just try going this way,” he said. His stomach rumbled loudly in agreement, despite the fact that he’d eaten so much he’d thought they’d have to roll him out of the Great Hall last night.

They’d chosen the right route, and within another couple of minutes, the four boys sat down at the end of the Gryffindor table. The girls were already there; Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown giggled when Seamus Finnigan explained why they were late.

“I checked the map in Hogwarts: A History last night,” piped up bushy-haired Hermione Granger. “I’ve made sure I know where I’m going for all my lessons today.”

“Good for you,” Ron muttered under his breath, piling sausages and bacon onto his plate.

“How do you know what we’ve got today?” asked Neville Longbottom. “We haven’t got our timetables yet.”

“I asked one of the Prefects yesterday,” said Granger. “I looked back over the introductory chapters to Magical Theory and A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration before bed, and I’m going to revise the first twenty spells from—”

“Did you do any revision last night?” Dean Thomas whispered, as Granger continued telling everyone exactly how much work she’d done before lessons even started.

Ron shook his head. “I haven’t even opened my textbooks yet. Mum told me they start at the beginning, so there didn’t seem to be any point.”

Once Ron had finished his plate, he looked over at the Slytherin table. He wasn’t the only one; several other students were staring at Harry Potter, as though they hadn’t got a close enough look at him yesterday.

“Weird, isn’t it?” asked Longbottom.

“Huh?”

“Potter being put in Slytherin. And that’s Draco Malfoy he’s talking to.”

Ron sent a sausage flying across the table as he tried to stab it with his fork. It landed on Alice Tolipan’s plate, splattering the front of her robes with baked bean sauce.

“Sorry, Tolipan,” he offered, spearing his fork slightly less violently into another sausage and transferring it to his own plate. “Yeah, it’s weird.”

“Weren’t you in a compartment with him on the train yesterday? What’s he like?”

Ron shrugged. He certainly wasn’t going to admit that he’d been imagining sitting next to Potter, not Longbottom at breakfast this morning.

“I thought he seemed alright. Never would have thought he’d be in with the blood purists.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Longbottom. “Harry Potter, in Slytherin.”

“Is that the kid everyone was whispering about in the Sorting?” asked Thomas. “What’s the deal with him?”

“He’s the Boy Who Lived,” said Longbottom. “You-Know-Who tried to kill him when he was a baby, but they say You-Know-Who’s curse rebounded and killed him instead.”

Thomas’s face was blank. “You-Know-Who?”

“My goodness, didn’t you come across this when you were reading up before you got here?” asked Granger, who had apparently started listening to their conversation when she realised nobody was listening to her anymore. “He’s a very powerful Dark Wizard who was well on his way to taking over the country before Harry Potter stopped him. He killed dozens of wicchen personally, not to mention everyone his followers killed.”

“So that Potter kid stopped wizard Hitler?” asked Thomas.

That must have made sense to Granger, because she nodded emphatically. “So obviously it’s a huge deal that he’s here, because he’s incredibly famous. And it’s an even bigger deal that he got Sorted into Slytherin, because that’s where most of You-Know-Who’s followers came from.”

“My dad says there isn’t a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin,” said Ron.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” said Granger. “For starters, most Dark wizards throughout history weren’t even British. And at least two of You-Know-Who’s followers were in Ravenclaw, and one was even in Gryff—”

“Wait, was this You-Know-Who guy a kid?” asked Thomas. “If his followers were in school?”

“No. Well, not by the time he died,” said Granger. “Nobody knows how old he was, but I read that he started to really make a name for himself about seven years before he died, and he must have been an adult by then, to be so powerful.”

“Anyway,” said Ron, before Granger could regurgitate everything she’d ever read about You-Know-Who, “Slytherins are a nasty bunch.”

“Good news, Ron,” said Percy from behind him. Ron turned around and took the timetable Percy handed him. “You don’t have any classes with them today. But try not to dismiss an entire House before you’ve met everyone in it, hmm?”

Ron pulled a face at Percy’s back as his brother continued down the table, handing each student a timetable. That was fine for Percy to say - he hadn’t been there on the train when Malfoy insulted their family and those brutes with him had stolen Ron’s sweets.

“Come on,” said Thomas. “We should start trying to find our way to our first lesson, or we’ll be late.”

They found the classroom easily, because Hermione Granger left the Great Hall just before them, and the rest of the Gryffindor first-years followed her. Their teacher, Professor McGonagall, started the class with a strict warning.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts, which is why you will not begin studying it properly until your third year,” she said. “That does not, however, mean that you do not need to pay attention during Fundamentals of Magic Theory. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Ron assumed Fred and George must have had one of the other teachers for Magic Theory, because he’d never heard that they’d been banned from the subject. Or perhaps Professor McGonagall wasn’t actually quite as strict as she looked. She followed up her warning by turning her desk into a pig and back.

They were all very impressed, but the rest of the lesson was very difficult, and much less entertaining. Professor McGonagall stressed the importance of understanding the desired effect of a spell, or the physical qualities of an intended transformation, as well as forming clear intention. That at least explained what Material Studies on their timetable was for. They spent the rest of the lesson trying to pair a list of different materials to their physical and magical qualities. Ron had no idea how he was supposed to tell whether a metal was heavy without weighing it, and the idea of a metal being noble was absurd.

Granger’s reading seemed to have paid off, however; she beamed as Professor McGonagall gave her ten points for correctly categorising the list of metals they had been given. McGonagall held up Granger’s perfectly drawn chart for the class, to show that she had added additional examples under each category.

Ron had intended to spend the twenty minute break getting to know the other first-years a bit better, but Granger was still going on about the difference between pure metals and alloys when they arrived at an empty classroom halfway between the Transfiguration and Arithmancy corridors. He walked past the door instead, and continued on up three flights of stairs to their Maths classroom.

They had an excellent view of the grounds from here. Ron looked down at the Quidditch Pitch, imagining himself playing on it one day. Both Bill and Charlie had played for Gryffindor, and the twins were planning to try out for the Junior team this year. He thought they’d make it, even on Bill and Charlie’s old broomsticks; they were so in sync with each other that they were perfect for Beaters.

“That girl is doing my head in,” said a voice behind him.

Ron turned around. Lavender Brown entered the classroom, followed by Parvati Patil.

“You had the right idea coming up here, Weasley,” said Patil. “She’s still rabbiting on about wand woods - as if she knows! She didn’t know wands even existed until a few months ago!”

“She’s probably just over-excited,” said Longbottom, who was followed into the room by Thomas and Finnigan. “I wouldn’t stop talking about my invitation for ages after I received it, not until Gran told me she was really proud of me, but could I please shut up.”

“Maybe someone should try that with Granger,” muttered Ron.

By the time the first Hufflepuffs arrived, five minutes before the start of the lesson, every Gryffindor except Granger was there. Perhaps because they’d not been set a textbook for this subject, she was remarkably quiet throughout Professor Undercliffe’s Maths lesson, furiously scribbling down notes on her parchment.

The commentary resumed as soon as class finished, however, and continued whenever Professor Goshawk drew breath throughout their first Material Studies class. They spent the entire forty minutes holding, cutting and heating different types of metals and recording their observations, as Goshawk flitted around the room making sure nobody sliced off a finger or set fire to their robes.

Even though he’d made sure to sit at the other end of the group of first-years to Granger, Ron could hear her talking all the way through lunch. He wasn’t at all pleased, therefore, to find himself sitting beside her in Practical Magic Fundamentals class, which was their first opportunity to actually perform magic since arriving at Hogwarts. She almost took his eye out when her hand thrust into the air as soon as Professor Flitwick asked for a volunteer to demonstrate the Wand-Lighting Charm.

Ron wondered whether Potter had been the same way in his lessons, desperately taking every opportunity to show off to his best mate Malfoy. They’d probably spent all evening laughing together about the ridiculous lies he’d told about being poor and never having proper birthday presents.

An elbow dug into Ron’s ribs. He glared at Granger, who jerked her head pointedly towards the front of the classroom. Professor Flitwick was looking expectantly at him from atop a stack of books.

“Oh, right. Sorry, professor?”

“I asked if you could attempt the Wand-Lighting Charm for the class, please, Mr Weasley,” squeaked Professor Flitwick.

“Right,” said Ron. He pulled out his wand, and held it nervously out in front of him. He wished everyone weren’t watching. “Lumos.”

A very dim, flickering light appeared at the end of his wand. A light smattering of applause went around the room.

“And now extinguish it, if you will,” said the teacher.

“Nox,” said Ron, relieved he knew the incantation; if Professor Flitwick had given it to the class, Ron hadn’t heard him.

“Thank you. A little more focus, Mr Weasley, and you’ll have a steady light. Remember, it’s all about intent.”

Ron tried to pay attention as Professor Flitwick invited other students to attempt the charm, and listen to the advice he gave them to improve their wandlight. Granger was somehow managing to look disapprovingly at him out of the corner of her eye every time he shifted in his seat, whilst simultaneously watching the lesson rapturously.

The long walk down to the greenhouses for Herbology helped shift the stupor from sitting in a classroom for so long, and Professor Sprout’s first lesson was much more hands-on. Still, Ron was exhausted by the time they headed up to the Gryffindor room to relax before dinner. His stomach was rumbling again; he’d usually finished dinner at home by the time seating started at Hogwarts. Thankfully, a few games of Exploding Snap with some of his classmates covered the sound.

After finishing his generous serving of shepherds pie, strategically sitting as far from Granger as possible, Ron looked around the Great Hall. People were staring at Potter again, of course. Ron didn’t see what all the fuss was about. You couldn’t even see Potter’s scar with all that hair in his face.

Potter pushed his empty plate forwards, and looked over at the Gryffindor tables. His eyes met Ron’s, and he gave a little wave, as though they were friends. Yeah, right, when he’d chosen to join Malfoy in Slytherin, even though he knew Ron was going to be in Gryffindor. Ron glared at Potter, then seized the serving bowl of shepherds pie and heaped seconds onto his plate.

They didn’t have Prep after dinner, since it was their first day, but they’d been told to assemble in the common room for Professor McGonagall to give them the start-of-term notices. It was quite cosy in the common room, with all the Upper School students crowded in there as well. Most of it was of no interest to Ron, but thankfully McGonagall kept it brief. She told them when the Quidditch trials were being held, and when they could sign up for the various clubs and extra courses that were on offer. Percy puffed out his chest when she introduced the new fifth-year Prefects to everyone. It looked like he’d polished his badge again especially for the assembly.

Professor McGonagall ended her speech by congratulating them all on the thirty points they’d won for Gryffindor so far (Granger beamed around the room), and reminding them that it would be a great honour to win the House Cup. Percy nodded along to this too, and gave Fred and George a meaningful look when Professor McGonagall reminded them all that they could lose points as well as win them.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Hermione Granger excused herself soon after the assembly finished, to go and read up for the next day’s lessons. The rest of the first-years talked about their lessons, the school, and where they’d come from, until the bell for first curfew made them all jump.

Although they were allowed to stay up until the next bell, as long as they stayed in the Gryffindor wing, everyone was too tired to stay up much later. So, a short while later, Ron lay in his four-poster bed, looking up at the canopy and wondering whether one of the boys snoring softly beside him would grow to be a proper friend, or if he should have listened to the Sorting Hat after all.

The next day started with History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost, another thing Ron had thought Fred and George were pulling his leg about until he saw the man in the - well, not quite flesh. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff-room fire and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on, and at some point when he was listing the deeds of Emeric the Evil, Ron drifted off to sleep. He woke with a start when everyone began putting their things away, and hastily stuffed his three lines of notes into his bag before Granger could lecture him about not paying attention.

The Slytherins pushed their way out the classroom ahead of the Gryffindors, of course, but for some reason Potter was lingering outside the door.

“Ron, I—”

“Hey, Longbottom, can I borrow your notes?” Ron asked loudly, turning his back to Potter as he walked past him. “I didn’t catch the end of what Binns was saying there.”

“Sure,” said Longbottom. “We could write the essay together, if you want?”

Ron thought that writing an essay together with anyone sounded like the last thing he wanted to do, but he’d far rather do it with Longbottom than Granger. And since he’d been asleep when Binns set the essay, he had no idea what it was supposed to be about.

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

He chatted to Longbottom throughout the break. Ron had assumed the boy was from a lesser branch of the family, because he certainly didn’t come across like a stuck-up heir, but it turned out he was next in line for the Longbottom Warlockship in the Wizengamot.

“Everyone thought I was a Squib until I was eight,” Longbottom admitted quietly. “Great-uncle Algie had been trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me for years. And then one day he came round for tea and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my great-auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. And I bounced - all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased.”

Ron felt sorry for the boy - it was no wonder he wasn’t a snob like the other children of the elite if everyone had thought he might be a Squib. His family had probably hidden him away in case anyone realised the heir to their seat might not actually be a wizard. Of course they were pleased when he finally showed his powers.

When they arrived at the Geography classroom after the break, Ron sat right at the back, hoping Granger would stay well away from him. But it wasn’t Granger who hurriedly took the seat next to him. It was Harry Potter.

“Ron, what’s wrong?” Potter hissed across the small gap between their desks.

Ron hadn’t intended to answer, but he was saved the need anyway, because at that moment Professor Sinistra arrived. She didn’t bother taking the register; after a quick head count, she announced that they were going to start with an icebreaker.

Professor Sinistra got them all to stand up, then asked everyone who’d never left their home nations before to sit down. Potter tried to sit, but Malfoy, sitting on his other side, yanked him back up, which got a great roar of laughter from the class. Ron glared at the side of Potter’s head as he pretended he hadn’t realised England and Scotland were different nations. He glared even harder when Professor Sinistra asked everyone who had never left the British Isles to sit down, and the two of them did so.

“Wow,” whispered Potter, looking around the classroom. “Is it much easier to go abroad as a wizard?”

Most of their classmates were still standing. Only Dean Thomas and a scrawny Slytherin girl had sat down when he and Potter did.

“For snobs like you, it is,” Ron muttered under his breath. He wasn’t sure whether Potter heard him or not, and he ignored all Potter’s further attempts at conversation, of which there were so many that Professor Sinistra gave the two of them a pointed look.

After lunch was Astronomy, which was once again taught by Professor Sinistra, in a classroom two floors above the one where they had Geography. They were forbidden to go any higher up the Astronomy Tower before their third year, and even then only to study the night sky. Fred and George claimed they’d almost made someone jump right out of the window when they snuck up on him kissing a girl on one of the higher levels after first curfew. The lesson was quite interesting, despite being another one in which they performed no magic at all.

Ron didn’t see Potter again until after lunch the next day, when they had their first Flying lesson with Madam Hooch. He walked excitedly down to the smooth lawn where three dozen broomsticks were lying in neat rows on the ground. They looked a little worse for wear but all had the same logo as the broom mum had finally let him ride at home after outgrowing his Little Star.

“Seriously, Shooting Stars?” asked a familiar voice behind him.

Ron spun around. Potter wasn’t the only Slytherin who was sneering at the broomsticks on the ground, but he was at the front of the group next to a smirking Draco Malfoy.

“Thank you, Mr Potter,” said Madam Hooch, looking at Potter through hawkish yellow eyes. “These lessons are to teach you the basics of flying - we’re not going to ask you to play Quidditch on them!”

“Thank goodness for that!” Potter said under his breath.

Ron was disappointed to see that Madam Hooch hadn’t heard; she looked very strict, and Potter could do with a good telling off.

“Everyone stand next to a broomstick,” ordered Madam Hooch. “Come on, hurry up!”

Ron hurried to find a broom that didn’t have tail twigs pointing out in every direction. There was nothing wrong with Shooting Stars, but he had to admit Potter was right that these broomsticks had seen better days.

“Stick out your wand hand over your broom,” called Madam Hooch at the front, “and say ‘Up’!”

“UP!” everyone shouted.

Potter’s broomstick leapt into his hand. Ron tried to ignore the fact that Potter and Malfoy were exchanging smug smiles and coax his broomstick from the ground. After a few tries, he had managed it, and he looked around again to see how everyone else was doing. Longbottom’s broom hadn’t moved at all, and he couldn’t help feeling a little smug that Granger’s had done little more than roll over.

When everyone had finally managed to get their brooms into their hands, Madam Hooch showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end. Then she walked up and down the rows, correcting their grips. Ron didn’t bother to hide his delight when she told Malfoy he’d been doing it wrong for years.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch. “Keep your broom steady, rise a few feet and then come straight back down by leaning forwards slightly. On my whistle - three - two —”

But Longbottom, apparently frightened of being left alone on the ground, pushed off before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch’s lips.

“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Longbottom was raising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle - twelve feet - twenty feet. Ron saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and —

WHAM - a thud and a nasty crack and Longbottom lay, face down, on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher and started to drift lazily towards the Forbidden Forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Longbottom, her face as white as his.

“Broken wrist,” Ron heard her mutter. “Come on, boy - it’s all right, up you get.”

She turned to the rest of the class.

“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch’. Come on, dear.”

Longbottom, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than several of the Slytherins burst out laughing.

“Should’ve known Longbottom would be the first to visit the Hospital Wing!” cackled Theodore Nott. “I’m amazed he even knows which end of his broom is which.”

“Shut up, Nott,” snapped Parvati Patil.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy Parkinson. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look,” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “Longbottom dropped something.”

It was a small glass sphere, which seemed to be full of smoke.

“A Remembrall,” said Nott. He laughed again. “Maybe if the fat lump had squeezed it, he’d have remembered how to fly!”

Malfoy tossed the Remembrall in the air and caught it.

“Give it here!” said Granger bossily.

Draco threw the ball to Potter, who caught it and held it in front of his face, watching the smoke swirl around and no doubt wondering what to do with it.

“Give that here, Potter!” Ron demanded.

Potter glared at him and tossed the Remembrall back to Malfoy. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Ron lunged at the smug git, but he had forgotten he was still holding his broomstick; he tripped over it, falling flat on his face. The Slytherins howled with laughter again, and Ron could have sworn he heard a snort from the Gryffindors behind him.

“Careful, Weasley,” said Nott. “Your parents might have to sell their house if you break that broom.”

Ron growled. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at Nott from his sprawled position on the ground.

“Ooh, what’re you going to do, Weasley?” Crabbe taunted.

Ron suddenly realised that he didn’t know any spells to use in a fight. He felt his ears turning pink as he tried to decide what to do.

“Petrificus Totalus!” said Nott, pointing his own wand at Ron.

Ron froze. He could hear the Slytherins howling with laughter again, even though Nott was the only one he could see; even his eyes had been frozen in place. As soon as the spell wore off, a few seconds later, he scrambled to his feet, glaring at Nott.

“You… you…” he sputtered.

“Here you go, Weasley,” said Malfoy, and he threw the Remembrall at Ron.

The little ball bounced off Ron’s outstretched hand and rolled away over the grass. Ron dived after it, trying to ignore the laughter that rang out. He had just pocketed the Remembrall to give to Longbottom later, when Madam Hooch returned. She raised an eyebrow at Ron’s grass-stained robes and dishevelled appearance but didn’t ask what had happened and Ron knew better than to rat out Malfoy and Nott uninvited.

“Mr Longbottom will be fine by the morning. Now, shall we continue?”

They only had two lessons on Friday, and Ron was looking forward to a well-earned break. When they arrived at the Potions classroom in a dark, stone dungeon deep under the castle, it was set up with several large cauldrons each with three seats around them. Ron let out a groan as Potter sat down next to Longbottom, taking the third seat at their cauldron. He’d rather Granger sit with him than the boy who’d humiliated him in front of everyone in their Flying lesson. Still, he couldn’t help enjoying the fact that Malfoy looked rather taken aback, before sitting at the next cauldron with the two thuggish boys from the train.

Potter clearly wanted to say something to him, but a hush fell across the room as Professor Snape arrived. He started the class by taking the register, and he paused at Potter’s name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly. “Harry Potter. Our new - celebrity.”

Ron stifled a laugh; it was obvious from Professor Snape’s tone that he didn’t think there was much to celebrate about Potter, either. Even Percy - who hardly ever had anything bad to say about a teacher - said nobody except the Slytherins liked Professor Snape, but Ron thought he seemed pretty cool. Even if his black eyes were cold and empty.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” Snape began, once he’d finished the register. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

More silence followed this little speech. Longbottom looked worried, Granger desperate to prove herself. Potter was looking intently at the side of Ron’s head. Ron ignored him.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

“Er… a sleeping potion?” Potter offered.

After a moment’s hesitation, Snape’s thin lips twisted in a sneer. “A barely acceptable answer. The specific potion is so strong that it known as the Draught of Living Death. Let’s try again, where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?”

Halfway across the classroom, Granger’s hand shot into the air, but Snape was looking directly at Potter, who looked flummoxed.

“I don’t know, sir.”

Snape’s lips curled further. “Tut, tut - fame clearly isn’t everything. Well then, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

Again, Granger’s hand shot into the air. Potter frowned. “Is that a trick question?”

Snape raised an eyebrow, and Potter quickly added, “Sorry, sir, it’s just that I thought they were the same thing.”

“You’re correct, Potter, both terms refer to the same plant, which is also known by the name of aconite.” Snape finally looked away from Potter and surveyed the rest of the class. “Well, why aren’t you all writing that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Ron rolled his eyes at Potter and muttered, “Show-off.”

Potter glared at him. “What was that?”

Ron glared right back. “Already sucking up to your Head of House, are you? Bet you couldn’t wait to show Snape how great you are.”

Before Potter could reply, Snape said, “Potter! Weasley! Is there something you would like to share with the class?”

“No,” Ron said quickly, as Potter agreed.

“Then I would ask you to remember that this is is my classroom and I expect students to listen when I am teaching. Five points from Gryffindor and Slytherin for your rudeness. And another five from Gryffindor - Longbottom, you should have told them to listen.”

Longbottom looked like he wished he’d chosen a different cauldron as the two continued glaring at each other past him. Ron was fuming that Potter had cost Gryffindor ten points. Percy would be unbearable if he found out Ron had lost points for their House before ever winning any.

Things didn’t improve as the Potions lesson continued. Snape set them to mixing a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticising almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. Ron quickly revised his opinion of the hook-nosed teacher. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Ron yelped in pain; Longbottom had somehow managed to melt their cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was sweeping across the floor.

Ron and Longbottom both moaned as angry red boils sprang up all over their arms and legs. Other students hurried to get clear of the spreading puddle before it could burn holes in their shoes.

“Idiot boy!” Snape snarled at Longbottom, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Longbottom whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

“Get to the hospital wing,” Snape spat at Ron and Longbottom.

As they hobbled towards the door, Snape rounded on Potter, who was standing on top of his stool, somehow completely untouched by the potion.

“You - Potter - why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you?” Ron heard Snape say, before the classroom door closed behind them.

“That git,” Ron spat, limping along the corridor. “Did he tell you to put the quills in?”

“No,” moaned Longbottom. “Owww.”

New boils were continuing to erupt painfully. Ron sped up, hoping Longbottom could remember the way to the hospital wing before they were each one great, walking blister.

Chapter Text

6 September

Harry Potter

Everyone said that they wouldn’t have many days of sunshine left before it was too cold or wet to go outside, so Harry took a handful of sandwiches from the Great Hall and joined his Housemates on the grass outside. Conversation soon turned back to their Potions lesson.

“What an idiot,” said Tessie Runcorn. “Even Granger knew to take the cauldron off the heat before adding the quills.”

Harry was still feeling miserable about how Snape had singled him out in class, and he couldn’t help feeling resentful that Longbottom had already lost him points for Slytherin. “Yeah,” he agreed. “What an idiot.”

“I wonder if Longbottom’s got boils on his bottom,” cackled Nott.

“They’re going to need to get him a permanent bed in the Hospital Wing,” said Draco.

“You probably shouldn’t let him anywhere near the cauldron next time, Potter,” said Tracey Davis. “Pity he can’t get someone else to fly for him in Hooch’s class.”

“I can’t believe his family didn’t show him how to ride a broom before he got here,” said Pansy Parkinson.

“I doubt it would have made a difference,” said Draco. “Harry’s never been on a broom before, and he didn’t break his arm.”

“Was that really your first time on a broomstick?” asked Parkinson.

“Of course not,” sneered Nott. “He just knew we’d lower our expectations if he said he lived with Muggles, so he could show off. Like in Potions.”

“I do live with Muggles,” Harry said hotly. “And that was my first time on a broomstick.”

“You should try out for the House team next year,” said Parkinson.

Nott snorted.

“You could’ve fooled me into thinking it was your first time on a broomstick?” demanded Draco. “You practically had to beg the thing to lift into your hand.”

Nott turned pink and glared at Draco, but he didn’t raise his wand as he had done to Ron.

“Anyway, I’m not waiting until next year to try out,” Draco announced. “I’m taking one of the school brooms out to practise in a bit. Vince and Greg are going to help me.”

Harry felt a pang of jealousy upon hearing this, but he knew he had no right to. Vince and Greg had been Draco’s friends long before Harry ever met him. They were the ones who should be jealous; Draco had sat next to Harry in almost every lesson to explain things about the magical world to him. Harry pushed aside the jealousy and wondered what he’d talk about with Hagrid, who had invited Harry to come down to his Hut at the edge of the grounds for a cup of tea after lunch.

When Draco, Vince and Greg set off towards the broom store, Harry joined them. The two dark-haired boys eyed him warily until he explained that he was going to see Hagrid. Then their eyes opened wide in surprise.

“You’re friends with him?” asked Greg.

“He was the one who told me I’m a wizard,” said Harry. “But I’ve only met him a couple of times.”

“That’s so cool, though,” said Vince. “He’s huge. And I bet he’s got loads of really cool pets.”

Hagrid turned out to have only one pet, an enormous black boarhound with a booming bark and a long tongue, which he used to lick Harry’s face as soon as Hagrid let Harry into the hut. The hut consisted of a single room. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire and in a corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

“Make yerself at home,” said Hagrid. “How’s yer first week been?”

He poured Harry a cup of tea and offered him a rock cake. Harry took one and gingerly nibbled on the edge of it. He pretended to enjoy it whilst telling Hagrid all about his first lessons, whilst Fang, resting his head on Harry’s knee, drooled all over his robes.

“An’ how abou’ Potions?” Hagrid asked, when Harry had mentioned every other subject several times.

Harry grimaced. “It’s really interesting, but I don’t think Professor Snape likes me much. And I’ve ended up in a group with two Gryffindors, one of whom seems to hate me for some reason, and one who’s a bit… well, useless - you remember the boy who kept losing his toad?”

Hagrid smiled. “Ah, yeah. Heard he’s been in the hospital wing twice already, that mus’ be some kind of record.”

Harry laughed.

“As fer the other kid hatin’ yeh,” said Hagrid, no longer smiling, “it’s probably ’cause yeh’re a Slytherin. Slytherin an’ Gryffindor are probably the bigges’ rivals… I’m surprised yeh ended up there.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry. “Why’s it so surprising I’m there?”

Hagrid looked shocked. “Well, because yeh’re you. An’ Slytherin’s…” He trailed off. “I suppose yeh didn’t know, did yeh? You-Know-Who was a Slytherin.”

Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about the wizard who had murdered his parents sitting in the same common room where he spent his evenings, perhaps even spending his nights in the very same dormitory as Harry. He hadn’t even known Voldemort had gone to Hogwarts. But given there were only four Houses, he supposed it hadn’t been a particularly slim chance that he and Voldemort were in the same one.

“Is that it?” said Harry.

Hagrid cleared his throat and scratched Fang behind the ear nervously. “Well, yeh see, it wasn’t jus’ You-Know-Who. Almost every powerful Dark wizard came from Slytherin.”

Harry shrugged. “Most of the oldest pureblood families end up in Slytherin. It stands to reason most powerful wizards would—”

“If yeh believe that nonsense,” Hagrid interrupted loudly, “then I misjudged you.”

“Nonsense?”

“Blood purity,” said Hagrid. “Do yeh really believe most of the kids in yer House don’t have a drop of Muggle blood in their family tree? Course they do! Bu’ they just pretend they don’t exist, an’ then pretend having pure blood means they’re better than everyone else.”

Harry frowned. “I don’t think they care about blood status so much as how old and well-known your family is,” he said stubbornly. “And they care about what you do more than how far back your family goes. All the older students seem to like Draco more than Nott, even though Nott’s family is a century older. Draco says it’s because the Malfoys do so much charity work and are so influential in politics.”

Hagrid opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he did it again.

Harry spotted a piece of paper on the table and picked it up. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet.

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts’ goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

“But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,” said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn’t mentioned the date.

“Hagrid!” said Harry. “That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might’ve been happening while we were there!”

Hagrid didn’t meet Harry’s eyes. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the short article again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Harry walked back to the castle for dinner, his pockets weighed down with rock cakes he’d been too polite to refuse, he thought that none of the lessons he’d had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now?

“Did you hear about the Gringotts break-in?” Harry asked Draco over dinner.

“Oh yes, I was just saying to Vince, it’s a shame I didn’t see whoever it was when I was there - my family have one of the high security vaults, so we might have been quite close to them. My father might have been able to stop it.”

“Oh, how come?”

“My father was the best wizard in his year at Hogwarts, and an excellent duellist,” said Draco boastfully. “It must’ve been a very powerful wizard to get in and out of Gringotts without being caught, but I bet my father is better.”

“I’m glad Hagrid and I didn’t bump into them,” Harry said in a low voice. “The vault they tried to break into, Hagrid’s the one who emptied it.”

“Really? What was in there?” Draco looked excited.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know - it was wrapped in paper. But Hagrid showed a letter from Professor Dumbledore when he told the goblins he wanted to access that vault. Maybe it was something of Dumbledore’s?”

Draco nodded. “I bet Dumbledore has loads of really valuable magical artefacts. His is quite an old wicchen family, even if the only livings members are halfbloods.”

Harry remembered what Hagrid had said about blood purity and he took a deep breath, glanced around to see if anyone was sitting close enough to overhear them, and asked, “Draco, do you think purebloods are better than everyone else?”

“Of course they are,” said Draco, giving Harry a bewildered look. “I mean, generally speaking. You’ve obviously got people like Longbottom who might as well be Muggles, and Vince and Greg probably won’t get as many O.W.Ls as me between the two of them. And being better at magic doesn’t make someone a better person. Look at Granger - she’ll probably end up being top of the year, but I bet she won’t have any friends. And Teddy won’t stop trying to one-up me and trying to hog the limelight, but…”

Draco’s cheeks turned pink and he didn’t finish his thought.

“So it doesn’t matter what someone’s blood status is?”

Draco pondered. “It matters in some ways. My father expects me to marry a pureblood. Well, he actually expects me to marry someone with at least two generations of wicchen blood, so that our children will be purebloods. There’ve been plenty of Malfoy wives who were halfbloods over the centuries. But we’re not fanatical about it like some people. You’ll find a lot of new blood, or less wealthy pureblood families actually care about it, rather than just keeping up appearances. Vince and Greg’s parents probably wouldn’t be too pleased if they started hanging out with Mudbloods.”

“Do you care that I’m a halfblood?” Harry asked nervously.

Draco chuckled. “Your father was pure as they come, and you’re the most famous half-blood alive, Harry. I don’t think your blood status matters to any but the most extreme purists. Anyway, I like you! And when a Malfoy likes something, it usually becomes fashionable.”

Harry didn’t feel particularly reassured. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be fashionable.

“Look,” said Draco, “anyone who actually cares about it is obviously compensating for something. Not wanting to marry someone from a Muggle background makes sense - I mean, what would you have in common? The same goes for those weirdos who try and keep one foot in the Muggle world. But refusing to buy from a shop or eat at a restaurant just because the owner doesn’t share your pedigree?” He shook his head and laughed. “Anyone who does that is just insecure.”

Harry glanced down the table to where Nott was sneering at something Tracey Davis had said. Draco followed his gaze and smirked.

“You see what I mean?”

Harry nodded. “But… my aunt and uncle are Muggles.”

Draco snorted. “I thought you said they’re awful.”

“They are,” said Harry.

“Then it doesn’t matter,” Draco said firmly. “As soon as you have the chance, you’ll leave them behind and integrate fully into our world.”

Harry smiled. Nothing in the world sounded better than leaving the Dursleys behind for good and settling into somewhere he finally felt like he belonged.

“How was your afternoon?” Harry asked Draco.

“Fine,” said Draco, but his expression didn’t match the word.

“It was great fun!” said Vince. “I knocked a third-year off her broom and into the Lake.”

“You were supposed to be trying to knock me off,” Draco said irritably.

“You were zigzagging too much,” Vince complained.

Draco rolled his eyes and said through gritted teeth. “That’s the point.”

“It’s Hooch’s fault,” said Greg. “If she’d let us use a real Bludger, we’d have had you.”

“I’m talking to my father tomorrow night,” said Draco. “I’ll ask him to make her give us a ball set on Sunday. Do you want to join us, Harry?”

“Flying?” asked Harry, his heart leaping at the idea of getting on a broom again. “Yes, please!”

It rained all day on Saturday, so Harry spent most of the day in the common room. He had finally learned the names of all his Housemates, and he found it fascinating to listen to them talk about themselves, which some of them liked to do quite a lot. Even better than hearing about the magical world, however, was the array of games they played. Harry had spent so much of the last ten years locked in his cupboard with nothing but a few of Dudley’s old magazines and broken figurines that he’d learned to entertain himself. His Housemates, on the other hand, had brought every manner of entertainment imaginable with them.

There was Exploding Snap, which was like ordinary Snap, except that every time someone correctly called Snap, the cards let out a loud BANG! and everyone else’s cards would erupt from their hand and scatter over the floor. There were Gobstones, which were like brightly coloured marbles that lit up and changed colour when they were rolled. Nobody actually played with them how they were supposed to, however, because that was apparently very uncool. Instead, every so often someone would try to roll a gobstone in front of someone else without them noticing, so that it would squirt a bright, foul-smelling liquid at them when it came to a stop. There was Battlebrooms, which was like Battleships except the pieces hovered over a board and could move in three dimensions, and you could end up blowing up your own flyers if the windspeed and direction, which were dictated by dice rolls, suddenly changed. There were jigsaws which looked simple enough but, if you didn’t manage to finish them in a few minutes, would explode and shower jigsaw pieces all over the room.

The next morning, Harry was pleased to see that the sun was shining again. The grass was rather squelchy underfoot as he walked down to the broomstore with Draco, Vince and Greg, but there were only a few clouds in the sky.

Madam Hooch wasn’t particularly pleased to see them.

“I’ve deactivated a Bludger for you,” she said, placing a leather ball, a little larger than a tennis ball, on the small desk at the front of the shack. “Bats are on the shelf over there.”

Vince and Greg eagerly grabbed a bat each, but Draco was glaring at the witch.

“I want a Snitch.”

“As I already told you, Mr Malfoy, only the team Captains can sign out a Snitch. Unless Mr Flint is willing to take responsibility for looking after—”

“We’re not going to lose it! My father—

“Was told the same thing last night,” snapped Madam Hooch. “I don’t care whether you wouldn’t lose it”— her tone suggested she thought that was doubtful —“or your father can afford to buy a hundred new Snitches if you did. It’s a school rule that only the Quidditch Captains are allowed to to sign out Snitches, and you are not a Captain.”

“Fine,” said Draco, snatching the leather ball off the desk. “I want a decent broom today, not that old twig you gave me on Friday.”

Madam Hooch sighed and waved at the racks of broomsticks behind her. “Take your pick.”

When Harry stepped forward to choose a broom, however, the witch threw out an arm and stopped him.

“You live with Muggles, don’t you, Potter?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

“So what?” demanded Draco. “There’s no rule against halfbloods borrowing a broomstick.”

“Of course there isn’t!” said Madam Hooch. “But I’m not going to let someone who’s ridden a broom only once before fly around unsupervised.”

Harry’s shoulders slumped. He should have known he wasn’t experienced enough to join his friends. He wondered if there was a dry bit of grass under a tree somewhere that he could sit on to watch them.

“He’s not going to be unsupervised,” snapped Draco. “I’ll be with him. And it’s no wonder Longbottom broke his arm because you obviously weren’t paying attention in that lesson. Harry’s a natural.”

Madam Hooch looked so furious that Harry half expected her to seize one of the broomsticks and hit Draco over the head with it. But she wasn’t looking at Draco, she was looking at him, her nostrils flaring. Then she really did seize a broomstick from the rack, and with a hand on Harry’s back, steered him to the door.

“If you can bring me a leaf from that tree without falling off, you can keep the broomstick until lunchtime,” said Madam Hooch, pointing at a tree some fifty or so feet away.

Harry blinked at her. Then he mounted the broomstick and rose eagerly into the air. He flew easily over to the tree, then hovered a few feet from it. The leaves were very large, but there weren’t many of them left on its branches. Harry reached behind himself, gathered up his cloak in one hand and tucked it under his arm so it wouldn’t get tangled in the branches. Then he nudged the broom forward, ducking under a low branch to reach in and grab a large, reddish leaf. He returned to the broomstore holding it triumphantly in the air as his cloak billowed out behind him again.

Madam Hooch was smiling. “Very well,” she said. “Mr Malfoy is right - you’re a natural flyer.” The smirk on Draco’s face vanished as the witch turned her hawkish eyes on him and added, “I don’t care what your surname is. If you insult my teaching again, the only way you’ll have both feet off the ground at this school is if you jump, do you understand me?”

Draco nodded mutely. Madam Hooch snatched the broom he was holding from his hand and replaced it with the scraggliest broomstick Harry had ever seen. Draco’s jaw dropped, but he wisely held his tongue until the four of them were bobbing in the air above the lawns.

“Can you believe her?” said Draco. “My father is head of the governors - he could get her kicked out!”

“Can he really?” asked Harry.

“Well, not on his own,” Draco admitted. “I think he’d need half the governors to agree. It’s all in the Founding Charter.”

“At least she still let us fly,” said Greg.

“Not that there’s much point without a Snitch,” Draco said sulkily. He pulled a handful of small, coloured balls from his pocket. “It’s a good job I pinched a few of Tracey’s gobstones. Harry, you can throw these for me to catch and Vince and Greg can try and hit me with that Bludger.”

Harry took the balls in one hand, keeping the other firmly wrapped around the handle of his broom. He lifted his arm and, despite trying to release only one of the little balls, sprayed several of them in Draco’s direction.

Draco caught one in each hand and watched as the others fell to the ground. “Use your other hand, you muppet!”

Harry wondered how he was supposed to stay on the broom without holding on, but Draco was obviously managing it. He squeezed his thighs together and tentatively let go of the handle. The broom remained steady. He willed the broom forwards slowly, and a grin slowly spread across his face as he remained upright.

“All right, then,” he called over his shoulder to Draco, and returned one hand to the handle briefly in order to turn and face him. “Catch!”

He hurled one of the tiny balls into the air, and watched it arc across the grounds as Draco streaked towards it, both hands outstretched. The Bludger made a limp arc of its own, falling well short of Draco and tumbling to the ground, as Draco caught the gobstone.

Harry cheered, but Draco rounded on Vince. “That was pathetic!”

“You try it!” said Vince. “It’s deactivated. She might as well not have bothered giving it to us.”

Draco snatched Vince’s bat. Greg, who had retrieved the Bludger from the ground, tossed it towards him, and Draco smashed the bat into it. It soared a few feet, then began to fall, heading straight for an oblivious girl who was sitting on her cloak, reading a book. Without thinking, Harry dived after the Bludger and caught it mere feet above her head.

“You’re right,” said Draco, when Harry returned to the three boys. “This is ridiculous. Right, Vince, go and get a few of those balls we were using yesterday. Harry, throw a few more of those gobstones for me and then we’ll try something different.”

Something different involved Harry and Draco passing the Quaffle - which was roughly the size of a football but much heavier - between them as Vince and Greg hurled balls the size of large walnuts at them. Harry had to swerve and duck to avoid the balls. They weren’t heavy enough to knock him off his broom, but they hit hard enough that he was sure he would have bruises the next day.

The sky had got greyer and greyer as they flew, until finally it began to rain, and they called it a day. After picking up some of the balls they’d thrown all over the lawn, they returned balls and brooms to the store. Madam Hooch wasn’t there, but Draco spotted a signup sheet on the wall beside her tiny desk, and eagerly wrote his name on it. Then he held the quill out to Harry.

“You really are a natural,” said Draco. “And all three Chaser spots are up for grabs.”

Harry wrote his name underneath Draco’s, then handed the quill to Greg, whose sour expression turned pleased. When Vince had added his name as well, Draco tore a strip off the bottom of the signup sheet, and wrote:

Please can we borrow four school brooms for the Tryouts on Tuesday. Sorry about earlier. You’re a very good teacher. Draco Malfoy.

“There we go,” said Draco. “Just making sure she doesn’t hold a grudge and scupper my chances.”

Quidditch was all they talked about over dinner.

“How many games are there in a year?” Harry asked.

“Six for the each of the House Cups,” Draco explained. “Each House has a Junior and a Senior team, and they all play the other teams in their Cup once. And then the school team play two games at Hogwarts and two away. If they win them all, there’s usually an extra game to celebrate, where they play against some of the teachers.”

Harry dismissed the sudden mental image of tiny Professor Flitwick whizzing around on a broom dodging Bludgers, and asked, “Away games? Where?”

Nott, who had been listening to their conversation with interest, snorted. “At the other schools, of course.”

Harry remembered Madam Mercer telling him there were schools run by the Ministry of Magic that he could have gone to instead of Hogwarts. He tried to recall if she’d named one.

“Oh, yeah,” said Harry. “Like Rosebell’s.”

Pansy Parkinson let out a screech of laughter. “As if we would go there! No, the other boarding schools.”

“Morgana’s Witching Academy,” said Sophie Roper, who Harry hadn’t even noticed listening to them. “What’s the boys’ school called again? I never needed to know.”

Nott smirked when Harry wasn’t able to answer, and said, “Merlin’s School for Young Wizards.”

When they were alone in their dormitory later than evening, Harry asked Draco how the schools decided which students went where. He’d heard enough accents to know that his Housemates came from all across the British Isles, which he now knew consisted of seven wicchen nations.

Draco shrugged. “Most people apply to one of the private schools, but unless their magic’s strong enough to be near the top of a Book of Admittance and win a scholarship, they have to be able to afford the fees. Which means most of the nobodies go to whichever Ministry school is closest. For people like us, it mostly depends on where your parents went. Both my parents were at Hogwarts, of course, so I was always going to come here. My father considered Durmstrang - they accept students from across Europe - but my mother didn’t want me to be so far away.

“Obviously you get cases where one parent went to Hogwarts and the other to Merlin’s or Morgana’s,” Draco continued. “Usually they’ll follow the trend of the father’s family, but sometimes they’ll buck the trend. My mother’s family always used to send their girls to Morgana’s - probably so they wouldn’t be distracted by boys - but my grandmother went to Hogwarts and decided to apply for her and her sisters to come here as well.”

“Where are the other schools?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know exactly where,” Draco looked a bit annoyed; Harry had learned he didn’t particularly like not knowing things. “I think Morgana’s is in northern England, and Merlin’s is in Greater Cornwall, but all the decent magic schools keep their precise locations secret. Nobody even knows what country Durmstrang’s in. It’s technically Prussian, but it’s definitely not in Prussia.”

This gave Harry so many more questions he didn’t know where to start. He decided he could wait for Professor Sinistra to cover Prussia in Geography; they were supposed to start learning about other European countries in their next lesson. Instead he asked, “But how do people get to the schools if they don’t know where they are?”

“That’s why everyone has to get the Hogwarts Express in the first year,” Draco explained. “Once you’ve ridden the train into Hogsmeade Station, you’re able to come and go from the castle, but you can’t just turn up in Hogsmeade, or even the station, and walk into the grounds if you’ve never been before. Even MacMillan had to get the Hogwarts Express the first time, and he lives on the edge of Hogsmeade.”

Draco rummaged through a few books on the shelf next to his bed, then handed one to Harry. “Here, you might like this.”

Harry read the cover: Hogwarts, a History. He remembered Hermione Granger mentioning the book when they first arrived at the castle. “Oh wow, thanks!”

They chatted for a while longer but when Zabini got into bed he pointedly pulled the curtains closed, and they stopped and got into bed themselves.

Harry dreamed that he was the Hogwarts Quidditch Captain, lifting a gleaming trophy in front of an admiring crowd, Draco standing at his side.

Chapter Text

9 September

Harry Potter

The second week of school was somehow more of a culture shock than the first. Professor McGonagall docked two points from every student who was late to Magic Theory on Monday. Harry had to revise his earlier opinion that Maths was one class those from Muggle backgrounds had the edge in when Professor Undercliffe tested them on their seventeen and twenty-nine times tables. He was one of the several students who groaned when Undercliffe set them their fourth piece of homework that day, due on Wednesday morning.

Harry had hoped to fit in one more flying practice before tryouts but the rain that started as the bell rang for the end of class still hadn’t ended by the time they left Prep, so he enjoyed a couple of quick rounds of Exploding Snap before finishing off the Magic Theory homework he’d been working on and then getting an early night.

After Magic Theory on Tuesday afternoon, where a very embarrassed Hufflepuff lost five points for not handing in his homework, Harry and several of his classmates headed down to the Quidditch pitch. Draco, Vince and Greg, Harry had expected, of course, but he was surprised to see Parkinson and Nott there as well.

Some of the older students who were already flying around laughed when they saw the group of first-years arrive. A couple pointed at Harry and he could feel others staring. He still hadn’t got used to everyone recognising him wherever he went, but Draco seemed to be just as much a focus of stares and pointing, and far more used to it.

The Quidditch Captain, Marcus Flint, scowled at the first-years when he reached their names on the list.

“Are you sure you want to try out? Nobody’s going to pull their punches to keep a bunch of first-years out of the hospital wing.”

Harry wondered what everyone would say if he pulled out now. But he stood his ground, and when asked what positions he wanted to try out for, he copied Draco and said, “Chaser and Seeker.”

Even though there were two House teams, there was only one set of Tryouts. Before anyone was able to try out for a specific position, however, Flint got them all to fly up and down the pitch, dodging Bludgers hit by the three students who had been Beaters last year. Anyone who got hit, which included Nott, didn’t get to go any further. Neither did Vince, who fell off his broom halfway through his second lap, as he tried to dodge a Bludger. Flint used a charm to slow his descent, but he still hit the ground with an almighty crash. Flint called everyone down to the ground until he’d sent Vince off to the hospital wing with a pair of second-years who’d been hit by Bludgers and were also looking rather worse for wear. Harry was relieved to make it through the rest of the first round without getting injured.

The contest for the fourth Beater spot was next, and Harry and Draco sat down to watch; the ground was soft underfoot, but seemed to have dried out well from yesterday’s rain. Harry watched with interest as Greg tried to strike a Bludger through a series of successively smaller smoke rings. He came to join them on the grass after only a few minutes, but he didn’t look too disheartened.

“Did better than Vince, didn’t I?” he chuckled.

Harry had expected the Chasers to go next, since there were so many slots to fill for that position, but instead Flint called over the hopeful Seekers. There were an awful lot of them.

“This could take a while,” Flint explained, “so if you’re interested in trying out for Chaser or Keeper as well, either catch the Snitch fast, or decide which position you really want. You’ve got twenty minutes before I start the Chaser trials, whether the Snitch has been caught or not.”

He held up a tiny ball between a thumb and forefinger. A pair of fine, glittering wings unfolded themselves from around the ball and stretched out. They blurred, like the wings of a hummingbird, and the Snitch darted into the air.

“Anyone who gets hit by a Bludger is out,” said Flint. “The winner is the last one flying, or the first one to catch the Snitch.”

Harry wondered how they were supposed to pick two Seekers when there was only one Snitch. Would they do the whole thing again, with whichever years were left in the running?

His question was answered as Flint pulled out a second Snitch, just as small as the first. It shot into the air before its wings had completely unfolded.

“Three, two one, go!” shouted Flint.

Harry kicked hard off the ground, but he’d completely lost sight of both Snitches. He rose high above the ground and looked around, trying to see if anyone else was on a Snitch’s trail. Most people were doing the same as him, hovering in mid-air.

Whoosh.

Harry yanked his broom sideways to avoid the Bludger that had been sent pelting towards him by an enormous Beater. Realising that staying still would probably get him knocked out before he had a chance to spot the slightest glimmer of gold, he began to fly in wide circles, keeping his eyes wide open.

The minutes ticked by as they flew. Harry didn’t stare stop still to look at his watch, but he was worried about how long it was taking. He hoped Flint would warn them before the Chaser trial started; since there were three Chasers on each team, he stood much better odds of making the team in that position.

“Five minutes before we start Chaser trials,” shouted Flint, his voice carrying easily up to the wicchen soaring around above him.

As though the warning was a signal, the Beaters seemed to pick up the pace. Harry dodged two Bludgers just a few seconds apart. As he soared wide to get a better view of the area, he realised it might just be that there were so many people out of the running that more of their shots were aimed at him. More than half the hopefuls who’d started had returned to the ground.

Suddenly, Harry spotted a flicker of gold at the edge of his vision. Without a second thought, he turned and shot towards it. A moment later, his gaze fell on the Snitch, which was darting and twisting through the air ahead of a tall boy on a sleek broomstick. Harry leant forwards, willing the sluggish old broom to go faster, but the older boy had a head start and a much better broom.

He risked a quick look around; others had spotted their pursuit and were closing in behind them. Harry spotted Draco, gliding in from the side. On the school broom, his course might intercept the boy who’d spotted the Snitch first, but it wouldn’t be enough to get to the Snitch.

The Snitch danced through the air, its flight becoming more erratic as though trying to shake off the approaching fliers. Harry focused all of his attention on keeping track of it, hoping that the Beaters would aim for the people on faster brooms now the chase was on. He leant even lower on his broom. The Snitch was only yards away. He stretched out a hand…

A yell of frustration sounded behind him as his fingers closed around the tiny, struggling ball. Harry whooped in delight and raised it over his head. He could hear people cheering on the ground below.

“Juniors, return to the ground!” Flint yelled excitedly. “Any Seniors who want a chance at Chaser, you too.”

Harry’s feet had barely touched the ground before something barrelled into him.

“Well done!” Draco shouted, squeezing him tightly around the shoulders. “That was epic!”

“Thanks,” said Harry. “I didn’t think I was going to get there first.”

Draco grinned at him. “That’s what friends are for.”

Before Harry could ask what he meant, Flint was thrusting out a hand for him to shake.

“Welcome to the team, Potter. We’ll do proper introductions once we’ve got a full team.”

Harry wished Draco good luck, then walked past a pair of scowling older boys to join Greg at the side of the pitch.

“Well done, Harry,” said Greg slapping him on the back with the force of a Bludger. “Nice flying. Course, you’ll owe Draco one now.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you see what he did?” asked Greg. “He grabbed the tail of Selwyn’s broomstick, slowed him down just enough for you to get there first. I bet he’ll get away with it, as well, even Selwyn’s not going to pick a fight with him.”

“He cheated?” Harry asked in a low voice.

“Nah, he just helped you win,” said Greg. “Cheating would be helping himself. Anyway, you were the best Seeker up there. He just made sure you didn’t lose your shot if Selwyn caught it and you decided to do the Chaser trial instead of staying on.”

Harry frowned. He wasn’t sure how he felt about having won because someone else had helped him. It took some of the shine off his success.

“Wait, my second cousin Selwyn?” Harry asked.

Greg grinned. “Yep.”

Harry hoped Selwyn wouldn’t hold it against him; he hadn’t had a chance to speak to the curly-haired boy yet, despite him being his closest relative at Hogwarts.

He looked up and watched the Chaser trial. The first stage didn’t last long. Flint got the hopefuls to fly at a set of empty hoops and put the Quaffle through each of them in turn. Of the Juniors, only Draco scored all three attempts. He drifted back to the ground looking smug.

“Flint said I don’t have to do the second round,” said Draco. “All the Juniors who scored two goals will go again once we’ve got a Keeper, but I’m on the team.”

“Congratulations!” said Harry, squeezing Draco as tightly as the boy had hugged him only minutes before. “And, er, thanks for helping me out in the Seeker trial.”

“Like I said, it’s what friends do,” said Draco.

Flint started the Keeper trial - either none of the few remaining contenders for Senior Seeker were interested, or Flint couldn’t be bothered to wait for them - and the three boys watched. After a couple of minutes, they heard vague cheers from above, as someone caught the other Snitch.

“That was a dirty move, Malfoy,” said a rich voice, a short while later.

Harry turned around. Towering over them wasn’t the boy he’d expected, but the older Selwyn, whose shiny green ‘P’ badge was pinned to his chest. Harry gaped at it; Draco had cheated - sort of - against a Prefect.

“You still made the team,” Draco said casually. “So there’s no need to get upset about it.”

“You should challenge him over it,” said James Selwyn, sauntering over to stand by his - brother? Cousin? Harry still wasn’t sure.

Harry didn’t know what the boy was suggesting, but it couldn’t be anything good. Draco looked around, then, incredibly, smirked up at the older boys. “I don’t see anyone else here, so on what basis would he challenge me?”

“It needn’t come to that,” said Simon Selwyn. “Apologise in the common room when the teams are announced, and I’ll forget it ever happened.”

Harry bit his lip. Draco didn’t seem the sort of person to make public apologies.

“Of course,” Draco said sweetly. “Greg, you’ll vouch for our cousin’s conditions?”

Greg grunted agreement. Harry still had no clue what was happening.

“Good,” said Simon Selwyn. “You made Chaser?”

“I did,” Draco said smugly.

“Congratulations,” said Simon Selwyn, and he reached down to give Draco a very awkward, lopsided hug. “You too, Potter,” he added, extending a hand to Harry.

Harry stood to shake it. The boy still towered over him.

“Thanks. And hi. And, um, sorry.”

The boy laughed. “Just don’t make Draco regret it.”

He flopped down on the grass beside them. James Selwyn adopted his scowl once again, and stalked away. Several older students, who’d been watching the exchange from a distance, joined them to watch the last of the tryouts. The Keepers had been selected, and the shortlisted Chasers were not trying to score past them.

“Simon Selwyn’s my second cousin too?” Harry whispered to Greg.

“Of course,” Greg whispered back. “He and James are brothers. And they’re first cousins with me and Draco. Their uncle’s my grandfather, and their aunt was Draco’s grandmother. The Selwyns are somewhere between the Goyles and the Malfoys socially, but they hold a Warlockship. My mother married down.”

Harry appreciated the additional details, and the fact that Greg was as straightforward as Draco about these things. Some of his other classmates spoke so cryptically that he struggled to follow the intricacies of where everyone ranked. He gathered that his own family were fairly important on top of his fame, but blood status seemed to matter as well, and he was one of only four halfblood Slytherins in his year.

“And what did he mean about challenging Draco?” Harry probed.

Greg appeared to be so surprised he forgot to whisper. “To a duel, of course.”

“Remember the rules, Potter,” called Simon Selwyn, from the grass where he sat a few feet away. “Protect Slytherin’s secrets. No public dissent or disrespect.”

Harry remembered that Gemma Farley had given them all two rules at the start of her tour of the Slytherin Wing.

“Slytherins present a united front,” he said.

Selwyn nodded. “Or you’ll be challenged on it. Know how to duel?”

Harry shook his head. He couldn’t remember Professor Binns mentioning duels, although his lectures were so dull that Harry had struggled to pay attention. He tried to remember what he’d read in his textbook before he arrived at Hogwarts. He could only recall a couple of duels, but both of those had ended in death; they couldn’t possibly be expected to duel to the death at school, could they?

“Relax, nobody’s going to challenge you to a duel,” Draco assured him. “We’re untouchable.”

“Keep on like that and I might decide you need taking down a peg or two,” said Selwyn. “Uncle Abraxas would back me up. You don’t outrank me until you reach your majority.”

“No, but Harry and I outrank almost everyone else,” said Draco.

“And that won’t count for much if you piss off a Senior,” said Selwyn, in a lower voice. “Take some advice, cousin, and learn to walk the walk before you talk the talk.”

“But the talk is so much fun,” said Draco in an equally low voice, earning a bemused shake of the head.

Another smattering of applause told them the Chaser trials had ended. They stood up, watching a small group of students land in front of Flint. The rest headed towards the broom store.

“I’ll see you back at the castle,” said Greg.

It was fairly easy to see who belonged on which team. The Seniors all looked enormous to Harry. The Beaters, a pair of girls, looked particularly fearsome, despite being not much taller than the Junior Keeper, a boy called Miles Bletchley. The other Junior Chasers were Marcus Flint’s sister, Marcella, and a beefy-looking boy called Graham Montague. Flint and Bletchley both greeted Harry with warm smiles and firm handshakes.

“First-years, Flint, seriously?” asked Montague, when Harry offered his hand to the boy.

“They won the tryouts,” said Marcus Flint.

“Not fairly,” said Montague. “Or weren’t you watching when Malfoy grabbed Selwyn’s broom?”

“I was,” said Flint. “And Potter was seconds from catching the Snitch first without help whilst flying a school broom. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with a decent one.”

Montague scowled. “Have you even seen a game of Quidditch before?” he demanded of Harry.

“You can’t have done, from the way you were flying,” Draco retorted.

“All right, I don’t want any bickering in my team,” Flint said sternly. “Montague, shake Potter’s hand before it falls off.”

Harry realised he was still holding his hand out to the older boy. Montague took it and crushed it. Harry dug his nails into the older boy’s long fingers.

The Junior Beaters, Peregrine Derrick and Lucian Bole, were both very excited to get to shake Harry’s hand. Their enthusiasm made up for Montague’s negativity. There were also three reserves for each team, who would join them for training and rotate through different positions so they could cover whatever was needed if someone got ill. James Selwyn sneered at Harry and refused to shake his hand, apparently not caring for their familial relationship. Yellow-haired Betram Yaxley, on the other hand, shook Harry’s hand enthusiastically and clapped him on the back.

Once they’d all put their brooms away, Flint made them go back to the castle and down to the Slytherin Wing so that he could announce the teams to the House before dinner. The room wasn’t quite as crowded as it had been for Professor Snape’s speech on the first day, but there were plenty of older students who’d come up from the Senior Common Room. Harry felt their stares lingering on him and Draco as their names were announced and wondered how many of them were thinking the same as Montague.

Then Harry spotted Professor Snape, standing near the entrance to the common room. The Potions Master was regarding him with a look of intense dislike. Harry quickly looked away from his gaze, wondering what he could possibly have done to make Snape hate him so much. It couldn’t just be that he was famous; Draco was practically a celebrity as well, and Snape seemed to like him.

When the applause for the new teams died down, Simon Selwyn cleared his throat. Draco turned to Harry and rolled his eyes, before stepping forwards so that every eye was focused on him.

“I owe Simon Selwyn an apology,” Draco announced. “During the Seeker tryouts this afternoon, his Nimbus Nineteen-Ninety-Nine was several lengths ahead of the broomstick Harry Potter had borrowed from the school store in a race for the first Snitch. I caught the end of Selwyn’s broomstick momentarily, during which time Harry caught the Snitch, leaving Selwyn to earn his place by catching the second, several minutes later. I’m sorry that I interfered.”

Harry looked from Draco to Selwyn. That didn’t sound like much of an apology to him, but Selwyn looked amused, rather than upset.

“I accept your apology,” said Selwyn, projecting his voice across the common room.

“One more thing,” Flint shouted, as the crown began to disperse. “Nobody is to say a word about the team - especially not Potter and Malfoy. Juniors are up against Gryffindor first, and it’ll drive Wood mad trying to practise without knowing exactly who they’re up against. And the rest of them will underestimate these two when they finally find out they’re playing.”

The crowd began to disperse. Harry and Draco followed the mass of students heading out into the corridor, but Selwyn stepped in front of them.

“I deserved that for demanding a public apology,” said the older boy. “But don’t forget my advice, cousin. Don’t let your mouth get you into trouble until your wand can get you out of it.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Draco assured him. “Did you see your brother’s face? He looked ready to murder me!”

“He’s not that stupid, he knows Uncle Abraxas would kill us both if he did,” said Selwyn. “Now go enjoy your dinner.”

Harry assumed the news that he and Draco were on their House team would be all over the school the next day, but when he and Draco headed to Herbology the next morning, nobody paid him any more attention than usual. Even Madam Hooch, who surely knew who had been chosen for the Slytherin teams, said nothing during their afternoon Flying lesson.

After Prep that evening, Harry pored through broom adverts with Draco. He didn’t have enough money with him to send with an order form, but Draco told him that he could sign a letter to Gringotts using his key, and authorise them to release the funds to whatever store he chose.

He wasn’t sure how much money he actually had in his vault - or how many pounds a Galleon was worth - and some of the brooms sounded incredibly expensive. But as Draco pointed out, if he got a good broomstick now, he wouldn’t need to replace it before he left school. When Draco assured him that three hundred and fifty-nine Galleons really wasn’t very much, in the grand scheme of things, Harry decided to go ahead with his recommendation, and ordered a Nimbus Two Thousand. He winced as he signed an authorisation for the money to be paid to Quality Quidditch Supplies; he’d never imagined owning the mountain of gold in his safe in Gringotts, let alone spending it. The indentation left by the end of the key in the parchment glowed with a silvery light.

Draco laughed when he lamented the fact that it would take Hedwig several days to get to London to place the order, on top of the delivery time for the broomstick itself.

“Just tell her to use the Post Office in Hogsmeade,” he explained. “It’s only nine Knuts for a privately-owned owl to make a domestic journey.”

“But how do I pay for it?” asked Harry.

“Don’t you have a purse for her?” asked Draco. When Harry shook his head, he offered, “Tell you what, I’ll send your order with Mouser. I was planning on sending a letter to grandfather anyway - he stays in London when the Wizengamot are in session. And I’ll ask him to send a spare coin purse back. Just chuck a couple of Sickles in it and you’ll be good for the rest of term.”

Mouser was a splendid eagle owl with large, tufted ears. He hooted his understanding at Draco’s instructions, then squeezed through the owl-window, which had been designed with smaller birds in mind.

“Father will already have told grandfather I’ve made the team,” said Draco, “but I know grandfather will want to hear from me as well. Maybe he’ll talk father into buying me a new broom - we could both have Two Thousands.”

“Thanks,” said Harry.

“Don’t mention it,” said Draco. “There was no point in sending Hedwig the slow way, not when you’ll have to wait a while for Quality Quidditch Supplies to fulfil your order once they get it!”

By the end of the second week of term, Harry was very glad the weekend meant a break from classes. He’d hardly ever been set homework at primary school, and yet in a single week at Hogwarts he’d been given several worksheets, three essays to write, a set of dates to memorise, and a star chart to annotate. The Prep hour after dinner each day wasn’t nearly long enough to finish it all.

He was looking forward to a relaxing afternoon walking around the grounds when he finally put his quill down, but Draco had other ideas.

“I’ve been thinking about what Selwyn said,” said Draco, and he led Harry from the Slytherin Wing to an empty dungeon. “You should have a few tricks up your sleeve in case you need them.”

“What sort of tricks?” Harry asked nervously, as Draco drew his wand.

“Hexes, jinxes, that kind of thing,” said Draco. “Slytherins tend to get picked on by the other students - you heard Boot laughing at Vince and Greg for having to take remedial reading and writing.  My father taught me the basics of duelling already, of course, but everyone probably assumes you can’t handle yourself in a duel.”

Harry felt even more nervous as he drew his own wand from his pocket. He’d thought he was safe from being attacked by bullies now he was away from St Gregory’s.

“What about that freezing spell that Nott did?”

Draco shook his head. “We’ll try a Tripping Jinx first. You’ve tripped over before right?”

Harry nodded. “So I have a better understanding of what the spell does,” he realised aloud.

“Look who’s been paying in attention in class,” said Draco, with a grin. “Once you’ve got the hang of that, we could try the Leg-Locker Jinx. My father got me to master that before moving on to the Body-Bind. He brought me to a governors’ meeting over the summer and left me stuck in that trick step on the Astronomy staircase, so I knew exactly what I was aiming for.”

Harry wondered whether his experiences being sat on by Malcom Smythe-Miller whilst Dennis Cuttleworth emptied his schoolbag would work for him the same way.

“The incantation is claude, and the wand movement is linear, thirty horizontal, indent North first quarter,” said Draco.

He demonstrated a quick, diagonal movement, but Harry had hardly understood a word he’d said.

“Er - what?” asked Harry. “Horizontal quarter?

"Oh, of course, you haven’t been taught Bragge shorthand,” said Draco. “If the library doesn’t have an introduction you can borrow, I’ll ask father to send you one. It’s a way of precisely describing a wand movement so that you don’t need to see it to replicate it. The Standard Book of Spells doesn’t include them until Grade Four, I think, but you’ll find them in older textbooks, and father says the teachers will start using them as soon as we get past the really basic spells.

“Linear means you move your wand in a straight line, thirty horizontal means at thirty degrees on a vertical plane, and the rest means you do an upwards indent in the line a quarter of the way along it. Linear, thirty horizontal, indent Northern first quarter.”

He demonstrated twice more in slow motion, then once quickly. Harry thought it sounded an awfully complicated way of describing things, but he narrated his movements as he imitated what Draco had done.

“That’s almost it,” said Draco. “Try it a couple more times.”

Harry did. And then a couple more.

“Right, now try adding the incantation, and focussing on me,” ordered Draco.

Harry pointed his wand at his friend, repeated the movement he’d been practising, and said, “Claude!”

Draco’s left foot jerked forwards; he caught himself, throwing his hands out to the sides, and grinned back at Harry.

“That was great! If I was walking rather than standing still, you might have actually managed to knock me over!”

Harry was grinning too. Draco’s enthusiasm was infectious.

“Try it a couple more times, to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, and then I’ll show you the Leg-Locker Jinx.”

Thankfully, it hadn’t been a fluke, but when they called it a day almost an hour later, Harry hadn’t managed to freeze so much as Draco’s toes. He wondered whether he should take some time after dinner to find the trick step in the Astronomy tower himself. He was about to say as much, when a thought occurred to him.

“Draco, can we get into trouble for this? Practising spells we haven’t been taught, I mean.”

“Nobody cares whether we practise stuff we learned outside class,” said Draco. “Unless we use magic in the corridors, or we break something, I guess. Anyway, even if we could get into trouble, you’d still need to make sure you can look after yourself. If you get a reputation for being an easy target, you’ll end up hopping back to the common room most nights.”

Harry wasn’t sure who Draco thought was going to start jinxing him regularly, but he still wanted to know as much magic as he could.

“Can we give it a couple more tries after dinner?”

Four weeks into term, they were excused from afternoon lessons so that they could celebrate Dia Meti, the festival of the autumn equinox. Harry knew little about the religious beliefs of his classmates, except that they seemed to be vaguely Christian in nature, but there were several days of the year other than Christmas and Easter which held spiritual significance to wizards. Exactly what significance, he didn’t know. Nobody had volunteered the information, and Draco had gone pink when Harry asked him. He’d mumbled something about religion being personal, and Harry had been too embarrassed to ask anyone else.

When Harry joined the rest of the Lower School Slytherins in one of the castle’s many courtyards in the early afternoon, he felt very under-dressed. He’d worn one or other of the two sets of non-uniform robes he’d bought at Madam Malkins every weekend so far, but he wished he’d bought a smarter set for formal occasions. Lunch had been pushed back until after the equinox, so everyone had gone back to the Slytherin Wing to change after their morning lessons. Draco had made him put on his cloak and hat before letting him leave the dormitory. Draco himself wore a pale green shirt and a silver-grey jacket and trousers that looked like something out of a history book, beneath an emerald cloak that glittered in the sunlight; Vince and Greg wore matching green and black robes; Nott’s robes and cloak were both a shade of green so dark they looked black until he stepped into the sun, where they glittered like scales.

Draco had, at least, told Harry what to do the night before, even if he hadn’t told him why. When the moment of the equinox arrived, bells rang out all over the castle, and Harry raised his arms, and turned his face towards the sun. He could see it burning fiercely through his closed eyelids, and he felt a warmth spread through his entire body, deep into his bones. It was as though someone had distilled the essence of magic and poured it into him until he was saturated from his toes right to the messy tips of his hair; a light as brilliant as the sun itself filled him, burning within him and radiating outwards, connecting him to every person within a hundred feet; he felt alive as he never had done before, joyful enough to sing, only there were no words to do justice to the magnificence of the occasion.

It took him a while to realise that the bells had stopped ringing. He gazed around, half-blind, and saw his own ecstasy mirrored on a dozen faces. Giddy, Harry followed his Housemates to the Great Hall where there was a feast every bit as good as the Welcome Feast. The festive spirit had everyone in good cheer; Zabini and Nott, who were the last two students Harry was yet to get on a first-name basis with, both called him Harry rather than Potter. There was a great party in the common room afterwards, and most of the Upper Schoolers stayed downstairs rather than retreating to their own common room.

When Professor Snape came in half an hour after second curfew, Harry stared around in confusion, wondering why everyone was still talking and laughing, dancing and singing, rather than hurrying to their dormitories. But Snape walked, rather than stalked, into the common room, his thin lips curved in a smile. The Prefects came over to greet him, and he even danced a few steps with Jessica Rowle before he swept a bow and left.

Harry was so tired by the time he finally went to bed that he simply collapsed on top of his sheets, still wearing his robes.

Chapter Text

1 October

Ron Weasley

A week after Dia Meti, Ron was mopping up his baked bean sauce with a slice of fried bread, when half a dozen owls soared through the window, carrying a long, thin parcel between them. They swooped down to the end of the Slytherin table.

Ron tried to see who the parcel had been delivered to, but several students had crowded around that section of the table, obscuring the parcel, and its recipient, from view. Ron rolled his eyes. No doubt one of the spoilt Slytherins had been sent something very expensive, and everyone wanted to get a good look. Ron hadn’t received anything at all since the letter his parents had sent congratulating him on being Sorted into Gryffindor.

No longer hungry, Ron shoved back his chair. He stomped past the other House tables and into the Entrance Hall. He was just going up the stairs when he heard a group of people leaving the Great Hall behind him, whispering excitedly.

“—the fastest one they’ve made yet!”

“Can I try it, Harry?”

Ron turned around. A burly student around Percy’s age was carrying the parcel he’d seen towards the dungeon staircase. A gaggle of younger Slytherins were following him, led by a smirking Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. He rolled his eyes again. Obviously someone was sucking up to Potter and Malfoy by showing off what was unmistakably a new broomstick.

He was halfway to the History of Magic classroom when he realised that everyone he’d seen following the boy with the broomstick was from his own year. He stopped short. Why had one of them asked Potter if he could try it out, if the broomstick belonged to the older boy? Unless… but first-years weren’t allowed their own broomsticks, everyone knew that. Fred and George had got into terrible trouble when they’d tried to use a Shrinking Charm to sneak their brooms into the school, only to have the charms wear off whilst they were on the Hogwarts Express, shredding their trunks and throwing the contents all over their compartment. He’d heard mum preparing their Howler from the end of the garden.

Professor Binns’ classroom was empty when Ron arrived, and it was several long minutes before the rest of the class began to arrive. Granger was first, of course, and she took the seat next to Ron. She spent the whole lesson elbowing him every time he began to fall asleep, and giving him increasingly dirty looks.

Ron hadn’t failed to notice that Potter looked almost as smug as Malfoy normally did all the way through the class, so as soon as the bell rang, he hurried to the door and fell into step with Potter.

“What was that at breakfast?”

Potter jumped. “Nothing,” he said immediately.

Ron glared at him. “It looked like you got a broomstick.”

Malfoy sauntered over and slung his arm around Potter’s shoulders.

“Everything OK, Harry?”

“First-years aren’t allowed brooms,” said Ron, before Potter had a chance to speak.

Malfoy laughed. “Just as well, your parents might be able to afford a few twigs towards one for you after not having to feed you for a year.”

Potter snorted as though it was the funniest thing he’d heard all day.

“At least my family don’t sell themselves out for a broomstick,” Ron shot back.

“Drop it, Weasley,” said Potter, “or you’ll get your robes dirty falling over when I jinx you.”

Ron tried to think of a good comeback, but words failed him. So when he got to the Geography classroom a while later, he took the seat next to Potter and hissed, “You’re awfully cocky now you’ve got Malfoy to stick up for you.”

“I don’t need anyone to stick up for me,” Potter boasted. “I can fight my own battles.”

Ron laughed. “Oh yeah? Then prove it - Wizards Duel, tonight. Lakeside Trophy Room.”

“Fine,” said Potter. “Who’s your second?”

“I presume Malfoy’s yours?”

Potter turned around. Malfoy, who had obviously been listening to their conversation, nodded, his smirk even wider than normal.

“Of course,” said Potter.

Ron looked at Neville, who had taken the seat next to him. The boy turned white as a sheet.

“Uh…” said Neville. He looked from Ron to Potter, then past him at Malfoy. He turned even paler still. “I-I guess.”

Professor Sinistra walked into the room before anyone could say anything else, and Ron proceeded to ignore Potter for the rest of the lesson.

“You can’t fight a duel!” Neville whispered, as soon as they left the classroom. “And I can’t be your second, I don’t know any duelling spells!”

“Well, we’ve got twelve hours to figure it out,” said Ron.

“You mean you don’t know any either?” squeaked Neville. “Oh my god, we’re going to die.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Ron. “If it comes to it, I’ll just throw my wand away and punch the git in the face.”

Ron and Neville went to bed as usual that night, but they didn’t go to sleep. A while after he heard Seamus and Dean start snoring, Ron got back out of bed and started changing out of his pyjamas into his robes. He wished he had a spare set without any House colours, but he supposed his hair would probably identify him anyway, if they were seen. Maybe someone would think he was Fred or George, if they didn’t get too close. They probably snuck out at night on a weekly basis.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Neville whispered. He didn’t look dressed for a duel; he’d simply pulled a cloak on over his striped pyjamas.

“I’m not letting Potter call me a coward!” Ron whispered back.

He opened the dormitory door, poked his head out and looked up and down the stairs. There was nobody there, so the two of them crept down the stairs. Ron checked that the common room was clear, and they tiptoed hurriedly across it to the portrait hole. The Fat Lady’s portrait swung forward, revealing a dark, empty corridor.

“What are you two doing?”

Ron groaned. The corridor was not so empty after all. Hermione Granger was sitting against the wall opposite the Fat Lady’s portrait, beside a large stack of books.

“Have you been studying out here?” Ron asked incredulously.

“Of course not!” snapped Granger. “Madam Pince gave me permission to stay in the library until second curfew, because I was using one of the books we’re not allowed to take out, and when I got back, the Fat Lady had gone for a walk.”

Ron turned around. The Fat Lady’s portrait was indeed empty.

“Anyway, what are you doing out here? You’re certainly not going to the library!”

“Sleepwalking,” said Ron.

Granger sniffed. “I thought your brother was a Prefect. You should know better than to sneak out after curfew. Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” said Ron.

“Well, if you don’t tell me, I’ll tell Professor McGonagall that you’ve been sneaking out at night.”

“And we’ll tell her you snuck out,” Ron threatened, even though he knew which of them Professor McGonagall would believe. “Now we’ve got somewhere to be, if you don’t—”

“I’m coming with you,” said Granger, suddenly springing to her feet.

“You are not.”

“Well, I’m not waiting here on my own so you two can tell Filch a bunch of lies about me when you get caught!”

“Ron, maybe you should make Hermione your second,” said Neville.

Hermione gasped loudly. “You are not sneaking out to go to a duel!”

Ron glared at Neville.

“You’re right, we’re not,” he told Hermione. “We were hungry, so we thought we’d try to find the kitchens. And we’re still hungry, so we’ll say—”

“You’re going to get in so much trouble!” hissed Granger.

Ron and Neville ignored her and hurried along the corridor. They were going to be late, and Potter would tell everyone they were too cowardly to show up.

“— going to get yourselves expe—”

“At this rate, the person who’s going to get us expelled is you!” Ron whispered furiously at Granger, who was still following them and hissing like an angry goose. “Shut up, would you!”

Granger shut up, but she carried on following them. They reached the bottom of a staircase and rounded a corner, walking as quickly as they dared.

“Ron!”

The three Gryffindors spun around. Potter and Malfoy peered around a doorway at them.

“Trying to sneak up on us?” Ron asked angrily. “Cowards.”

Potter shook his head. “No! Ron, we need to get out of here, Filch is coming.”

Ron glared at the two Slytherins. He’d spent all evening trying to learn a jinx he could use, and they were going to chicken out at the last minute!

“You’re not going to get out —”

A miaow down the corridor made him stop mid-sentence.

“Quick, this way,” said Malfoy.

He grabbed Potter’s sleeve, and took off down the corridor. Ron hurried after him, Neville and Granger hot on his heels. They ran around a corner and through the first door they saw, then crowded around the door, listening for signs of Mrs Norris or Filch.

“Anyone here, my sweet?” they heard Filch’s voice call.

Ron glared at Potter and Malfoy as Filch’s footsteps grew closer and closer, and then mercifully receded.

When the coast was finally clear, he demanded, “What was that about?”

“Someone tipped Filch off,” said Potter. “We hurried to cut you off and warn you so you wouldn’t get into trouble for being out at night.”

“You should be in trouble,” hissed Granger. “None of you should be out of bed, this is ridiculous.”

Potter looked at her. “So what’re you doing here?”

“I got locked out of Gryffindor because I got back late from the library,” Granger explained, looking embarrassed.

“Did you really come to warn us?” Ron asked.

Potter nodded. Malfoy looked suspiciously guilty.

Ron shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Thanks. Do you still want to duel?”

Potter laughed. “Not really, no.”

Peeves suddenly came shooting out of a wall and gave a squeal of delight when he saw them.

“Shut up, Peeves, you’ll get us in trouble!” hissed Malfoy.

“Wandering around at midnight, little firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you’ll get caughty.”

“Not if you don’t give us away,” reasoned Granger.

“Should tell Filch, I should,” said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. “It’s for your own good, you know.”

“Get out of the way,” snapped Ron, swiping past Peeves to open the door - this was a big mistake.

“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed. “STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!”

Ducking under Peeves they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor, where they slammed into a door - and it was locked.

“This is it!” Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door. “We’re done for! This is the end!”

They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could towards Peeves’ shouts.

“Oh, move over,” snarled Malfoy, shoving Ron aside. He tapped the lock with his wand and whispered, “Alohamora.”

The lock clicked and the door swung open - they piled through it, shut it quickly and pressed their ears against it, listening.

“Which way did they go, Peeves?” Filch was saying. “Quick, tell me.”

“Say ‘please’.”

“Don’t mess me about, Peeves, now where did they go?”

“Shan’t say nothing if you don’t say please,” said Peeves in his annoying sing-song voice.

“All right - Please.”

“NOTHING! Hahaaa! Told you I wouldn’t say nothing if you didn’t say please! Ha ha! Haaaa!” And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

“He thinks this door is locked,” Potter whispered. “I think we’ll be OK—”

“Shut up,” Ron hissed urgently, before Potter could get him killed after all.

They weren’t in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog which filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Ron knew that the only reason they weren’t already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.

Potter groped for the doorknob, and they fell backwards. Potter slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else because they didn’t see him anywhere, but they hardly cared - all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster.

“Bye!” Ron panted at Potter, and he, Granger and Neville hurried past the stairs Potter and Malfoy descended down. They didn’t stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“Where on earth have you all been?” she asked, looking at their flushed sweaty faces.

“None of your business,” panted Ron. “Pig snout, pig snout.”

The portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling into armchairs.

“What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?” said Ron finally. “If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

Granger had got both her breath and her bad temper back again.

“You don’t use your eyes, either of you, do you?” she snapped. “Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”

“The floor,” Ron suggested.

“I was looking at its heads, not its feet,” said Neville.

“It was standing on a trapdoor,” said Granger. “It’s obviously guarding something.”

She stood up, glaring at them.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

Ron stared after her, his mouth open.

“No, we don’t mind,” he said to Neville. “You’d think we dragged her along, wouldn’t you?”

4 October

Harry Potter

The next Potions class after they encountered the three-headed dog was the most comfortable Harry had experienced so far; Ron said good morning to him when he sat down, and Longbottom didn’t do anything to ruin their potion. None of them mentioned the three-headed dog in the out-of-bounds corridor, and Ron still wasn’t exactly friendly, but he seemed to have decided he didn’t hate Harry. Granger, on the other hand, seemed to be ignoring all of them, which wasn’t a great loss as Harry had hardly said more than a few words to her before, and, like everyone else, usually did his best to avoid her.

“So how come you’ve got a broomstick?” Ron asked at the end of the lesson, when Professor Snape was stalking around the classroom, testing each group’s potion.

“I’m not supposed to say,” said Harry. He debated telling Ron and swearing him to secrecy, but he knew how much Ron cared about Quidditch. He doubted Ron would be able to keep a secret like that, especially when the first match was against Gryffindor, and removing Slytherin’s element of surprise might make a difference to the outcome.

Ron rolled his eyes. “I bet you told Malfoy though, didn’t you?”

Harry forced himself to reply calmly, because being on friendly terms with Ron was a much nicer experience than whatever had been going on between them before. “Draco knows, but I didn’t exactly tell him.”

“Sure.” Ron seemed to sulk for a couple of minutes, but he was soon asking Harry lots of questions about what was his favourite lesson so far, whether Vince and Greg were as stupid as they looked and whether Professor Snape had really danced with someone at Dia Meti.

Draco had obviously noticed Ron’s change in attitude. As they walked back to the common room for morning break, he said “Weasley was awfully friendly for someone who challenged you to a duel a few days ago.”

“You know we sat together on the train? We chatted a lot, and I think we both thought we were going to be close friends. And then…”

“And then you got sorted into Slytherin,” said Draco. “Yeah, I can see why someone like Weasley would take that amiss. Father says most of them think being in Slytherin makes you a wizard supremacist and part of the Dark Lord’s inner circle - but they’re a bunch of hypocrites. Only one Weasley has married a Muggle in the last century - the rest of them have married at least second-generation half-bloods.”

“Is that why you tried to get Ron caught by Filch?”

Draco looked guilty. “I— well, I assumed that was what you wanted. I never dreamed you’d actually try to go through with the duel.”

Harry frowned. “But I’d said I would.”

Draco looked just as confused as he did, then after a long pause, he grinned. “Harry, that is such a Gryffindor thing to say.”

Harry remembered what the Hat had said to him at the Sorting Ceremony: ‘plenty of courage, I see’.

“The Sorting Hat considered Gryffindor,” he admitted, “but I didn’t think I was brave enough.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “After last night, I’d say you’re plenty brave enough - or foolish enough! But…”

“What?”

Draco blushed. “No, it’s stupid.”

Harry waited.

“Well, I was only going to say, you made me a little bit brave too. I know it was my fault we needed to stop Filch finding Weasley in the first place, but it felt good to save him.”

Harry grinned. “It did, didn’t it. But maybe let’s try not to put anyone else in a position where they need saving.”

That evening they finally had their first Quidditch practice, and Harry and Draco were presented with green and silver Quidditch robes when they arrived. Harry stroked one of the sleeves absentmindedly whilst Flint repeated introductions between the different players. Both teams would train together, but Harry was relieved to discover that they would spend most of their time doing drills, rather than playing a match against each other. Edith Snyde and Mildred Mulciber towered over him and Draco, and he didn’t much fancy being on the receiving end of any Bludger they hit. The Junior Keeper, Miles Bletchley, was almost as tall as half the Seniors and twice as wide. Harry wondered if he had been chosen for the team because he could block a hoop just by sitting in front of it, but he turned out to be much more agile than he looked.

Flying the Nimbus Two Thousand was a dream; it turned wherever he wanted at the lightest touch and it could reach the top speed of one of the school brooms in half the time without trying. By the end of practice, Flint was grinning from ear to ear.

“We’re winning both Cups this year,” he said as they all walked back to the dungeons.

The team flanked Harry and and Draco as they walked through the corridors so that they were hidden from any passing students. Harry felt a little bit claustrophobic being surrounded by so many older and larger students, but Draco held his head high and walked as though he were a King surrounded by his courtly attendants. Harry tried to do the same.

The first Quidditch matches wouldn’t take place until the weekend after Samhain (which was what Harry’s Housemates called Hallowe’en) but Harry and Draco now had Quidditch practice twice a week, on top of all their homework. The homework wasn’t too challenging, but there was a lot of it. After a couple of weekends were taken up with hurriedly trying to get through it all before classes started again on the Monday, Harry got into a rhythm of doing some of it every afternoon before dinner, which meant he could finish it in Prep and then enjoy his evenings.

These he spent letting the other first-years take it in turns to ride his new broomstick, playing games in the common room, or occasionally learning a new jinx from Draco. One he’d mastered the Body-Bind Jinx, Vince and Greg joined them. One evening, Vince tried to teach them a Pus-Squirting Hex he’d learned from his mother. Harry wasn’t sure whether to be glad he wasn’t familiar enough with pus exploding from his nose to pick up the spell quickly, or disappointed that he was the only one who hadn’t managed it before the first curfew bell meant they had to go back to the common room.

The evenings got darker earlier and earlier, and as the end of the autumn term approached, people began to decide what to do for Reading Week. It was the first opportunity to get the Hogwarts Express back to London, or they could stay at school. The older students could sign up for intensive short courses, but the first-years who stayed would have their timetables replaced with supervised independent study and the chance to sign up for a few specialist classes.. Harry and Draco were staying, of course - the first Senior Quidditch matches took place at the end of the week, and both teams were expected to stay for practice. Harry had excitedly signed up to most of the optional classes: several spellwork classes, including making things fly, and even a Potions class. He was surprised to find that at least half his classmates were planning to stay as well, and although the study options featured in their discussions, most were staying to watch the Quidditch or for the legendary Samhain feast.

Harry had found a very old, battered book in the library which explained the significance of wicchen festivals, and he understood that Samhain was supposed to be a time for remembering lost loved ones, which explained why some of his classmates were more sombre than excited. He wondered who Blaise and Teddy had lost, but decided it would be rude to ask.

“Do wicchen go trick-or-treating?” Harry asked instead, as he sat down opposite Draco after Quidditch practice on the last day of the autumn term. It seemed a safe enough question, not prying too much into the secrets of his friend’s religion.

Draco looked embarrassed, and Harry wondered whether the question was prying, after all.

“Some of them,” said Draco. “It’s the one day of the year we don’t have to worry too much about the Statute of Secrecy.”

Greg sat down on a sofa opposite and guffawed loudly. “It’s a shame we can’t leave the castle, find a local village. I love scaring the Muggles on Samhain.”

Vince sat down next to him. “I don’t know why they call it trick or treat,” he mused. “We always trick them and get sweets anyway.”

“What sort of tricks?” Harry’s curiosity got the better of him. He’d never been allowed to go trick-or-treating.

Vince laughed. “Well, there was this big house with a pond, and the old lady who lived there had a horrible yappy dog. So we used to put the dog in the pond. Only last year, she had a kid come to stay, and we’d heard her screaming at the kid for the last week, so we dunked the kid instead.”

Greg guffawed again and punched Vince in the arm, “You never told me that! I wish I’d been there with you!”

Harry felt a bit sick. “Was the kid OK?”

Greg suddenly looked alarmed, but Vince looked confused at the question.

“Presumably. Heard her screaming at him again a few days later. Although dad wasn’t pleased when the Improper Use of Magic Officers came round to tell him off. Bloody do-gooders.”

“Samhain is a sacred night,” said Blaise Zabini in a disapproving tone.

Draco and Daphne nodded in agreement. Vince looked annoyed, but Greg suddenly looked guilty.

“Sorry, Blaise,” he said. “I forgot it’s not just distant ancestors for you.”

They all sat in silence for a while after that, and when Blaise headed off to bed, Harry and Draco followed. Blaise was never particularly happy if they went to bed much later than him.

When they entered their dormitory, he was sitting on his bed, still wearing his robes. He looked miserable.

“I’ve never seen father,” Blaise said quietly. “Mother says it’s because I hadn’t got my wand yet, and I should see him this year, but what if he doesn’t want to see me? What if he spends the whole night with mother instead?”

“He’s got a whole night to see everyone he wants to,” Draco said encouragingly. “And you’re his son - I’m sure he’ll visit you. Even if you can’t remember it in the morning.”

“How old were you when he died?” asked Harry. He’d never met anyone else who’d lost a parent.

“I was five. I don’t have many memories of him, and I’m not sure if the ones I do have are real. But mother and I put out a glass of whisky for him every Samhain, and mother says he’d come and sit with her by the fire, and he’d always comment on how much I’ve grown.”

“You mean, she actually sees him?” asked Harry. “What, like a ghost?”

Blaise laughed softly. “No, not a ghost. At Samhain - when the Veil is thinnest - our ancestors walk through the dreams of those who invite them in.”

“How do you invite them?”

Blaise and Draco exchanged a look, and Harry assumed he’d pried again. But he didn’t care if he wasn’t supposed to ask about it, not if there was a way for him to see his parents.

“Please,” said Harry. “I don’t have any memories of my parents. I’ve never even seen a photograph of them.”

“You offer a prayer for them before a fire,” Blaise said in a low voice. “Then you make an offering, some people offer the favourite food or drink of the person they most want to see, or something that belonged to them, or sometimes something they made themselves. Then you go to sleep, and hopefully your ancestors join you in your dreams.”

“Thank you,” whispered Harry.

Blaise nodded at him, then rose from his bed and began to change into his pyjamas. Draco looked awed when Harry turned around.

A while later, when the sound of snoring came from Blaise’s bed, Draco said quietly, “Harry, you should feel really honoured that Blaise shared that with you. Even my parents didn’t tell me - it’s the sacred responsibility of godparents to instruct in such things. My godfather taught me.”

“You told me what to do at Dia Meti,” Harry pointed out in a whisper.

“That was different,” said Draco. “Our festivals around the turning of the year celebrate natural shifts in the world’s magic, connecting us to the world and to each other. They still have great personal meaning, but they’re a shared experience. At Samhain and Beltane, we part the veil and connect to the souls beyond. Yes, we still have parties and public celebrations, but our rituals afterwards are private, intimate, to be shared with family or not at all.”

Harry suddenly felt a great sense of loss. If he had any godparents, he was sure Aunt Petunia would have sent him to live with them rather than at Privet Drive. He had nobody to teach him the secrets Draco spoke of. Even though Blaise had told him how to invite his parents to join him at Samhain, he didn’t have the first idea of what to offer them. He knew nothing about them, had nothing that belonged to them, and he wouldn’t even recognise them if they did walk into his dreams.

Chapter Text

Dear mum and dad,

Yes, please, I’d love some Jelly Babies, and you don’t need to worry about me eating them all myself. Apparently, some wicchen go Trick-or-Treating, but Parvati and Lavender have never been allowed, so they’ve never tried any Muggle sweets before. There’s a sweetshop in the village, but we’re not allowed to go until third year, so I won’t have anything sugary except whatever’s at the Hallowe’en Feast. It's supposed to be even better than the Welcome Feast, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Classes are going really well. Professor McGonagall said they don’t usually enter anyone for G.C.S.Es but Professor Undercliffe said I might be ready in third year, so it won’t have to interfere with my O.W.Ls. I don’t think I’ll be able to do geography though - nothing we’ve covered so far would be in the G.C.S.E paper, it’s all about cultures and magical landmarks.

Magic Theory is absolutely fascinating, but I think my favourite lesson is still Practical Magic Foundations. It’s ever so much fun trying out all the spells I’ve read about. I’ve signed up for all sorts of extra classes over Reading Week. Professor Flitwick is even going to teach us how to make things fly!

I’ve earned lots more points for Gryffindor in class, and one of my friends has started asking me to help him with his essays. It’s Neville Longbottom - remember I told you I helped him look for his toad on the train? Apparently, his great uncle is ever so important, so everyone expects him to be very good at everything, but his family didn’t think he would get an invitation for Hogwarts, so he got a tutor about three years later than everyone else. Nobody seems to have gone to school before this year unless they grew up with Muggles. Neville struggles to write so I’ve been helping him work out how to do his essays, but I might ask if he wants help practising spells as well. He’s really quite awful at them.

Thanks for letting me stay here for Reading Week. I’ll definitely come home for Christmas, but Professor McGonagall says the Hogwarts Express signups won’t be out for at least a couple more weeks. I’ll write again when I know what time we’re due in to the station.

Love from Hermione

Dear Ginny,

Percy’s only just told me he’s sending letters home, so this is going to be a short one or he’ll run off before I can finish it.

Sorry I’m not going to be home for Samhain, but I couldn’t miss the Feast after everything Fred and George have said about it. At least you won’t have to fight me for the last pumpkin pasty!

It turns out Harry Potter might not be such a git after all. Don’t tell mum, but I challenged him to a duel and I’m pretty sure one of his Housemates ratted us out to Filch. He came and warned me so we wouldn’t get caught out of bed, and he’s actually been kind of friendly since, even if the rest of the Slytherins are a bunch of arseholes.

You won’t let mum read this, right?

Anyway, Percy’s getting impatient. See you at Christmas.

Love from Ron

Dear Auntie Theia,

I was just wondering, is there a record of Godparents somewhere? Does the Ministry always know who to give the child to, if their parents die, even if the Godparents aren’t family? And if someone’s godparents and parents all die before they’re old enough to learn about God and their family’s prayers and rituals, would anyone be able to teach them instead, or are they doomed to be faithless forever?

Love from Draco

Dear Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon,

I’m staying at school for the holidays so I don’t need anyone to collect me from Kings Cross.

I don’t know if the postman will be able to find Hog my school so if you need to reply please send something with Hedwig. I’ve asked her to wait whilst you read this.

From Harry

Dearest grandfather,

I’m sure father’s already told you that I won’t be home for Reading Week. He says you’re going back the Manor for the recess. I’ll be sad to miss you, but I’ll see you for the winter holidays. Before you leave for the Manor, are you able to send me one of Grandma’s hairpins to use as an offering at Samhain? Mother’s sending me some of her parents’ things, and I’ve got great uncle Draco’s old locket, of course, but I didn’t expect to make the Quidditch team and have to stay for the holidays.

Speaking of Quidditch, it’s only a few weeks now until Christmas, and the Quidditch Captain has been dropping heavy hints about me upgrading my broomstick. I don’t think father’s going to get me one, but I wondered if you might be interested in helping your old House out in securing the Junior Quidditch Cup. The Nimbus Two Thousand really is a great upgrade on the old Ninety-Nine, so it would be an excellent investment in my future.

I’m glad we’re off timetable for Reading Week. They’ve been taking things awfully slowly, but I suppose that makes sense given how many Mudbloods there are.  I don’t understand how half of them got into Hogwarts when they hardly seem to be able to tell one end of their wand from the other. Thank goodness we don’t have any in Slytherin!

Father’s coming to watch my first Quidditch match in a couple of weeks, but mother’s not sure if she’ll be joining him. It would be lovely to see you there, even if mother can make it after all. I don’t see why the head of the governors should only be allowed one guest and I’m sure Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t send you away.

I’m sure I’ll see you when I speak to father next.

Love from Draco

Dear Uncle Turi,

I’ve asked my mother and grandfather to send me some foci, but you know I’ve never spent Samhain away from home before, and I wondered if you had any advice to make sure everyone can find me at Hogwarts.

There’s something else I’ve been thinking about as well. I know you said I should never discuss what you teach me with anyone who isn’t family, but how exactly are you defining family? Is it just the Blacks and the Malfoys, or could I talk to Simon and James Selwyn about my ancestral prayers, for instance? They’re both at Hogwarts with me.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Love from Draco

Chapter Text

31 October

Hermione Granger

Hermione woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors on Halloween morning. Even better, today was the day of their lesson on making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they’d seen Professor Flitwick make Neville’s toad zoom around the classroom. The class was very well-attended, so Professor Flitwick put them into pairs to practise.

Ron looked angry to be paired with her, which Hermione thought was completely unreasonable. She was the one who should be upset; Ron’s ridiculous antics had almost got her kicked out of school. He might have been allowed to keep his wand and learn from his parents how to use it, but hers would have been snapped in two or, if she was very lucky, taken by the Ministry until she turned seventeen.

“Now, don’t forget that nice wrist movement we’ve been practising!” squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. “Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too - never forget Wizard Baruffio who said ‘s’ instead of ‘f’ and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest.”

Hermione had spent half an hour last night practising the wand movement, but now she wondered whether she should have practised the incantation as well. She’d read enough on the debate over whether pronounciation was truly important to know that saying this spell wrong wouldn’t result in anything so drastic as a buffalo landing on her chest. But if she thought the spell was supposed to be pronounced one way, and actually pronounced it another, most of the books she’d read suggested that the spell wouldn’t work.

Ron either hadn’t read the same books she had, or he hadn’t heard Professor Flitwick properly, because he started saying “Wingardium Leviosa,” over and over, stressing the wrong syllable every time as he swished and flicked his wand at their feather. Hermione glared at him, waiting for him to stop so she could have a go, but he seemed determined not to let her have a turn.

She looked around the classroom. None of the other Gryffindors seemed to be having much luck. Not one of the feathers had so much as quivered. Seamus had got so impatient he prodded his with his wand and set fire to it - Neville tried to put it out with his hat, and Professor Flitwick had to send a jet of water at their desk as Neville’s hat caught fire too.

Ron’s movements had become more and more erratic; he was now waving his arms like a windmill, and he was still saying the incantation wrong. At this rate, he’d have Hermione saying it that way too.

“You’re saying it wrong!” she snapped. “It’s Win-gardium Levi-o-sa, make the ‘gar’ nice and long.”

“You do it, then, if you’re so clever,” Ron snarled.

Hermione rolled up her sleeves, flicked her wand and said, “Wingardium leviosa!”

Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

“Oh, well done!” cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. “Everyone see here, Miss Granger’s done it!”

Hermione smiled and guided the feather back onto the desk.

“There you go, see,” she said to Ron, feeling so buoyed by her success that she was prepared to be helpful. “Say it how I did, move your arms a lot less, and you might get it.”

Ron glared at her. He resumed his wild waving, making his motions even bigger than before. His voice grew louder and louder as he repeated the incantation, until he was stressing every single syllable and punctuating them with a stab of his wand. Hermione rolled her eyes, pulled out a roll of parchment, and began to write down every piece of feedback she heard Professor Flitwick give to the other students.

At the end of the lesson, she stowed her parchment back in her bag, and followed Ron out of the classroom.

“It’s no wonder no one can stand her!” she heard Ron say to Neville. “She’s a nightmare, honestly!”

Hermione knew he must mean her. Her eyes prickling with tears, she barged past Ron and hurried to the girl’s bathroom before anyone could see her cry.

She spent almost a whole hour crying. Every time she thought she was done, she remembered another time someone had walked off when she was speaking to them, or mimicked her putting her hand up in class, and it set her off again. To make things worse, she knew Professor McGonagall would be very disappointed that she hadn’t turned up for her supervised study session.

Hermione had just about convinced herself to go to her final class, when the bathroom door opened and familiar voices entered.

“Can’t believe she missed a class!”

“Maybe she realised nobody wanted her here and she’s finally gone back where she belongs!”

Hermione shoved a hand over her mouth, but not in time to stop the loud wail that came out.

There was a long silence, then, “Hermione?” Parvati asked uncertainly.

“Have you been in here since the Levitation class?” asked Lavender.

“Go away!” Hermione shouted. “I don’t want to talk to you!”

“I’m sorry, Hermione, I didn’t mean it!” said Lavender. The cubicle door rattled. “Hermione, come out.”

“Go away!” Hermione shouted again.

“She really didn’t mean it,” said Parvati. “We’re all really glad you’re here. I’d have failed that Potions essay if you hadn’t helped me.”

Hermione sniffed.

“Come on, Parvati,” said Lavender. “Let’s give her some space.”

Hermione might have been able to leave the cubicle then, if she hadn’t heard Lavender say as the door closed behind them, “At least maybe she’ll stop telling everyone how to do things now.”

After another hour or so had passed, a ghost floated through the cubicle door.

“Oh, hullo,” said the ghost. She looked a few years older than Hermione, and a pair of large, pearly glasses sat on her translucent face. “What are you doing here?”

Hermione thought that was a very personal question to ask someone in a toilet, especially as she was sure her tear-stained face made it obvious she’d been crying.

“I thought people would like me in the magical world,” she said tearfully. “Nobody liked me at my old school, and I thought when I came to Hogwarts, it would be different. But everyone hates me!”

“Oh,” said the ghost. “I had that, too. Everyone called me names and made fun of me for my glasses. What do they make fun of you for? Your buck teeth? Your frizzy hair?”

Hermione burst into tears again.

“Both? Girls have got even more cruel!”

“It’s not just the girls,” wailed Hermione. “I told you, everyone hates me! Especially stupid Ron Weasley, even though if he just listened to me, I’m sure he’d have made our feather fly like he was supposed to. But nobody listens to me, they leave the room when I come in, they make any excuse not to sit next to me.”

The ghost peered at Hermione. “Have you tried not talking?”

Hermione brushed uselessly at her tear-stained face. “What do you mean?”

“There was a girl in my year who was a total know-it-all,” said the ghost. “She never stopped talking about how clever she was, and eventually, nobody could stand to be around her.”

“But I don’t talk about how clever I am!” said Hermione. “I’ve only known about magic for a year, I barely know anything compared to everyone else!”

“Well, then you must smell,” said the ghost.

“I do?” asked Hermione.

To her great surprise, the ghost let out a piecing wail. “How would I know? How insensitive, asking me if you smell!”

“You mean, because you’re dead?”

The ghost shrieked again, and dived through the cubicle wall and, apparently, into the toilet in the next cubicle. There was a loud splash as water sprayed out of it.

It wasn’t long before the bell rang for the end of class, but Hermione stayed in the toilets. She’d stopped crying, but she didn’t want to go back to Gryffindor Tower, not when Parvati and Lavender had probably told everyone she’d been crying. She didn’t particularly want to go to the library, either. She sat miserably on her toilet, doing not much at all, until the bell rang for dinner. Then she stayed sitting some more; the last place she wanted to be was at the feast.

A horrible smell wafted under the cubicle door. Hermione wondered if some sort of cleaning charm had suddenly worn off, because it smelled like a combination of old socks and a filthy public toilet. After waiting what felt like several minutes for the pins and needles in her legs to clear, she opened the cubicle door. It was probably safe to go to Gryffindor tower now that everyone was at the feast. She certainly didn’t want to stay if the smell was going to hang around.

The bathroom door opened. Hermione dived back into the cubicle, in case it was Parvati and Lavender again. But the footsteps were far too heavy to be Parvati or Lavender. In fact, they sounded too heavy to be anyone but the enormous gamekeeper. Hermione opened the cubicle door a crack.

The bathroom door slammed shut just as Hermione saw what was standing in front of her cubicle. She heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock as the twelve-foot troll raised a club in a lumpy, grey hand.

She let out an ear-splitting scream, and dived out of the cubicle as the troll’s club smashed the toilet she’d spent all day sitting on into pieces. She shrank back against the wall as the troll turned to face her once again.

With another loud crash the troll ripped first one sink off the wall, then another, as it advanced towards her, and then—

“OI!”

A tap bounced uselessly off the troll’s head and clattered to the floor. Hermione and the troll both looked around to see what had caused the noise.

“Confuse it!” Ron said to Neville.

Neville squeaked.

Hermione screamed and scrambled backwards as the troll turned back from the distraction and brought its club swinging down on the last sink.

She watched Neville’s lips shape words, but no sound came out. The boy took a deep breath and tried again.

“Hello,” he said stupidly. “Hello, Mr Troll!” He picked up another piece of piping, and threw it at the troll. “Hello, look at me! Don’t you want to hit me with your great big club?”

These last three words came out in another squeak, but they finally succeeded in getting the troll’s attention. It rounded on Neville; his face drained of the last of its colour.

“Hermione, run!” Ron shouted.

But Hermione couldn’t run. In fact, she was quite certain that if the troll swung its club towards her one more time, she wouldn’t even be able to dodge. She was rooted to the spot, terrified that not only was she about to die, but two of her classmates were, too. And since she could think of no other explanation for the two boys to be in the girls’ bathroom during the Hallowe’en feast, they were going to die because they’d come to apologise to her. She didn’t even care that their unkindness was the reason they felt the need to apologise in the first place.

“Hermione!” Ron shouted again.

Neville was still shouting at it, his words intermittently coming out as high-pitched squeaks of terror. The shouting and echoes seemed to be driving the troll berserk. It roared again, and hurled its club at Ron, who dodged it. Then it seized the sink it had knocked off the wall.

Hermione and Ron both screamed as the sink soared through the air and crashed into Neville; he went flying into a cubicle door and crumpled to the floor. The sink in front of him was splattered with what looked horribly like blood.

“No!” moaned Hermione. “Oh no, please, no.”

She didn’t see Ron draw his wand, but she heard his voice over the troll’s thudding footsteps. She’d never been more pleased to hear anything in her life than hearing Ron say, “Wingardium leviosa!”

The sink rose into the air. It performed a slow somersault as it rose higher, then dropped, with a sickening crack, onto the troll’s head. The troll swayed on the spot, and then fell, with a thud that made the whole room tremble, on top of Ron.

“Ron!” Hermione screamed.

Suddenly finding herself able to move again, she threw herself at him, tugging at the troll’s arm in an attempt to haul it off the boy.

“Oh no,” she moaned again. She crouched down, braced her shoulder against the troll, and shoved with all her might. “Ron, are you—

Loud footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.

“Help!” Hermione screamed. “In here! Please, help!”

To her great relief, Professor McGonagall came bursting into the room, closely followed by Professor Snape, with Professor Quirrell bringing up the rear. He took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper and sat quickly down on one of the few intact toilets, clutching his heart.

Professor McGonagall barely spared time to gasp before her wand was in her hand. The next moment, the troll’s body was thrown sideways. Professor McGonagall knelt down beside Ron and held her wand out over his head, then dragged it slowly across his body.

A gasp behind her made Hermione turn around. She felt a small flood of relief, as she saw Neville prop himself upright with one arm. His head and shoulder were bleeding, but he was conscious.

“Ron!” shouted Neville, lurching forwards.

“Sit down, Mr Longbottom,” snapped Professor McGonagall. “Quilius, go and fetch Poppy.”

“Excellent id-d-dea,” said Professor Quirrell, rising from the toilet.

“No, I’ll go,” Professor Snape said curtly, striding to the door. “Quilius should stay here in case it wakes up.”

Neville looked at the troll and whimpered.

“Is he OK?” Hermione asked. “Please tell me he’s OK, Professor.”

“He will live,” said Professor McGonagall. “But Mr Weasley is in for a very rough few days in Madam Pomfrey’s care. He is very lucky he wasn’t killed.” Her voice was full of fury Hermione had never heard before. “So perhaps one of you could tell me what on earth the three of you were doing here rather than safely in your dormitories?”

Understanding and gratitude flooded Hermione. Ron and Neville hadn’t come to apologise to her, they must have come to warn her about the troll after everyone was sent to their dormitories for their safety. Quite how a twelve foot troll had managed to get into the castle she wasn’t sure, but Hermione didn’t care about that right now. What she cared about was making sure her friends - and they were her friends if they’d risked their lives to save hers - weren’t forced to leave the school on her account. Even if that meant she would be the one riding the Hogwarts Express home tonight.

Hermione pushed herself to her feet.

“Ron and Neville were here because they were looking for me. I went looking for the troll because I - I thought I could deal with it on my own - you know, because I’ve read all about them.”

Neville looked utterly astonished to hear her lie to a teacher. She was glad both teachers were looking at her, because his incredulous expression would have betrayed her lies.

“If they hadn’t found me,” she continued, “I’d be dead now. Neville distracted it so Ron could knock it out. They didn’t have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived.”

“Well - in that case…” said Professor McGonagall, staring at Hermione. “Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?”

Hermione hung her head. She didn’t need to pretend to be embarrassed.

“As for you, Mr Longbottom, you should have come and found a teacher, not gone looking for Miss Granger by yourselves! Twenty points will be taken from Gryffindor, for both of you.”

“I’m sorry, Professor,” said Hermione. She’d never lost so much as a single point for Gryffindor before.

“I don’t doubt you are,” said Professor McGonagall, “but you will also serve detention with me on Saturday. I’m very disappointed in you.”

Hermione sniffed noisily and wiped yet more tears from her face, but she didn’t object. She was only relieved not to have been expelled.

Her relief was compounded further when Madam Pomfrey arrived and confirmed that she would be able to nurse Ron back to full health. She Conjured a stretcher, carefully eased Ron onto it with Professor Quirrell’s aid, and then bustled Ron and Neville off to the hospital wing.

“No, Miss Granger, you may not go with them,” said Professor McGonagall, when Hermione made to follow. “You will go straight to your dormitory, where I hope you will reflect on how poorly thought out your plan was. You may visit Mr Weasley and Mr Longbottom tomorrow.”

Hermione nodded, and fled to Gryffindor Tower.

1 November

Draco Malfoy

The troll was still the talk of the castle in the morning. Draco had expected everyone to share stories of their ancestors visiting in the night, but he supposed the excitement of the troll intruder had disturbed everyone else’s ritual as much as it had his own. By the time they’d finally been allowed down to the dungeons, he’d had to rush to get to bed before midnight. He had only a vague recollection of seeing his grandmothers, and couldn’t say whether or not they’d attempted to make conversation as he dreamed.

During breakfast, it became apparent that the troll had encountered a group of students, two of whom were in the hospital wing, but it was only when they got to Professor Snape’s Thawing Philtre class that the Slytherins found out who.

“Ron’s in the hospital wing?” Draco heard Harry ask loudly.

“Yes,” sniffed Granger. “The troll attacked him and Neville —”

“Everybody sit down,” came Professor Snape’s voice, and everyone else hurried to a seat and sat down. “Miss Granger, five points from Gryffindor. I’d have thought it was enough that you’d almost got your fellow students killed with your antics, but it seems you can’t help showing off.”

Draco was too astonished to laugh at Granger losing house points. She’d almost got two students killed and she was still here? His father had told him Mudbloods were favoured, but he’d never seen it so blatantly before.

“Mr Potter, I think I remember telling everyone to sit down.”

“Mr Potter, I think I remember telling everyone to sit down.”

Draco turned to watch Harry sit down with a pair of Hufflepuffs. They looked quite pleased to see him join them, probably glad to have someone with actual talent help them through the class. Draco wondered if Harry realised this wasn't going to be the sort of lesson to be tied down by halfwits. Working with them didn't seem to hinder him, however; at the end of the lesson, Snape studied the contents of Harry’s cauldron with one eyebrow raised.

“Well, Potter, it seems you can make a passable potion without Longbottom here to mess things up.”

Rather than looking pleased to finally have a compliment from Snape, Draco was surprised to see Harry looked worried. Before he could ask why, however, Harry had hurried off after Granger. Of course, he was worried about the Weasel.

Draco looked after them, weighing up the chance to get the story of what happened with the troll firsthand against willingly talking to the know-it-all Mudblood. The decision was taken out of his hands when Vince and Greg flanked him.

“What do you think happened?” asked Greg.

“How come the troll put two purebloods in the hospital wing but Granger didn’t even have a black eye?” asked Vince.

“You mean, Granger faked it?” asked Greg.

“Oh, please,” said Draco. “Hermione Granger, tell a lie? No, Weasley and Longbottom are just such terrible wizards they came off the worst. I bet it was a Muggle-hunter, and someone thought it would be funny to let it into the school. Probably one of your father’s friends.”

The Goyles owned a security company that specialised in trolls, and it was impossible to be in the troll-training business without knowing people who were involved in Muggle-hunting. At least, that was what Draco’s father had said when Draco asked him why he’d vouched for Greg’s father after he was accused of knowingly selling a troll for use in Muggle-hunting. Father usually distanced himself from anyone facing allegations like that until they were proven innocent, given his own history with false allegations. Father’s faith in Mr Goyle had been well-founded, however; the witch who’d accused him had confessed to falsifying the evidence and had enjoyed a three-month trip to Azkaban.

The rest of the Slytherin first-years suggested theories throughout the break, but nobody seemed to know much more than they did at breakfast. Whilst the fact that Longbottom was back in the hospital wing was hardly a surprise, it did prompt people to wonder whether his great-uncle would do anything. There were surely only so many times he could accept his heir being badly injured at school before he demanded Dumbledore take action.

“Typical Longbottom,” Vince said to Draco as they walked to their next class. “Only he could manage to get himself knocked out by a troll in a school of all places.”

Draco couldn’t help feeling that everyone was ignoring an important question: how had the troll got in? The school was supposed to have powerful protections against intruders, and trolls were so thick they needed reprogramming every few months. There was no way a single troll could have got into the castle without help. Unless, he supposed, it had actually got out of somewhere in the castle. Maybe it was guarding something, like that three-headed dog.

He went to say as much to Harry before he realised that Harry wasn’t there. He glanced at his wrist and frowned. The Reading period had started two minute ago.

Professor Greengage noticed the absence when she took the register a minute later. Her bushy eyebrows furrowed deep lines in her forehead.

“Where is Mr Potter?”

Everyone looked around at each other and shrugged.

“He was talking to that Mudblood,” muttered Vince. “Maybe he—”

“I will not tolerate language like that in my classroom!” snapped Professor Greengage. “Five points from Slytherin. Runcorn?”

“Here, professor,” said Tessie.

When Professor Greengage finished the register and told them to read their textbooks in silence, everyone glared at Vince. The rest of their teachers had been quite happy for them to talk quietly during their Reading periods.

“Professor,” said Draco, “don’t you think we should look for Harry?”

“You can look for him at lunchtime, and tell him to come and explain to me why he was absent,” said Professor Greengage.

Draco hoped the witch, who worked in the Herbology Department, wouldn’t take any of their classes next year. She seemed very strict. “But, professor, a troll broke in yesterday,” he pointed out. “What if he’s run into another one?”

“Then I’m sure he’ll have the sense to run away from it again,” said Professor Greengage. But Draco was pleased to see she scribbled a note, and placed it into the fireplace with a pinch of Floo Powder.

Harry turned up for the next Reading session, and waved a hand when Draco told him Professor Greengage wanted to see him.

“It’s fine, Madam Pomfrey excused me from third and fourth period,” he explained. “I went to see Ron and Longbottom.”

Draco supposed he should have realised. Trying to be a good friend, he asked, “How were they?”

Harry pulled a face. “Longbottom’s fine, he’ll be out of the hospital wing tomorrow. But Ron might not even make it out for the Junior Quidditch matches! The troll fell right on top of him, broke three of his ribs and destroyed his legs. He’s got to regrow at least a dozen bones.”

“What the hell happened?” asked Draco, feeling a little queasy.

“Apparently, Ron and Longbottom upset Granger, and she was still crying in the loo when the troll got in. They went to warn her, accidentally locked the troll in with her, then managed to save her and almost get themselves killed in the process.”

Draco laughed. “Oh, the Prophet would have had a field day if they had. But why did Snape say Granger’s showing off almost got them killed?”

“Apparently, she lied to stop them getting into trouble. Said she’d gone looking for the troll because she thought she could handle it.”

Draco snorted. Harry smiled.

“Yeah, I’m not quite sure why she thought that was any better than just admitting she was upset. But it does sound like Granger - she’s such a show-off! So they lapped it up. She’s got detention with McGonagall tomorrow.”

“Granger got detention before Vince or Greg?” Draco asked incredulously. He’d have put money on himself getting a detention before her; some of their teachers just didn’t give him the leeway he deserved.

Harry grinned at him. “Yep. Think she’ll be any more bearable now?”

“Kneazles might swim,” said Draco.

Apparently, this was one of those idioms that Muggles didn’t use, because Harry looked back at him blankly.

“No,” Draco clarified.

They spent a very enjoyable afternoon telling everyone what had happened. Everyone thought it was hilarious that Granger was getting detention for something she hadn’t actually done. The question of how the troll got into the castle was barely mentioned at all.

Chapter Text

A Black Day: MN Arcturus Black found dead

Lucretia Prewett today confirmed the recent passing of her father, the Most Noble Arcturus Sirius Black, at the age of 90, writes Tiberius Tattle, Special Correspondent. Mr Black was discovered in his bed by his daughter, having passed peacefully some time during the Samhain Recess of the Wizengamot.

Those rushing to send condolences to Madam Prewett should note, however, that her father recently affirmed his family’s adherence to absolute male primogeniture. As a result, convicted mass murderer Sirius Black remains the sole heir to the Black estate, and is effectively disbarred from inheriting the Warlockship as a result of his incarceration. Whilst Mr Black is expected to have designated a significant sum for his daughter in his will, the bulk of the estate is now legally the property of his incarcerated grandson. Madam Prewett retains entitled to an annuity as a Black family member, but has lost the significantly larger stipend she enjoyed as her father’s Steward.

Black’s incarceration, as well as preventing his investiture as Warlock, means that he is incapable of disposing with any part of his family’s estate until his death. It is unknown whether Black - who was 25 and estranged from his family at the time of his conviction - has a valid will, and genealogical experts agree that he is the last heir male of House Black. The eventual settlement of his estate may therefore be particularly complicated. Whilst some of his newfound wealth may be freely divested, the estate comprises a number of properties in fee tail and goblin-made chattels, the beneficiaries of which are predetermined by the Black Family Charter.

Whilst formal responsibility for managing the Black estate now falls to Madam Prewett, as Black’s closest living relative, her management is likely to subject to intense scrutiny. Most obvious among the seven extant fee-tail beneficiaries is the Most Noble Ciaran Prewett, grandson of the late Mr Black, who is rumoured to have pressured his grandfather to amend the Charter to allow the Black Warlockship to pass through Madam Prewett to him. With such an amendment no longer possible as a result of Mr Black’s death, Mr Prewett will no doubt request that his mother recruits a reputable team of agents to avoid any appearance of mismanagement in his favour.

The Chief Warlock is expected to confirm the dormancy of the Warlockship during the next Wizengamot session on Monday, after which the Campaign for Constitutional Change is expected to re-raise their legal challenge to the continued existence of Warlockships whose only heirs are disbarred. However, a successful challenge would apply equally to the Lestrange Warlockship and open two seats for Warlocks Illustrious. Given the controversy over Cornelius Fudge’s previous appointments as Minister for Magic, such a challenge may lack support even in those quarters one might expect it.

Madam Prewett declined to give her view on the dormancy-extinction debate. In a statement to the Prophet, she invited those whose lives were enriched by her father to sign his memorial book, which will be available in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic until the end of the month. The Warlocks Sanguine will be veiled during sessions next week, but Madam Prewett has requested other members of the Wizengamot and Ministry of Magic to forego mourning unless they knew her father personally. A private funeral will be held on 10 November.

The Most Noble Arturus Sirius Black was born to Sirius Phineas and Hesper (Gamp) Black in 1901. He attended Hogwarts School of Wicchencraft and spent five years in the Department for International Magical Co-Operation, before retiring to manage his family’s estate as Heir Apparent when his father took up the Black Warlockship in 1925. After his father’s tragic death at the age of 75, Mr Black was invested as his father’s replacement in 1952. He will be remembered by his friends and family as a loyal friend and loving father, and by his peers in the Wizengamot as an expert in international law. A full length feature on Mr Black’s life and accomplishments will be available in the Sunday Prophet.

Chapter Text

8 November

Ron Weasley

Ron could have kissed Madam Pomfrey when she told him he was free to leave the night before the first Junior Quidditch Cup match. It had been torture lying in his bed, unable to feel anything below the waist and nothing but a horrible throbbing ache for several inches above it, whilst listening to the commentary on the Senior matches. He couldn’t imagine missing his brothers’ very first game.

When Harry, Neville and Hermione came to see him, however, he was given another reason to want to see the match.

“You’re joking!” he said when Harry told him that he and Malfoy would be playing for Slytherin.

“No. That’s why we’re allowed our own broomsticks.”

Ron shook his head in bemusement. “Fred and George wouldn’t even let me try out, said I’d embarrass them… Wow, you and Malfoy? I knew you were good from Flying lessons, but you must be brilliant.”

Harry shuffled his feet. “I’m pretty good.”

“And Seeker as well. That’s the most dangerous position.”

“I know.”

Ron’s brother Charlie had been a Seeker, and he’d spent at least a couple nights under Madam Pomfrey’s care after a bad game. Because catching the Snitch was worth one hundred and fifty points, the Seeker was usually targeted the hardest by the Beaters, and the most likely to be fouled. The Snitch was worth six Quaffles through the smallest goalhoop, something even professional teams struggled to achieve within a single game.

“Well,” said Ron, grinning up at Harry, “I would wish you good luck, but there’s no way I’m rooting for Slytherin over my own House.”

Harry grinned back. “Don’t worry, I don’t need luck.”

Ron was about to tell him that Malfoy’s cockiness was rubbing off on him, when one of the last people Ron wanted to see appeared.

“Potter, I did not excuse you from your homework for you to waste your time socialising,” said Professor Snape. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”

Ron stared at him. Professor Snape had let Harry off doing homework? He must really want Slytherin to win the Quidditch Cup.

“Sorry, Professor,” said Harry.

Ron picked up his belongings and the two of them hurried to the door, followed by Neville and Hermione. As they walked into the corridor, Ron heard Madam Pomfrey say, “There you are Severus - time to change—”

“Was Snape limping?” asked Hermione.

“I didn’t notice,” said Harry. “Guess that might be why he needed Madam Pomfrey. I wonder why, though.”

“I hope he has to drink something disgusting for it,” Ron said bitterly. He’d hoped as much every time the Potions master had come into the hospital wing the past week. “He might be your Head of House, but he’s a git.”

The next morning dawned very bright and cold. The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the cheerful chatter of everyone looking forward to a weekend of Quidditch.

“Your mate Potter hasn’t given you any clues who the new Slytherin players are, has he?” Fred asked Ron over a rack of toast.

“Wood’s doing his nut not knowing the full roster still,” said George.

Ron felt his ears burn. He hoped the twins wouldn’t notice.

“No,” he lied. “Harry doesn’t really pay attention to Quidditch.”

“He has told you, hasn’t he?” asked Fred.

“So who is it?” asked George.

Ron looked over at the Slytherin table. Harry’s plate was untouched. It looked like one of Malfoy’s bodyguards was trying to encourage him to eat, but Malfoy himself was nowhere to be seen.

“Good luck today,” said Percy, appearing between the twins. “I’ll be watching you.”

“Hey, Perce, tell Ron to tell us what he knows,” said George.

Percy gave Ron a quizzical look.

“They think I know who’s playing for Slytherin.”

“Do you?” asked Percy, his eyes lighting up. “Do tell. I can get Wood to stop mak—”

“I don’t know anything!” Ron protested.

“Are you sure?” asked Fred.

“Because we’d hate to lose our first match because you held out,” said George.

“Do you really want Slytherin to win?”

Ron looked back at the Slytherin table again, and sighed. “I don’t know about the rest of the team, but Harry’s Seeker and Malfoy’s Chaser.”

Fred and George laughed. “First-years?” they said in unison.

“We’ll tell Wood we don’t need to worry,” said Fred.

“Probably bought their way onto the team,” said George.

“Or bullied their way onto it,” Percy said disapprovingly. “How on earth did you become friends with them, Ron?”

“I’m not friends with Malfoy!” Ron said hotly. “Harry’s alright, though. You thought so, when you met him on the train,” he pointed out to Fred and George.

“That was before we found out who he hung out with,” Fred said darkly.

By one o’clock, the whole Lower School was out in the stands around the Quidditch pitch, or at least, those who weren’t in the changing rooms were. A fair number of Seniors had come to watch, as well, and Ron and Hermione had ended up squeezed on the end of a row in one of the Gryffindor stands. Many students had binoculars. The seats might be raised high in the air but it was still difficult to see what was going on sometimes, the pitch was so large.

Fred and George’s friend Lee Jordan was doing the commentary on the match. When the two teams left their changing rooms and walked onto the field, he yelled in surprise.

“Is that— no, it can’t be?”

Above the Slytherin stands, a banner was raised into the air. It read Potter for President. Shocked gasps rippled around the stands and everyone craned their heads to get a good look at the tiny figure walking out behind the behemoths that made up the rest of the Slytherin team.

“Well, I never,” said Lee. “Miles Bletchley and James Selwyn have left the bench to join the returning Junior players this year, and Harry Potter is Seeker. We haven’t seen a first-year play for their House for two decades, so this should be interesting. Either the Slytherin side is going to be a total walkover, or this kid’s really got something to bring to the table.”

“Did you know?” Neville whispered in Ron’s ear.

“He told me yesterday, when you and Hermione were talking,” said Ron. “I’m not surprised - you know how well he flies. I wonder why Malfoy isn’t with him - he said they both made the team.”

Neville looked very uncomfortable. “Haven’t you heard? I though Arcturus Black was your grandmother’s cousin?”

“No idea,” said Ron. “Wait, was he the sick one? Has he pegged it?”

Hermione gave him a shocked look that suggested she thought he was being irreverent, which he supposed he was, but it wasn’t like he’d ever met the guy.

Neville let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, they announced it in the Prophet yesterday. I guess Malfoy’s going to the funeral.”

Ron shrugged and turned his attention back to the pitch. It was the first Quidditch game he’d ever been able to see in person, unless you counted watching his brothers playing with the other kids in the village before he was old enough to join them. It was even better than he’d imagined, and perfectly complemented by Lee Jordan’s commentary.

“And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor - what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too—”

“JORDAN!”

“Sorry, Professor.”

A loud groan went up from Ron’s stand a couple of minutes in when Selwyn set up Marcella Flint perfectly to score the first goal of the match. Ron saw Harry, who was gliding high above the game, raise his fist into the air in celebration.

Gryffindor had taken the lead with two quick goals and were on track for a third when Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain, suddenly appeared right in front of Angelina Johnson.  She braked so hard that she catapulted over the front of her broomstick and ended up hanging from it by her wrists, holding on for dear life.

“FOUL!” shouted Lee Jordan. “You’re supposed to stay twenty feet out of play, Flint!”

Marcus Flint was arguing with Madam Hooch, apparently trying to convince her he hadn’t realised he’d stopped right in Johnson’s path, but Madam Hooch’s whistle blew.

“Send him off, ref!” Seamus Finnigan shouted nonsensically in front of Ron.

“Penalty to Gryffindor for that filthy bit of cheating by the Slytherin Cap—”

“JORDAN!”

“Sorry, Professor. Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint is grounded for ten minutes for interfering with play after failing to see Johnson was only feet away from him. I’m sure Madam Pomfrey will be happy to check his eyesight after the match… And it’s Johnson taking the penalty for Gryffindor - looks like she’s aiming for the right hoo— GOAL! Gryffindor now leading sixty-five to forty.

“Slytherin in possession. Chaser Montague ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys and Chaser Bell and speeds towards the - wait a moment - was that the Snitch?”

A murmur ran through the crowd as Montague dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear.

Ron’s eyes sought Harry, and found him already in a dive after the streak of gold. Gryffindor Seeker Alicia Spinnet had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled towards the Snitch - all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in mid-air to watch.

Harry was faster than Spinnet - Ron watched him lean forwards to push his advantage further - he put on an extra spurt of speed—

WHAM! A roar of disappointment came from the Slytherins opposite - Fred had hit a Bludger directly at Harry, which caught the tail of his broomstick and almost threw him off. His broom span off course and he held on for dear life.

It looked like Fred’s Bludger had done its job; Harry had obviously lost sight of the Snitch. But his tailspin had thrown Spinnet off too, and Ron groaned along with everyone else as the two of them soared back up above the game.

It was a long time before either Seeker caught sight of the Snitch again, and this time it was Harry who saw it first. Ron couldn’t help cheering Harry on under his breath as his friend streaked across the pitch, lying flat against his broomstick. A moment later, he was cheering for his brothers, who had both pelted a Bludger at Harry at the same time; Harry jerked his broomstick off course.

“FOUL!” roared Jordan.

Ron’s jaw dropped; there was nothing in the rules to prevent the Beaters targeting the same person. Then he saw Madam Hooch forcing herself between Wood and one of the Slytherin Beaters.

“Penalty to Gryffindor for reckless play on their Seeker,” Jordan was saying. “And Gryffindor Captain Wood is grounded for fifteen minutes for retaliation, which is ridiculous if you ask me, because Bole’s nose isn’t even bleeding.”

Ron snorted. Spinnett and Harry resumed their circling high above the other players, and the Slytherin Keeper saved Angelina Johnson’s penalty. It looked like Wood was bellowing instructions to his team from the ground, but the Slytherins took full advantage of the temporary lack of discipline, scoring four goals before Wood was allowed to take to the air again.

Only a few minutes later, Flint was grounded again, this time for blocking the Gryffindor Keeper’s view as one of the Slytherin Chasers advanced on him, and with both Captains on the ground it was the Slytherins whose disorganisation cost them points.

“Gryffindor in possession, Bell to Johnson - back to Bell again - will they score their third goal in five— SPINNETT, WATCH OUT!”

Ron heard Neville scream; his attention shot to the Gryffindor Seeker, just in time to see her jolt sideways to avoid Harry, who was pelting towards her.

“Serves him right!” shouted Jordan, as Harry slammed into one of the stands, and slid down the red-and-gold hangings. “Another disgusting bit of— NO! I don’t believe it!”

Harry was kneeling on the ground beside his broomstick, with one hand raised over his head. The Slytherin stands erupted in cheers, as the Gryffindors let out a collective groan.

“I thought he was trying to kill her!” murmured Neville.

“I reckon everyone did,” said Ron. “Bloody hell, my heart’s pounding. I hope Harry’s alright - that had to have hurt.”

He hurried for the stairs, then elbowed his way to the front of the huddle of people around Harry at the edge of the pitch.

“I’m fine,” Harry was telling Madam Pomfrey. “Really, I hardly felt it.”

“You need peace and quiet and professional supervision,” Pomfrey insisted. “At least for the next hour. No, Mr Flint, partying Prefects do not count.”

“I’ll watch ’im,” said a booming voice. The crowd of excited Slytherins parted to allowed the gamekeeper forward. “How does that sound, Harry? Come an’ have a cuppa while everyone gets some of the partyin’ outta their system?”

“Sure,” said Harry, who looked like he would have agreed to escape the crowd.

Despite his protests that he was fine, Harry winced as he walked off towards Hagrid’s hut. Ron stared in astonishment after the Slytherin team, who all headed in the other direction, towards the dressing rooms. A yellow-haired reserve looked back over his shoulder at Hagrid’s retreating back, but none of the players bothered to go with him.

Ron hurried after Harry and Hagrid. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“No,” said Harry. “Hagrid, this is Ron.”

“Thought so,” said the giant.

“You did?” asked Ron, slightly taken aback.

“Yeh look a lot like yer brothers,” Hagrid pointed out. “Don’t mind Fang.”

Before Ron could ask what he meant, an enormous black dog leaped up to place its paws on his shoulders, and swept a wet tongue across his entire face in one great lick.

“Down, Fang!”

The boarhound ignored Hagrid, until Ron shoved feebly at its chest. It thudded onto the floor and looked eagerly up at him, tail thwacking loudly into the wall.

Ron sat down next to Harry, and tried to ignore the tendrils of drool that Fang deposited on his robes as the dog thrust its head into his lap. Hagrid filled a kettle with water and set it over the fire.

“That was brilliant, mate,” Ron told Harry. “Urgh, I wish you weren’t in Slytherin. It felt so wrong getting excited when you saw the Snitch.”

Harry laughed. “Your brothers aren’t half bad, either.”

“No offence, but I wish they’d knocked you off,” said Ron, with a grin. “They came pretty close.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I didn’t realise Hogwarts would be quite this dangerous.”

“Oh, Quidditch is nothing,” said Ron. “It’s the mountain trolls you’ve got to watch out for.”

“Not to mention that three-headed dog,” said Harry.

Hagrid dropped the teapot.

“How do you know about Fluffy?”

“Fluffy?”

“Yeah - he’s mine - bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las’ year - I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the —”

“Yes?” said Ron eagerly. Hermione was right; the dog was guarding something.

“Now, don’t ask me any more,” said Hagrid gruffly. “That’s top secret, that is.”

“But Snape’s trying to steal it,” Ron protested.

Harry stared at him.

“Rubbish,” said Hagrid again. “Snape’s a Hogwarts teacher, he’d do nothin’ of the sort.”

“Then why did he try to get past Fluffy?” demanded Ron. “He’s been in the Hospital Wing every day since Samhain, seeing Madam Pomfrey in her office.”

“I’m tellin’ yeh, yer wrong!” said Hagrid hotly. “Professor Snape’s the Potions Master - he’s probably bin talkin’ ter Madam Pomfrey about what potions she needs replacin’. Now, listen to me, both of yeh - yeh’re meddlin’ in things that don’ concern yeh. It’s dangerous.”

“More dangerous than Fluffy?” Ron asked incredulously.

Hagrid glared at him. “Fluffy’s only dangerous if yeh unlock a door yeh’re not supposed ter unlock in a corridor yeh’re not supposed ter be in. So how do you two know about him?”

“We were trying to get away from Filch,” said Harry.

Hagrid snorted. “Well, I can’t say I blame yeh, he’s a nasty piece of work. But if yeh ever have a choice between detention an’ goin’ out of bounds again, yeh’ll take detention, yeh hear me?”

The two of them nodded meekly, but they exchanged meaningful look as Hagrid topped up the teapot and returned it to the fire.

“Do you really think Snape tried to get past Fluffy?” asked Harry a while later, as he walked stiffly to the dressing room.

“Hermione does,” said Ron. “He was limping badly the first few times he came in, and Neville swears he heard him say something about ‘three heads’. We’ve been trying to guess what it could be guarding. It must be really valuable.”

10 November

Harry Potter

Harry ached all over the next day. He stayed in the Slytherin Wing rather than going to watch Hufflepuff play Ravenclaw, deciding the walk down to the Quidditch pitch wasn’t worth it, and he’d rather get his History of Magic essay written. Draco had been excused from all his homework seeing as he wouldn’t be back from his grandfather’s funeral until the middle of the week, which meant Harry couldn’t rely on his help if he left it for Prep in the week.

By the time the rest of his House returned to tell him that Hufflepuff had, to everyone’s surprise, absolutely thrashed Ravenclaw, he hadn’t written a single word, however. He had spent the entire time wondering what Fluffy was guarding, and whether Snape really was trying to steal it.

He was still so distracted by this in Friday’s Potions class that he didn’t notice when Longbottom, who was similarly nervous, mixed up the quantities of beetle eyes and magpie claws, resulting in a foul smelling yellow gas billowing out from their cauldron. Professor Snape appeared through the yellow cloud, surrounded by coughing students, and cleared the contents of their cauldron with a wave of his wand.

“Five points from Slytherin and ten points from Gryffindor,” he said. He fixed Harry with a cold stare. “Potter, do I need you to compose an essay on the difference between beetles and magpies?”

“N-no, sir,” said Harry.

“Good. Start again. The three of you can work through your break if you’re not finished by the end of class.”

It was almost as though Snape knew Harry suspected him. He seemed to spend more time circling Harry’s cauldron than any other. They finished their potion in time, but they’d obviously done something wrong in their rush. Their potion was supposed to shrink the drinker but had swollen Longbottom’s toad to the size of a small pony when tested on him, resulting in another five points House point deduction for each of them.

“What’s up with you and Snape?” Draco asked as they walked to Magic Theory.

“I don’t know,” said Harry. He wasn’t sure whether to tell Draco and Ron’s suspicions after the Quidditch match.  He knew Draco’s father was friends with Snape, and he half-expected Draco would be so convinced it wasn’t true that he would simply go and ask Snape outright.

Quidditch practice dropped to once a week, as half the Seniors had extra practice for the upcoming Inter-School Cup games. Harry used the time he got back to see Ron. There weren’t any common rooms outside the House Wings, but there were plenty of empty classrooms outside of lessons. Harry didn’t ask Draco to join him, since his friendship with Draco seemed to have been as much a reason for Ron to dislike him as his being Sorted into Slytherin. Ron shared Longbottom and Granger’s theories about what Fluffy was guarding, but none of them sounded very likely to Harry. It had to be something better than gold or jewellery, or even a rare potion, to be worth risking students’ lives, even if they had been told not to go into the corridor where Fluffy was standing guard.

“Are you coming to watch the school game tomorrow?” Draco asked the evening before the first school match.

“Yeah, I guess.” Harry had hoped to get a head start on a Potions essay, since Professor Snape didn’t believe in excusing them for a match they were only going to watch, but he was excited to see how well the best students in the school played.

The game was even more exciting to watch than the ones between the Senior House teams had been. The Captains of all four House teams were on the school team. Hunter Davies, the Ravenclaw Seeker, was almost a foot shorter than the rest of the team and brought up the rear as they strode onto the pitch. Harry was surprised to see Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint give each other friendly slaps on the back before mounting their brooms. Apparently, even House rivalries were put aside when you played on the school team together.

Harry had wondered how they would possibly fit in three schools-worth of spectators, but it seemed only the most senior students from the visiting school were permitted to come and watch; just two of the stands seated black-robed Morgana’s Witching Academy spectators whilst the rest were full to bursting with what looked like the entire population of Hogwarts. Even the teachers were out in force; of those Harry knew by name, only Professors Snape and Quirrell hadn’t come to watch.

The Morgana’s witches were much better at keeping possession of the Quaffle than the Hogwarts team, but they struggled to get the ball past Gryffindor’s Wood, only managing to score five points at a time. Almost every save he made resulted in the Hogwarts Chasers streaking back up the pitch, usually succeeding in getting the Quaffle past the Morgana’s Keeper into the ten or even sometimes the twenty-five point hoops. Eventually, the visiting team stopped trying to score and instead attempted to keep possession of the Quaffle, obviously hoping their Seeker would be the first to catch the Snitch.

Harry winced when the Morgana’s Seeker, streaking after the Snitch, attempted to dodge a Bludger sent her way by Mulciber, and careered into Flint, who had been flying so close to her they would have been indistinguishable without Binoculars. The collision cost Morgana’s the match, as Ravenclaw’s Davies caught up to and overtook the spiralling witch, closing his hand around the Snitch as her broom finally stopped spinning.

There was a feast a while later, at which a rather disappointed group of witches sat amongst the House tables. Harry saw Ron’s brother Percy puffing his chest out as he spoke to them, and laughed out loud when he caught sight of Ron’s disgusted face. None of the witches sat with the younger students, but when the trio sitting with the senior Slytherins behind Harry realised who he was, there was a great deal of delighted squealing and shouting. A large group of visiting students soon crowded in amongst the first-year Slytherins, asking Harry questions from which Quidditch team he supported to whether he remembered anything about Voldemort. Harry did his best to answer, feeling particularly stupid any time he didn’t know enough about the wicchen world to understand the question.

Draco’s assertions around which of their Housemates were worth knowing seemed to hold true. Most of the witches, once they’d satisfied their curiosity about him, retook their seats amongst the older students, but some of them stayed to talk to Draco, Pansy, Daphne and Teddy. The pair who spent a while chatting to Millicent turned their backs to her almost immediately after she mentioned her father.

For some reason Harry couldn’t comprehend, three of the girls scribbled their names on a scrap of parchment and handed them to him, telling him they’d read his letter if he wrote to them. The third time it happened, Vince said something Harry didn’t catch, but it must have been rude because the girl gave him a filthy look, and Greg, who Harry had never spotted calling anyone out for bad behaviour, punched him in the arm, grinning broadly.

“What are these about?” Harry asked Draco on the way to the Slytherin wing later. He waved the parchment scraps at Draco.

Draco plucked them from his hand, ripped two of them in half and handed the remaining one back.

“It’s their way of telling you they’re open to courting you,” said Draco. “You can do much better than Strong or Littlewood, though.”

Harry looked at the parchment Draco had left him with. It bore the name Evarcha Jessopp.

“What do you mean, ‘courting me’?” asked Harry.

Draco looked thoroughly baffled by the question.

“Seeing whether you should pursue a relationship, of course,” he said. “How do Muggles decide if they can get on well enough to marry each other?”

“They want to marry me?” Harry asked in alarm. “But I’m eleven!”

“Not yet,” Draco laughed. “You can’t marry until you’re of age, and most people don’t start courting until a year or two before that. Some of them don’t get married until well into their thirties. But people like us will get offers early, especially from gold-diggers like Littlewood, because they think they can trick us into agreeing to something without speaking to our parents first.”

“But I don’t have much gold,” Harry pointed out. He’d been quite worried about that, after Gringotts wrote to him to confirm they’d followed his instruction to pay Quality Quidditch Supplies for his Nimbus and would remove the funds from his safe the next time he visited it. He still had no idea how much a Galleon was worth in Muggle money, but according to the goblins he only had enough money left in his vault to buy another fifty or so Nimbus Two Thousands, and he doubted that was enough to buy an entire house, even a small one. He didn’t want to have to stay living with Aunt Petunia once he finished at school any more than she was likely to want him there. He loved his Nimbus, but part of him wondered if he shouldn’t have let Draco persuade him to buy it; he’d come to realise that the Malfoys liked to have the best of everything, but having the best was expensive.

“Please,” said Draco, “you must be richer than half the school. Not Malfoy-level rich, but coupled with your fame, those certainly won’t be the last girls to try to catch your eye.”

Harry wondered if perhaps houses weren’t quite as expensive as he’d thought. After all, the Dursleys had a very large house, even though Uncle Vernon always complained that he didn’t get paid enough and the taxman took most of it anyway.

Chapter Text

7 December

Draco Malfoy

The last three weeks of term were packed full of excitement. Decorations began to appear around the school, the gamekeeper dragged Christmas tree after Christmas tree into the Great Hall. In between lessons, students talked excitedly about their plans for the holidays, and Professor Flitwick even showed them how to make coloured sparks shoot from their wands.

Draco was very disappointed that Professor Snape wouldn’t make an exception for him to go and watch the Hogwarts team play Merlin’s School for Young Wizards in their second Inter-School Cup match. Instead, he and Harry spent the morning riding their broomsticks over the school’s largest courtyard and pelting unsuspecting students with an endless supply of snowballs made by Vince and Greg. Since everybody knew that first-years didn’t have their own brooms, and whoever was throwing the snowballs was obviously riding a faster broom than anything the school had, nobody found the great guffaws of laughter coming from Vince and Greg suspicious. Unfortunately, Percy Weasley chose the moment Harry and Draco honoured their promise to let the other boys have a turn flying to come and investigate. He put the pile of snowballs between Harry and Draco together, waited for Vince and Greg to show up, and put all four of them in detention.

“What a misery-guts,” Draco muttered, as he shovelled snow off the path down to the Quidditch pitch. “We weren’t hurting anyone!”

“Me 'n Greg didn’t even get a chance,” moaned Vince. “Why’d you two hog the brooms for so long?”

“They’re our brooms,” said Draco. “Anyway, if you’d been a bit quicker, you could’ve pelted the Weasel and me and Harry could’ve made a run for it.”

He caught a muttered “me and Harry” from Vince’s direction, but graciously decided to ignore it.

“Why did he make us clear this stupid path?” asked Greg. “There’s only a week of term left and no more matches. Nobody’s going to be coming down to use the pitch!”

“That’s the point,” Draco said impatiently. “It’s about making us do something useless but related to what we were ‘doing wrong’.”

“That’s stupid,” said Vince.

“You’re stupid,” muttered Draco.

Vince threw a snowball at him.

When Weasley came out to check on their progress two hours later, he found four very breathless boys, a large area cleared almost entirely of snow, two snow forts and several mounds of ammunition, some of which had been hastily demolished when the boys noticed him approaching.

“You were supposed to clear the entire path!” he chastised them.

“You just said clear the path,” said Draco. “You didn’t say how much of it.”

Weasley shook his head in disbelief. Draco gave his best ‘do-you-really-want-me-to-tell-my-father-about-this’ face, and Weasley sighed.

“Well, at least you haven’t been throwing those at anyone who didn’t want to play,” he said, nodding at one of the still-intact snowball piles. “Get back inside, and don’t let me catch you mobbing anyone again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Draco, offering a mocking bow.

The look of anger on Weasley’s face, and the roars of laughter from his friends, would have been worth another detention. But Weasley just pointed up at the castle, apparently too furious to speak.

Draco considered telling his father anyway, when he had his usual Saturday evening chat. Father could make life difficult for Weasley - more difficult than being the son of the most loser Weasley alive already did - but father would be disappointed that he’d been given detention in his very first term, even if that detention wasn’t earned. He knew his parents expected him to become a Prefect, and Professor Snape would have a hard time convincing Professor Dumbledore to agree to the appointment if he got himself into too much trouble.

“I had a great day,” he told his parents instead, speaking into the polished mirror he had leant against his knees. He was sitting on top of his bedclothes, with a pillow cushioning his back from the carved headboard. “Harry and I had a snowball fight against Vince and Greg.”

“Who won?” asked father.

“Me and Harry did,” said Draco.

“Harry and I,” father corrected. “Please don’t tell me I need to arrange another tutor for you over the holidays.”

“Another tutor?”

“Surely you didn’t expect to do nothing but ride your broomstick and eat sweets for three weeks, Draco?” Father raised an eyebrow. “Narcissa and I have asked Madams Stewart and Strong to spare a few hours a week, and there’s something I’d like to go over with you.”

“What?” asked Draco. His father’s lessons usually involved analysing newspaper articles, something Draco found almost as dull as listening to Binns drone on about goblin rebellions.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Your grandfather thinks I should wait another year or two, but given how things are working out…” he said mysteriously.

“Working out?”

“Really, Draco, are you just going to repeat everything I say tonight?”

Draco resisted the urge to say, ‘everything I say’, and instead said, “Sorry, father. I’m too tired to be very original.”

Mother laughed. “It must have been one hell of a snowball fight.”

“It was,” Draco agreed. “I’d rather have been at the match, though. I can’t believe Snape didn’t let us go!”

“Severus told me you’d asked to go,” said father. “Remember, Draco, there are times to bend the rules, and times to follow them. If you ask Severus for too much favouritism now, you might leave him powerless to help you when you really need it. Besides, you didn’t miss much. Merlin’s won by a wide margin.”

“You went?”

Draco knew father always got invited to the Hogwarts matches, as school governor, but he couldn’t remember him ever actually going before, and he’d never heard of the governors being invited to away matches. He had hoped father would watch his first match, before he’d been pulled out of school for his godfather’s funeral instead.

“Of course not.” Father chuckled softly. “I was having tea with Barnabas when the score came through.”

“We’re so looking forward to seeing you again,” said mother, beaming into the mirror. “I did a spot of window-shopping today, to get some ideas for when you’re home. You’ll need to get something for everyone in your class, of course, but you should get something special for your closest friends.”

“Thank you, mother,” said Draco. “I’m looking forward to seeing the two of you, too.”

“Well, we’ll see you next week,” said mother. “Enjoy the last few days of term, but don’t start slacking.”

Draco caught the kiss his mother blew him, and waved goodbye. As his own reflection looked back at him in the mirror, he felt a strange, uncomfortable sort of feeling in his stomach. He was looking forward to going back to the Manor, and seeing his flying tutor would make up for having to have more dance lessons, but he couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. Harry had told him he’d decided to stay at school over the holidays, and even though Draco knew there were always a few people who had to stay at the school over the holidays because their parents were travelling, or just didn’t love them, he hated the idea of his friend being lonely. He couldn’t think of anything worse than being alone at school over the holidays.

His sense of guilt grew over the final week of term, as everyone’s holiday plans became more pronounced. When Harry learned that wicchen celebrated Christmas with gift-giving the same way Muggles did, he enlisted Draco’s help to place an enormous owl order to get sweets for all his friends. Friends who would, like Draco, be leaving him on his own for three weeks in a frozen castle, far from everyone he knew.

On the morning the Hogwarts Express was due to depart, Draco helped Harry divide the sweets he’d ordered into several parcels, and took the one Harry offered him with a lump in his throat, even though it was probably the least personal Christmas gift he’d ever received. When he and Blaise began to pack their trunks, Harry disappeared somewhere, probably too upset that he wasn’t going with them to stay and say goodbye.

Draco’s legs and trunk began to feel heavier and heavier as he walked up the dungeon staircase to join the students waiting for the carriages that would take them down to Hogsmeade station and the Hogwarts Express. It was a particularly unnerving sensation, as Draco’s trunk was enchanted to weigh almost nothing, no matter how much he put in it. The sensation grew more and more uncomfortable, until he stopped, turned around and walked back down the stairs, against the tide of students.

He felt much better after he sat down on one of the common room’s leather sofas and helped himself to some of the Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavour Beans Harry had opened whilst they were wrapping.

A few minutes later, a dejected-looking Harry descended the steps into the common room.

“Hi Harry,” said Draco.

Harry gaped at him. “Shouldn’t you be getting the train?”

“I changed my mind,” Draco said nonchalantly. “Nobody should be alone at Christmas.”

“Won’t your parents mind?”

“It’s only a couple of weeks since I was last home. They won’t really mind,” said Draco, hoping it was true. For all he knew, father might ask Snape to drag him through the Floo the second he learned he hadn’t got the train. “Besides, father wanted me to spend the whole time studying.”

“But you don’t need to study,” Harry protested. “You’re already one of the best in class!”

“Maybe I should have invited you to the Manor for the holidays instead,” Draco laughed. “So you could tell father that. Where’ve you been, anyway?”

“Giving Ron his Christmas present,” said Harry.

“You gave Weasley a present?” Draco asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “He’s my friend.”

“But we made up eleven parcels,” said Draco. “There was one for everyone in Slytherin.”

Harry frowned. “But there are thirteen of us.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Roper obviously doesn’t count. She doesn’t celebrate Christmas.”

In fact, father had told him that Roper was probably a Mudblood; there must still be a branch of Aragons somewhere, since the Warlockship hadn’t ended when the last Warlock died in Azkaban almost a decade ago. But the last six generations were well documented from genealogists trying to trace the heir, and there was no Roper in those records.

“So I was supposed to give Teddy and Tessie presents?” Harry asked nervously. “Oh no, you told me Teddy was a somebody, and now I’ve gone and insulted him by not getting him anything!”

“It’s fine,” said Draco. It was fine, now that Harry had Draco to help him correct the faux pas before Teddy ever realised it had been committed. He realised that probably meant the parcel Harry had given him really was just sweets, not something Harry had cleverly disguised to look like the rest. He now regretted that he hadn’t pointed out that sweets really wouldn’t cut it for certain people. He’d been enjoying the image of Teddy opening something as mundane as a box of chocolate frogs too much to set Harry straight.

 “You’ve got time to owl order something and get it sent straight to the Notts,” he told Harry. “You should probably send something to Tessie as well, or she’ll wonder why you singled her out. Or not, it could be funny to watch her try to make it up to you.”

“Thanks,” said Harry. “So you’re really staying? But won’t your parents wonder why you haven’t got the train?”

“I’ll tell them now,” said Draco. “Actually, you should come with me. I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”

Father couldn’t react as badly to his decision if Harry was there, not without insulting Harry. Draco might pay for it with double tuition next holidays, or even having his broomstick confiscated for the entire three weeks, but at least he wouldn’t have to witness father’s disappointment now.

Harry followed Draco up to their dormitory, and peered curiously at the mirror Draco retrieved from a drawer in his bedside table.

“These are really rare,” Draco said proudly. It had taken mother two weeks to convince father to let him bring it with him. “I don’t think there are many families at all who own two pairs, but my father has one to speak to my grandfather, and one to speak to me.”

“You can talk to him through that?” asked Harry, peering at the mirror. “What, is it like a telephone?”

“What’s a telephone?” asked Draco. He’d never learned Greek; father said Runes and Latin were perfectly sufficient unless he wanted a career as an academic. And since careers weren’t the sort of thing a Malfoy heir pursued, he wasn’t likely to want one.

“Never mind. Show me how it works.”

Draco propped the mirror up on the desk on the far side of the room, then dragged the chair from between his and Harry’s beds over to stand next to the one at the desk. He and Harry sat down in front of the mirror.

“Lucius,” said Draco, feeling a little thrill, as he always did, at using father’s name. Even if it wasn’t quite to his face, it still felt forbidden.

It took father long enough to reply that Harry turned a puzzled expression on him. “What’s supposed to—”

“Draco, is everything OK?”

Draco laughed at Harry’s look of shock. Harry looked from the mirror (out of which father was peering with a concerned expression) to Draco, and back again.

“I’m fine, father,” Draco assured his father. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ve decided to stay here for the holidays.”

Father’s forehead creased. “Are you sure? Nothing’s the matter, is it?”

“No, I’m fine,” Draco insisted. “But Harry’s staying, so I thought I’d—”

“Ahh,” said father. His gaze focussed on Harry. “Harry Potter, what an honour to meet you.”

“The honour’s all mine, sir,” Harry said politely. “Honestly, I tried to tell Draco he should go home to you. I’ll be fine here, but—”

“Nonsense,” said father, and Draco was pleased to hear he sounded genuine. “Nobody should be alone at Christmas. But Draco, you should have said something! Harry would have been more than welcome to stay with us.”

“Sorry,” said Draco. “I didn’t decide to stay with him until this morning, and the train will have gone by now.”

“I’ll ask Severus to let you come through the Floo,” said father. “Hold on, I’ll be back shortly.”

He disappeared.

“Does he mean Snape?” asked Harry.

“Yes,” said Draco. He thought Harry was right to look worried. If Snape hadn’t been willing to let Draco go to the match at Merlin’s, he probably wasn’t going to let the two of them go to the Manor when they hadn’t got the train. He really did seem to dislike Harry for some reason.

It wasn’t long before the ring on Draco’s finger turned cold.

“Lucius,” he said again, and father appeared in the mirror, looking furious.

“‘It’s against the rules’,” father said, in such a good impression of Snape’s voice that Harry and Draco exchanged a delighted look which was quite at odds with the message. “Severus says that ‘if you wanted to take a friend home for the holidays, the correct time to make the decision was before the Hogwarts Express departed’. Apparently Dumbledore would need to change the Floo settings to permit a full transfer, and Severus is convinced he wouldn’t agree to do so. Ridiculous. In my day, the Heads of House all had a full Floo service. Slughorn used to take some of us through his to meet people.”

“It was very nice of you to try, Mr Malfoy,” said Harry.

“Not at all, Harry,” said father. “I suppose the two of you will just have to make the best of it. I’ll have your presents sent up to the castle, Draco, and we’ll speak Midwinter Eve. Now, if you’re sure you’re OK, I was supposed to meet the Minister five minutes ago. He’s probably wondering where I’ve—”

“I’m fine, I promise,” said Draco. “I’ll speak to you and mother soon.”

Father nodded goodbye. The mirror blurred, and a second later Harry and Draco were looking at their own reflections.

“That mirror is so cool,” said Harry. “And I can’t believe your dad invited me to yours for the holidays. I’m sorry you’re stuck here now, too.”

“We’re going to have the best time,” said Draco. He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince Harry, or himself. “We can spend all day flying and exploring bits of the castle we’re not allowed in whilst all the teachers and Prefects aren’t here.”

They sent Hedwig off to Honeydukes in Hogsmeade village with an order for more sweets. Draco didn’t tell Harry that Nott wouldn’t appreciate sweets, partly because he didn’t want to sound ungrateful for his own present, and partly because he was still enjoying imagining Nott’s face at receiving something so mundane. Then they spent the rest of the day chasing each other around the grounds on their broomsticks, only coming in once Harry complained he was so cold he’d fall off his broom if they stayed outside any longer.

When they arrived at the Great Hall for dinner, Draco wondered for a minute whether they had somehow taken a wrong turn. The House tables were gone, replaced with a single large, round table which stood in the middle of the Hall, in front of the Teachers’ table.

There were only a dozen or so other students staying in the castle for the holidays, so they sat together at the round table. Harry and Draco were the only Slytherins and the only first-years, which was probably why nobody spoke to them. Draco didn’t care; there was nobody left in the school who he’d have bothered speaking to even if he were stuck there without Harry.

Having the common room to themselves was a lot of fun. They toasted marshmallows in the fire; they hid skulls in all the beds in the other boys’ dormitory; they ate sweets watching the giant squid swim in circles in the swamp outside the window.

Draco also taught Harry to play chess. Harry had told him he didn’t know the rules in the second week of term, and Draco hadn’t wanted to draw more attention to his neglected education by teaching him publicly. Now, however, he and his spare chess set were free to teach Harry. The chessmen did so with gusto; they were used to being ordered by people who knew what they were doing, and argued any time Harry tried to send them into danger. His own pieces moved where he wanted instantly, which he knew was as much due to their familiarity with him as it was his skill at the game.

They had been given a lot of homework to do over the holidays, so Harry and Draco spent a couple of hours each day researching and writing essays. Harry seemed rather distracted at time, and after a few days he told Draco why.

“You know we thought that three-headed dog’s guarding something? We were right.”

“How do you know?” Draco asked eagerly.

“It was something Hagrid said. The dog belongs to him.”

Draco wasn’t surprised Harry looked nervous. The gamekeeper had been friendly enough to Harry so far, but from the stories father had told him, the man would become wild and violent if he knew Harry had been repeating his secrets. Especially seeing as owning a Cerberus without a license could get him into serious trouble.

“He didn’t tell me anything useful,” said Harry. “Just that he lent Fluffy - that’s the dog”— Draco shook his head incredulously —“to Dumbledore to guard something. He was pretty upset with himself for letting it slip.”

“He didn’t threaten you, did he?”

Harry looked shocked. “What? No, he just told us next time we have a choice between Filch and going out of bounds, take Filch.”

Draco snorted.

Draco felt a little nervous when he picked up his mirror to speak to his parents on Midwinter Eve. He didn’t think father’s acceptance of him staying at Hogwarts had just been for show. It was his family’s turn to host the Midwinter Ball this year, and his parents might even be glad not to have him underfoot, but it might reflect poorly on them that he’d decided to stay at school. He’d invited Harry to join him to act as a buffer again, but Harry had declined, saying he didn’t want to intrude on Draco’s family.

“You must be very good friends with Harry to have stayed at the castle,” father observed, once Draco had answered his parents’ questions about how he’d spent the holidays so far.

“I am,” Draco said nervously. Was father about to tell him off for choosing Harry over them?

“That’s good. I was worried you’d spend all year glued to Crabbe and Goyle and not make any respectable friends.”

Draco didn’t bother pointing out that father was the one who’d introduced him to Vince and Greg, after he’d spent two days in a row playing with some nobody halfblood in the village. Not many children were brave enough to play with the landlord’s son, even if they lived in one of the other houses, so Draco hadn’t had many friends to choose from.

“What’s he like?” asked father. “Is he shy? Nobody had seen hide nor hair of him until you saw him in Diagon Alley.”

“He’s very down-to-earth,” Draco said carefully. He wasn’t sure father would approve of their friendship if he knew just how down-to-earth Harry was. He obviously didn’t care that Harry was a halfblood, but being raised in total ignorance of his powers was another thing entirely, and his godmother had made it very clear that there were strict limits to the extent to which Draco could cure that ignorance. “He’s great at flying - he might even better than me with practice. And he’s good in class, but not very academic. He hates spending money on himself, even though he could really do with ordering some winter clothes. He was half-frozen after just a couple of hours on his broom.”

“Oh, the poor thing,” said Narcissa. “I suppose whoever the Ministry’s got looking after him thought he’d do best living like a pauper out of the public eye. I expect it was quite a shock coming to Hogwarts.”

“It definitely was,” Draco agreed.

22 December

Harry Potter

Harry had never had a lie-in at Christmas, since there was always something Aunt Petunia wanted him to do, even before he was old enough to help with the cooking. Draco had explained to him that Midwinter was just as important to wicchen as Christmas, so he didn’t mind heading down to breakfast only a little later than usual on Midwinter morning, after what felt like a very indulgent lie-in. He ate his breakfast carefully, not wanting to spill any food down his robes, once again wishing he had ones that were more suited to such an occasion. He borrowed a scarf and hat from Draco and they headed upstairs.

It looked like every teacher who had stayed in the castle for the holidays was gathered in the Entrance Hall. They were all wearing thick winter layers of cloaks, scarves and hats over their robes and they gave Harry and Draco warm smiles.

“Are you watching the Solstice?” asked a slender witch who Harry recognised from the high table but didn’t know the name of.

“Yes,” said Draco. “We were going to go to the Northern courtyard.”

“There’s no need for that,” the witch said with a smile. “There’s plenty of space on the steps for you to join us.”

Despite the fact that there were a handful of other students in the castle for the holidays, Harry and Draco were the only ones to join the teachers a few minutes later. They stood on the wide stone steps that led down from the castle, facing the large moon that was still visible in the grey sky. Although it looked full, Harry knew from his lunar charts that it had been truly full the previous morning and would be in eclipse in just a couple of hours, although too late for them to be able to observe it up here in Scotland. Draco had told him that the near-conjunction of these events would make this Midwinter particularly powerful, and he was excited to once again feel the sense of wonder he’d experienced at the Autumn Equinox.

A single bell tolled, and Harry gazed up at the bright moon. Once again, he felt magic suffuse him, but rather than a feeling of burning light, the power that filled him now felt like the rich essence of midnight. It was still wondrous, but the sort of wonder that soothed and calmed rather than urging him to sing with joy. No warmth sank into his bones; if anything, the cold pressed closer, but the chill had no bite. It felt strangely comforting, an inevitability that would soon some to pass.

That powerful darkness was studded with glowing stars, and Harry realised that each star was one of the teachers who stood on the stone steps around him. The brightest star, glowing so fiercely it rivalled the moon itself, was that of Albus Dumbledore, though since the Headmaster stood behind him, closest to the doors, Harry couldn’t say how he knew this.

His legs were stiff when he finally moved them again. Half the teachers had already gone back inside, some of them murmuring quietly to each other, some walking alone in silence. Professor Dumbledore smiled and nodded to Harry and Draco as they passed him, and Harry felt as though he was still connected to the great wizard’s power, even though it was several minutes since those bright spots of power had faded.

Harry and Draco sat in front of the common room fire for a long time, enjoying the state of calm that had come over them. When other thoughts finally broke through the tranquility, they were about food, and followed shortly after by the sound of Draco’s stomach rumbling. Harry grinned at his friend, and the two of them headed back to the Great Hall to eat not lunch, as Harry had expected, but a great evening feast, having spent several hours in the afterglow of the Solstice.

Four days later, Harry let out a shout of alarm shortly after waking up. He reached for his glasses, shoved them on, and realised that what he’d taken for a person crouching at the foot of his bed was actually a large pile of packages. A much larger pile was at the foot of Draco’s.

“You alright?” asked Draco, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah!” said Harry. “Look, I’ve got presents!”

Draco laughed and gave him a puzzled look. “Of course you do, it’s Christmas!”

Harry didn’t tell Draco h’d never had more than one Christmas present before. In fact, he was fairly sure he hadn’t had as many presents in his entire life until now as were currently piled up before him. Instead, he just said, “Merry Christmas!” and reached eagerly for the topmost parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was To Harry, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Harry blew it - it sounded a bit like an owl.

“That’s cool,” said Draco. “Hey, look at this!”

He showed Harry a glossy book titled Quidditch Through the Ages. “Guess my father really is proud, even if he still hasn’t got me a new broom.”

Draco’s presents to Harry were an elegant marble stand for his wand, and, handed over in person with a “I’ll get you a new one if you like, but you’ll do better with chessmen who know you”, the chess set Harry he’d been loaning to Harry for their practice. Vince and Greg had given him a pair of bright orange posters bearing his ‘favourite players’ from the Chudleigh Cannons, who smiled and waved at him. Several of his other classmates had given him Cannons-related items as well. Harry was touched to receive A Godparent’s Guide to Guidance from Blaise; flicking through it, it looked far more detailed than the library book he’d borrowed. Draco’s eyes widened when harry showed him the book. To Harry’s surprise, there was also a gift from Draco’s parents; a heavy, fur-lined cloak in school uniform black tumbled from its wrapping, along with a fancy card decorated with the Malfoy crest on one side and signed in elegant script on the other.

The next two presents was equally unexpected. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had sent Harry a toiletry set. It wasn’t any different to the ones Harry had received for previous Christmases - in fact, he thought it might be the exact same brand and scent as last year - but he hadn’t expected the Dursleys to send him anything at all. In fact, he wasn’t sure how they’d sent them - there was no address or stamps on the packages, and he doubted Hogwarts was on a postal route. Dudley had sent him a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and a box of Malteasers, and it even looked like the packaging was still intact, suggesting he hadn’t tampered with them. Harry suddenly felt guilty for not having sent them anything. He wondered if the Post Office was still open on the holidays - Hedwig could probably get from the one in Diagon Alley to Privet Drive today, if he sent her in the next few hours. Dudley would probably love a chocolate frog, if it stayed completely still and Harry removed the collectable card from the box.

“What are those?” Draco asked.

“Try one,” said Harry, throwing him the Malteasers.

Draco peered at the box as though it might bite, then tentatively opened it and put one into his mouth.

“Not bad,” he said, taking another. “I didn’t know Muggles could make good sweets.”

Harry laughed and picked up his last present. It was a large parcel which was a lot lighter than he expected for the size. He unwrapped it, and something fluid and silvery went slithering to the floor, where it lay in gleaming folds.

Draco gasped. “I’ve heard of those,” he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of Malteasers onto his bed. “If that’s what I think it is - they’re really rare, and really valuable. My father won’t even let me look at his, let alone try it on.”

“What is it?” Harry asked, picking the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.

“It’s an Invisibility Cloak,” said Draco, a look of awe on his face. “I’m sure it is - try it on.”

Harry threw the Cloak around his shoulders and Draco whooped.

“It is! Look down!”

Harry looked down at his feet, but they had gone. He dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection looked back at him, just his head suspended in mid-air, his body completely invisible. He pulled the Cloak over his head and his reflection vanished completely.

“There’s a note!” said Draco suddenly. “A note fell out of it!”

Harry pulled off the Cloak and seized the letter. Written in narrow, loopy writing he had never seen before were the following words:

Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you.
Use it well.
A Very Merry Christmas to you.

There was no signature. Harry stared at the note. Draco was admiring the Cloak.

“I’d give anything for one of those,” he said. “Anything. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Harry. He felt very strange. Who had sent the Cloak? Had it really once belonged to his father?

“Did the note say who it’s from?” asked Draco.

Harry shook his head and passed the note to Draco.

“Who do you think it is?” Draco asked when he finished reading.

“I don’t know,” said Harry. “The only person I know who knew my father is Hagrid, and it’s definitely not his writing. Besides, he gave me the flute.”

“What about Professor Snape?” suggested Draco. When Harry stared, he said, “He must have been at Hogwarts around the same time as your father - he was just a few years behind mine.”

Harry shook his head. “It wasn’t Snape’s handwriting. And I can’t see him giving me something like this, you know he doesn’t like me.”

“Maybe that’s why - he could have felt guilty having it.” Draco took the card, and frowned. “But you’re right, that’s definitely not his handwriting.”

Harry continued to ponder it whilst Draco unwrapped the rest of his presents, which included a mountain of sweets, another two books, a thick woollen hat and scarf set in Slytherin colours, a pair of Quidditch gloves, another scarf and at least three sets of robes.

When Draco took out his mirror to contact his parents, Harry thanked Mr and Mrs Malfoy profusely for his cloak, before leaving to give Draco privacy. Even more decorations had appeared in the Slytherin common room overnight, and Harry sat in front of the fire looking through the book Blaise had given him.

The Christmas Feast was at midday rather than in the evening, and Harry had never in all his life had such a dinner. Fat, roast turkey, mountains of roast and mashed potatoes, platters of fat pigs in blankets, tureens of buttered vegetables and silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce. Each place at the large round table was set with a wizard cracker, which was nothing like the feeble Muggle crackers the Dursleys usually bought. When Harry pulled his cracker with Draco, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear-admiral’s hat and several live, white mice. Up at the teachers table, Dumbledore had just swapped his pointed wizard’s hat for a flowered bonnet and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him.

Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. Harry nearly broke his teeth on a silver Sickle embedded in his slice. He watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to Harry’s amusement, giggled and blushed, her top-hat lopsided.

Harry and Draco spent a happy afternoon having another furious snowball fight in the grounds, without their brooms this time. The fight ended when Harry, who had ducked behind a statue for cover and hadn’t seen anyone else approaching, caught Professor Quirrell in the back of the head with a snowball. Quirrell stared around, trembling, then spotted Harry behind the statue. He drew his wand, fury on his face, and Harry had a moment to wonder whether teachers were allowed to use magic to punish students, before Professor Snape appeared.

Harry used the moment when Professor Quirrell turned to acknowledge Snape to run from his hiding spot. Draco followed him, then, gasping for breath, they stumbled down to the dungeons and huddled in front of the fire in the Slytherin common room, where Harry lost a game of chess spectacularly to Draco with the set that was now his. With their stacks of sweets, Harry and Draco didn’t bother going down for tea, and instead retired to their dormitory after a closer-fought game of chess.

Chapter Text

28 December

Draco Malfoy

“Want to have a snowball match, Harry?” asked Draco, already knowing the answer.

Harry hadn’t wanted to do anything at all since he’d gone for a midnight walk in his Invisibility Cloak - alone - and found a mirror that showed him his family. Draco had spent over an hour wandering around the castle with him the next night as Harry tried to find it again, only for the two of them to flee minutes after they found it, having got into such a loud argument Filch was bound to be on his way. Draco was sure Harry had spent almost all night staring into the mirror both nights since, because all he’d wanted to do during the day was sleep.

“No,” said Harry, as predicted.

“Why don’t we go and fly —”

“No, you go.”

“If I wanted to fly around on my own, I’d have gone home,” Draco snapped.

Harry looked at him guiltily. “Sorry… let’s play chess.”

They spent the morning playing chess and the afternoon finishing off some more of their homework in the library, since Harry clearly didn’t have the energy to do anything more fun. When Harry picked up his Invisibility Cloak rather than getting into bed a while later, Draco rolled his eyes, but he didn’t try to stop Harry, as he had the night before. He didn’t want to start another argument.

He lay in bed, staring up at the canopy, wondering whether he should have gone with Harry after all. That mirror had done something to him, he was sure. The thought of going back to see his own reflection basking in his parents’ adoration was intoxicating. He supposed, once he cleared his mind of that almost irresistible tug, Harry had far greater reason than he to yearn for what it showed him. Draco had his parents’ love, after all, even if he wasn’t always good enough to earn their approval, but Harry had been too young to even know his parents’ love before they were taken from him.

Draco tried to imagine not even knowing what his parents looked like, and couldn’t. The concept was simply too alien to comprehend. No wonder Harry was going mad.

He had just pulled his slippers and dressing gown on having decided to go and risk another argument trying to convince Harry to go to bed, when the dormitory door opened.

Harry slouched in. “Dumbledore says I can’t go to the mirror again.”

“Oh,” said Draco, trying not to let his relief show, when Harry looked so miserable. “I’m sorry. Did he say why?”

“He said it’s being moved.”

Draco privately thought that was a very good idea.

Thankfully, it seemed Harry was following Dumbledore’s instructions, keeping the Invisibility Cloak safely in the bottom of his trunk for the rest of the holidays. Draco would have loved to use it to booby trap the castle before all the students came back, but he didn’t want to remind Harry of the Cloak and what he'd found whilst wearing it. There was plenty of fun they could have around the castle without the Cloak, however, and now that Harry had been banned from visiting the Mirror, he was more enthusiastic about doing things during the day. Unfortunately, the Mirror still seemed to have a grip on him. Three times Draco heard him wake, panting, from nightmares.

They ended up rushing to finish their homework before the train brought the rest of the students back to school. Draco insisted they do a decent job of it; he didn’t want his father to ban him from spending the holidays at school again in a future where they might be able to spend less time researching and more finding new uses for Harry’s Cloak.

Suddenly the common room was full again, and all the boys were laughing about the skulls they’d found in their beds. Draco wished he had something more interesting to say about what he’d done during the holidays as his friends exchanged stories about Midwinter with their families. Teddy wouldn’t shut up about the broomstick his father had bought him. Draco longed to tell him what Harry had got, to wipe the smug look off his face, but Harry hadn’t told anyone about the Cloak, and Draco supposed it was up to him whether he wanted people to know or not. He had to admit there were far more interesting possibilities for using the Cloak in future if nobody else knew Harry had it.

Lessons started again the day after the Hogwarts Express returned, with the only change to their timetables Defence Against the Dark Arts replacing flying lessons on Wednesday afternoons.

Their first lesson with Professor Quirrell turned out to be even more of a joke than flying on the school brooms. His classroom reeked of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. Draco wished the vampire would get a move on; instead of demonstrating the sort of powerful Duelling spells Draco had been hoping for, Quirrell spent the first lesson giving them a long lecture about the dangers of the Dark Arts. It was, Quirrell told them, a slippery slope from jinxing a classmate to cursing an entire village. He strongly advised them all not to use any spell but the ones they learned in their textbooks or the classroom, and everyone was disappointed to hear that they wouldn’t even learn counter-spells until their fourth year.

“If I’m st-still here, of c-c-course,” Quirrell laughed nervously.

Draco hoped the curse wouldn’t choose this year to end. He didn’t think he could take a second term of this idiot.

It wasn’t just lessons that re-started with the new term. Since they’d won their first match, the Slytherin Juniors were to play their next match early this term, which meant there were only three weeks of practice before the big day. Flint was working both teams harder than ever, despite the fact that snow still smothered the grounds. Draco was very glad he’d tipped his parents to Harry’s wardrobe situation; even with Harry’s new cloak, the two of them were shivering by the time they returned from evening practices. Yet Harry was the only one not complaining about being worked like house elves, even though Flint had him practising increasingly dangerous dives.

“Remember, Potter, Diggory’s Comet doesn’t have the same safety features your Nimbus does,” Flint said for the fifth time during their final practice. “Try to get him stretchered off as soon as you can, then you can catch the Snitch any time we’re equal or ahead on points.”

2 February 1992

Harry Potter

Flint’s instructions continued even as they walked out onto the pitch for the match.

“You’ll need to make it a convincing dive,” he said. “Diggory won’t commit unless he thinks you’re genuine.”

Harry nodded, pretending to listen. He’d given up telling Flint that he wasn’t going to try to trick Diggory into crashing his broom unless they were badly behind on points. Almost taking out Bell in a real pursuit of the Snitch was one thing, but it was quite another to deliberately try to get the other Seeker sent to the Hospital Wing.

The moment Hooch blew the whistle, Harry kicked off hard from the ground and soared into the air, where he began to circle the pitch. Unlike in the first match, where he had allowed himself to get distracted by Lee Jordan’s commentary, he concentrated on dodging Bludgers and finding the Snitch. The only thing worse than having to follow Flint’s advice would be Diggory finding the Snitch first because he was busy using his ears rather than his eyes.

Still, when he heard Jordan announce Slytherin’s second goal, scored by Draco in the ten-point hoop, he spared a moment to punch his fist in the air to celebrate, then resumed his search. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The Snitch was hovering, mere feet above the ground, in the very middle of the pitch. He’d pulled his Nimbus into a dive almost before he even realised what he was doing, and streaked towards the ground. He could hear the crowd going wild in the stands as they spotted his chase.

He gripped his broomstick tightly with his knees and began to pull upwards on the handle with his left hand, as he reached out his right.

Screams of terror and delight tore from the stands above him; his toes skimmed the grass as his flight became horizontal; a pair of tiny golden wings fluttered against his closed palm.

Harry did a victory lap of the pitch, waving the Snitch above his head, slowing his flight enough that the rest of his team could keep up with ease. After the initial shock of his capture, the reaction from the crowd was muted; even some of the Slytherins looked disappointed. The game had barely lasted ten minutes, less time than it would take to get down from the stands and back to the Slytherin Wing, where a party was bound to follow.

“Fantastic, Harry!” shouted Flint, snapping into formation beside him. “Absolutely fantastic. That must be some sort of record! I was cursing you for feinting too early to be convincing, and then you only bloody caught it!”

Harry grinned across at the older boy, feeling very proud of himself. He’d really done something to be proud of now - no one could ever say he was just a famous name any more.

The rest of the Seniors mobbed them as soon as they landed on the pitch, and Harry found himself carried to the changing rooms on the broad shoulders of Mildred Mulciber and Edith Snyde. It was only when Draco’s father knocked on the changing room door and asked how much longer Draco would be that Marcus Flint shooed the girls out. His sister went next door to the other changing room and the Senior Beaters headed up to the castle, their loud singing fading into the distance.

“Well, I say,” said Mr Malfoy, striding into the room, apparently tired of waiting for his son to leave. “That was a truly excellent bit of flying, Harry. I daresay you’ll have scouts after you at the Inter-School final in a few years.”

“Thank you, Mr Malfoy,” said Harry, “but I think that’s a long way off yet. And as much as I enjoy Quidditch, I’m not sure I want to make a career out of it.”

Harry wasn’t sure he could name any careers other than teaching, working at the Ministry of Magic, or playing Quidditch, and he wanted to know what his options were before he properly considered being a professional Quidditch player.

Mr Malfoy chuckled. “And I think we both know that you are destined for greater things than sport.”

His words sparked a memory of what Mr Ollivander had said when Harry’s wand had chosen him: “I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter.” Harry shivered slightly. He was glad that Mr Malfoy’s bright grey eyes didn’t stare quite so disconcertingly as Mr Ollivander’s.

“Thank you,” he said again, uncertain how else to reply.

“Did you see my goal, father?”

“I did,” Mr Malfoy said to his son. “Well done.” He turned back to Harry, and joked, “You’ll have to leave it a bit longer before you catch the Snitch next time, or you’ll show up the rest of the team.”

Harry laughed.

“I suppose I should let you get up to the castle. No doubt your Housemates are waiting to shower you with praise.” He nodded to Harry and strode back to the door. “I’ll speak to you soon, Draco.”

Flint sighed heavily the moment the door had closed behind Draco’s father. “I wish my father came to watch me play.”

Harry thought he heard Draco mutter something like, “So do I,” but since that didn’t make much sense, he assumed he’d misheard. His friend said nothing else as they finally pulled off their Quidditch robes and the room slowly began to empty.

“See you in the common room, Potter,” said Bletchley. “I’ll save you a Butterbeer.”

“Is it actually made of butter?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Harry.

“No, everything’s fine,” drawled Draco. “I just love explaining things even five-year-olds should know to Harry-The-Boy-Who-Lived-Potter and not even getting a thank you in return.”

Harry stared at Draco. He nearly always said thank you when his friend explained things about the magical world to him, and Draco usually told him not to mention it.

“Right, well, thanks,” he muttered. He stuffed his Quidditch robes into his bag, and threw it over his shoulder.

“That’s it?” demanded Draco.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?” Harry asked irritably. He’d missed the celebrations from his last win because Madam Pomfrey had sent him off with Hagrid, and now Draco was killing the buzz from this one. “What, do you want a card and a present as well?”

“An apology would be nice!”

“For what?”

“For taking all the glory!” Draco shouted. “I was about to score a twenty-five pointer when you caught the Snitch!”

Harry snorted. “Well, sorry for doing my job! Maybe if you’d tried a bit harder, you could’ve scored that goal and shared the glory.”

“You only have that job because of me!” Draco’s voice was very shrill now, and pink spots had appeared on his cheeks.

“So what, now I’m supposed to half-arse it so you look better?” Harry laughed. “I didn’t ask you to cheat for me, Draco, and I’m not going to sacrifice the Quidditch Cup just so you can make your daddy proud.”

For a moment, Harry thought Draco was going to hit him, or hex him. Then Draco plucked his Quidditch robes and broomstick from the bench, turned on his heel, and stormed out of the changing rooms.

Harry threw his bag on the floor and slumped onto the bench. He was in no hurry to go up to the castle; he didn’t feel the slightest bit in the mood for partying any more. The longer he sat, the guiltier he felt. He knew what Draco had seen in the Mirror of Erised, and what he'd said to him was the equivalent of Draco mocking the fact that his parents hadn't been there to see him.

A while later, once he'd given Draco plenty of time to enjoy the limelight, he decided to go an apologise to his friend. He picked up his things and left the changing room.

The winter sky was already turning grey, and the chilly walk over the damp grass helped to clear his head. By the time he reached the broom store, he was feeling a little satisfied with his victory again. Once he'd apologised to Draco, the two of them could enjoy their first post-match party together.

A hooded figure came swiftly down the front steps of the castle. Clearly not wanting to be seen, it walked as fast as possible towards the Forbidden Forest. Harry’s victory, and his argument with Draco, faded from his mind as he watched. He recognised the figure’s prowling walk. Snape was sneaking into the Forest while his House was celebrating - what was going on?

Harry jumped back on his Nimbus Two Thousand and took off. Gliding silently over the castle he saw Snape enter the Forest at a run. He followed.

The trees were so thick he couldn’t see where Snape had gone. He flew in circles, lower and lower, brushing the top branches of trees until he heard voices. He glided towards them and landed noiselessly in a towering beech tree.

He climbed carefully along one of the branches, holding tight to his broomstick, trying to see through the leaves.

Below, in a shadowy clearing, stood Snape, but he wasn’t alone. Quirrell was there, too. Harry couldn’t make out the look on his face, but he was stuttering worse than ever. Harry strained to catch what they were saying.

“… d-don’t know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus…”

“Oh, I thought we’d keep this private,” Snape said, his voice icy. “Students aren’t supposed to know about the Philosopher’s Stone, after all.”

Harry leant forward. Quirrell was mumbling something. Snape interrupted him.

“Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid’s yet?”

“B-b-but Severus, I—”

“You don’t want me as your enemy, Quirrell,” said Snape, taking a step towards him.

“I-I don’t know what you—”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.”

An owl hooted loudly and Harry nearly fell out of the tree. He steadied himself in time to hear Snape say, “—your little bit of hocus pocus. I’m waiting.”

“B-but I d-d-don’t—”

“Very well,” Snape cut in. “We’ll have another little chat soon, when you’ve had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie.”

He threw his cloak over his head and strode out of the clearing. It was almost dark now, but Harry could see Quirrell, standing quite still as though he was petrified.

The party was in full swing when Harry entered the Slytherin common room, but Draco was nowhere to be seen. He headed for his dormitory, but not before the rest of the team spotted him, and lifted him into the air again. Everyone was cheering and chanting his name, “Potter! Potter!”

Harry spent the next hour being congratulated by what felt like every student in his House. He’d hoped to slip away to find Draco when everyone went to lunch, but found himself once again being paraded on the shoulders of Mulciber and Snyde.

He forced down a few forkfuls of dinner, then headed over to the Gryffindor table, where he was greeted with stony faces. His swift victory meant that Gryffindor would need to win their next match by a wide margin to have any hope of winning the Junior House Cup.

“Ron, have you got a minute?”

Ron glanced over at the Slytherin table, on top of which Graham Montague and Marcella Flint were now dancing, to loud applause.

“Wouldn’t you rather be celebrating?” he asked bitterly.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Harry snapped. “Not you as well!”

Ron’s expression brightened. “Malfoy showing his true colours, is he?”

“What’s wrong?” Granger asked nosily.

Harry ignored her, and asked Ron in a low voice, “Have you ever heard of the Philosopher’s Stone?”

His voice clearly hadn’t been low enough; Granger gasped and leaped up from her seat.

“No - it can’t…” she said excitedly. “But… I know, come on!”

Harry decided knowing exactly what Fluffy was guarding was worth spending a few minutes with the know-it-all. He looked expectantly a Ron, who looked wistfully at the remains of his dinner, then sighed, and stood up as well.

“I assume this has something to do with Fluffy,” said Ron, as the three of them walked past the ends of the other House tables towards the door.

“Sshhh!” hissed Granger. She sped up her pace, until the three of them were running across the Entrance Hall, up the marble staircase and towards Gryffindor Tower.

“We can’t bring him inside!” Ron protested, when Granger panted, “leonotis leonorus,” at the portrait of a very fat witch. “Not today. Fred and George would kill me.”

Granger rolled her eyes. “Fine, the two of you wait here. I just need to go grab a book.”

Harry and Ron stood awkwardly in the corridor as Granger disappeared down the narrow passage that had opened up behind the fat witch’s portrait.

“A book?” Ron muttered irritably. “You’re telling me I left dinner early for a book.”

“It is about Fluffy,” Harry said quietly. “At least, I think it is. I overheard Snape trying to force Quirrell to tell him how to get past Fluffy. He said something about the Philosopher’s Stone - I think that’s what it must be guarding.”

“Never heard of it,” said Ron. After a brief silence, he added, “Well done, by the way. Great catch. I’m sorry that wasn’t the first thing I said to you.”

“Thanks,” said Harry. “And I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

The portrait of the fat witch swung forwards again, and Granger tumbled through the hole, an enormous, ancient-looking book in her hands. She began furiously turning pages.

“Here we go!” she said excitedly. She took a deep breath, and read aloud, “The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.”

“So you mean,” said Ron, wide-eyed, “the key to eternal wealth is just sitting under that trap door? Blimey, no wonder Snape wants to steal it.”

“Not just eternal wealth, eternal life,” Harry pointed out. “Anyone would want it!”

“And there’s only one,” said Granger. “It says here the only known maker is Nicolas Flamel. He must have known someone was after it, so he gave it to Dumbledore to keep it safe here at Hogwarts.”

“Right under Snape’s nose,” Harry said defeatedly. “Do you think we should tell Dumbledore?”

“Are you mad?” said Ron. “Tell him that not only were we sneaking around at night, but we happened to end up in the forbidden third floor corridor?”

“I wasn’t sneaking around,” Granger said haughtily.

“Do you really think that matters?” asked Ron, rather aggressively. “You might have got away with dobbing us in immediately, but you’ve kept it secret for weeks, which means you’ll be in just as much trouble as the rest of us if we tell someone now. Probably more, after the troll.”

Granger looked very uncomfortable. “I can’t get expelled,” she said quietly. “I’ll never catch up with everyone else at a Muggle school when I’ve already missed half the year.”

Harry didn’t like the idea of being expelled any more than Granger did. “Then what are we going to do about it?” he asked. “Snape said something about Quirrell’s hocus-pocus - it sounds like he just needs to figure out how to get past Fluffy, and what protective enchantments Quirrell’s done, and he’ll have the Stone.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Ron said defeatedly. “It’s as good as Snape’s already.”

“We watch Quirrell,” said Granger. Her lip trembled. “And we go straight to Dumbledore if it looks like he’s about to cave. I’d rather be expelled than let Snape steal something that powerful.”

Chapter Text

Ron Weasley

When Neville asked why he’d run off with Harry during dinner, Ron debated lying to him. But Neville had agreed to be his second and had been there when they found Fluffy, so Ron supposed he deserved to know.

“Harry found out what Fluffy’s guarding,” he explained. “It’s the Philosopher’s Stone.”

From the way the colour drained from Neville’s face, Ron assumed he’d heard of the Stone before.

“The Philosopher’s Stone?” Neville repeated in a whisper, even though it was only the two of them in the dormitory. “Here?”

Ron nodded. “And Snape’s definitely after it. Harry heard him threatening Quirrell, trying to get him to give up whatever information he has about the protections around the Stone.”

Neville looked sick. “Have you told Professor McGonagall yet?”

Ron stared at him. “Of course not!”

Neville pulled his cloak on over his pyjamas and strode to the door. “Well, come on, what are you waiting for?”

Ron continued to stare at him, certain Neville must be pulling his leg. Harry’s suggestion that they go to Professor Dumbledore had been bad enough, but McGonagall? The only person worse to talk to about it would be Snape himself!

“That Stone is all that’s keeping Flamel alive!” said Neville. “If Snape manages to steal it, he’ll die, and his wife too. Do you want to be responsible for the death of the oldest Warlock alive?”

“We wouldn’t be responsible,” Ron said doubtfully. “Snape’s the one who’s trying to steal it.”

“And we can do something to stop it. I can, at least. I don’t care if I get expelled - at least gran will be proud of me for once for doing the right thing!”

Ron gaped at his friend for another long moment, then sighed and pulled on his slippers. Granger was going to kill him if they ended up getting expelled, but Neville was right.

The bell for first curfew rang just as they were crossing the common room, and to Ron’s dismay the portrait hole swung open to reveal Percy, carrying a stack of books.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Nowhere,” said Ron.

“Correct,” said Percy. “Off to bed with you.”

“We’re going to see Professor McGonagall,” Neville piped up beside him, and Ron groaned.

Percy’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“We can’t tell you,” Neville said nervously.

“I’m a Prefect,” said Percy, puffing out his chest. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. There’s certainly no point bothering Professor McGonagall about it.”

“It’s fine,” muttered Ron, turning around. “Come on, Neville, we’ll tell her tomorrow.”

“It might be too late tomorrow,” Neville said stubbornly, and to Ron’s surprise, he pulled himself up to his full height, which was roughly level with Percy’s chest, and said, “We’re going. You can take House points or give us detention if you want to, but we’re going to see Professor McGonagall and you can’t stop us.”

Percy looked just as astonished as Ron felt. He blinked twice, and then, to Ron’s even greater astonishment, gestured through the passage to the portrait hole. “You can go, but I’m coming with you.”

Ron felt like he was marching to his death. On one side of him walked Neville who seemed to have used up all his courage standing up to Percy and was now trembling like a leaf. On the other was Percy, whose gaze kept darting between the two of them suspiciously. Ron wondered if he’d try to protest when Professor McGonagall sent them to pack their bags.

It was a very short walk, since Professor McGonagall’s office was just around the corner from the Fat Lady’s portrait, but it felt like it had taken several minutes to get there. Since Neville looked like he was having a nervous breakdown and Percy was obviously waiting for one of them to do something, Ron raised a hand and knocked on the door.

Professor McGonagall answered it after a few seconds, wearing a tartan dressing gown and a hairnet. Her gaze went straight over Ron and Neville’s heads to Percy.

“Yes, Weasley, what is it?”

“Sorry to disturb you, Professor,” said Percy. “My brother and his friend wanted to talk to you and they said they couldn’t tell me what it was about.”

Professor McGonagall’s gaze lowered to Ron, then drifted over to Neville, who seemed to be hugging himself to try to keep from shaking.

“What on earth is so important you couldn’t tell a Prefect about it?” demanded Professor McGonagall.

“It’s about the third floor corridor,” said Neville in a very small voice.

Professor McGonagall’s eyes widened. She stared at Neville for a long moment, then held the door to her office open wide. “Inside, both of you. Mr Weasley, you are dismissed.”

“But, professor—”

“I’m sure you have some homework you’d rather be doing,” Professor McGonagall said firmly, and she closed the door before Percy could add any further protests. “Longbottom, sit down before you fall over.”

Since there were three armchairs arranged before the fireplace, Ron sat down as well. Professor McGonagall sank into the third chair and glared at them.

“What exactly do you have to say about the third floor corridor?”

Ron and Neville exchanged a look.

“I g-got lost on my way to class the other day,” said Neville, “and - well, I know why the corridor’s out of bounds now. But the point is, when Ron and I were in the Hospital Wing, we saw Professor Snape coming in every day to get Madam Pomfrey to look at his leg And yesterday, we heard Professor Snape talking to Professor Quirrell, and he said - what exactly did he say again, Ron?”

Ron could have strangled Neville for dropping him in it like that, but at least Neville hadn’t said he was in the third floor as well.

“Well, we couldn’t hear him very well,” he improvised, wishing Harry had told him exactly what he’d overheard. “But he said something about Professor Quirrell’s hocus-pocus, and… the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Professor McGonagall took a sharp intake of breath. “Where exactly were you when you overheard this conversation?”

“In the dungeon”, said Ron. Thinking on his feet, he added, “We were going to congratulate Harry on the match, but we got lost trying to find the Slytherin common room.”

He could tell from Professor McGonagall’s expression that she didn’t believe him.

“And why exactly did you need to urgently come and tell me this?” she demanded.

“Because we think Professor Snape’s trying to steal the Stone,” whispered Neville, looking at his feet.

Professor McGonagall laughed. “Well, really.”

Ron looked at Neville, and was pleased to see his friend looked just as bewildered as he was. They’d just told Professor McGonagall her colleague was trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone, and she was laughing?

“I don’t know what you were up to, to have overheard Professors Snape and Quirrell talking about the Stone,” Professor McGonagall said, suddenly stern again, “but I can assure you, you have nothing to worry about. Both of them are protecting the Stone. They were probably just trying to one up each other on who’s done the better enchantments. Now, if the two of you promise to forget that you know anything about the Stone or why the Third Floor Corridor is forbidden, then I won’t ask any more questions about what precisely you were doing in the dungeons or your poor location skills, Mr Longbottom.”

“We promise,” Ron and Neville agreed quickly.

Professor McGonagall nodded and strode to the door. “Then you should head to your dormitory. And boys? You did the right thing bringing your concerns to me. Don’t undo it with any more ‘getting lost’.”

They nodded fervently and hurried back to their dormitory, where they were unable to discuss the matter any further because Dean and Seamus had come up to bed.

Hermione Granger

Hermione felt rather foolish when Ron told her what Professor McGonagall had said when he and Neville had gone to speak to her about the Philosopher’s Stone and Professor Snape. She’d got so swept up in the mystery of what Fluffy was guarding that she’d got carried away and come up with a fantastic explanation when the real one was quite obvious and far more mundane. Professor Snape was so exacting, he’d probably been worried Professor Quirrell’s protective spell wasn’t up to scratch. His injuries were easily explained as well. Someone could have exploded a Potion over him in one of his lessons, or he might even have gone to check that the Stone was adequately protected and been taken by surprise by Fluffy. There was just no way Professor Dumbledore would have asked one of his teachers to help protect the Stone if there was slightest chance they might try to steal it.

Worse than feeling foolish was the guilt she felt at having put her place at Hogwarts above poor Nicolas Flamel. Of course, he hadn’t been in any real danger, but that didn’t excuse her decision not to report her concerns about Professor Snape. The fact that Ron and Neville hadn’t got in any trouble at all made her feel like even more of an idiot. Of course, after her detention from the troll incident, Professor McGonagall might well have punished her for ‘getting lost’ in the Third Floor Corridor, so she felt very grateful to Ron and Neville for not dragging her along with them. If she’d felt like they owed her after she’d taken responsibility for the troll - which she didn’t, of course - then that debt was now repaid.

She redoubled her efforts in class to distract herself from these feelings. It wouldn’t be too long before she needed to start revising for the end-of-year exams, and she wanted to make sure her notes were in a good state. It would be much, much worse to fail out of Hogwarts than to get expelled.

About three weeks after finding out about the Philosopher’s Stone, an owl brought Hermione a note at breakfast. Since she didn’t know anyone who would send her an owl who wasn’t sitting at the table with her, she picked up the note a little nervously and double checked the name on the outside of the rolled-up scrap of parchment. It was addressed to her. She unrolled it and read:

Miss Granger,

I conducted some additional research after your questions last week. If you can spare a few minutes on your lunch break before our class on Wednesday, I believe I can now answer them. I’ll be waiting in my classroom.

Professor Q. Quirrell

Hermione slipped the note back into her pocket and looked excitedly up at the Teacher’s Table. Professor Quirrell was talking to Professor Sinistra, but he spotted her looking and offered a small nod in her direction. She smiled back.

The first few Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons had been something of a let-down, and she had resigned herself to learning most of the material from the textbook after Professor Quirrell had been unable to answer her questions about imps last lesson. Percy Weasley had told her that Professor Quirrell had taught Muggle Studies before, so it was understandable that there were a few gaps in his knowledge. But he’d supposedly gone on a year’s sabbatical to prepare for teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, and he wasn’t taking any of the second- or third-year classes, so it wasn’t like he’d had that many lessons to prepare for.

Clearly, Professor Dumbledore thought he was up to the job, since he’d asked Quirrell to help protect the Stone alongside Fluffy and Snape. Since finding this out, Hermione had made a point to say hello to Professor Quirrell whenever she passed him in the corridors, so he knew she respected him as much as all her other teachers. The fact that he’d done some research after being unable to answer her questions last week suggested he might actually deserve it. He was clearly trying to improve.

It was more than could be said for Ron. He had met up with Harry Potter three times in the last week, and the two of them seemed to have frittered the time away on silly games rather than doing anything useful. He’d even had the cheek to ask to copy one of her essays, after she’d given up waiting for him to return to the common room so they could do it together. For someone who had grown up in the magical world, he seemed particularly ignorant about its history.

Hermione was so excited to see Professor Quirrell on Wednesday afternoon that she practically inhaled her sandwiches. None of her other teachers had ever invited her to come along to class early before. She hurried up to the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor and along to the classroom that smelled strangely of garlic.

The door was not only closed but locked as well. Professor Quirrell must have wanted to keep out anyone looking for somewhere quiet to work over lunch. Hermione knocked loudly, but as she’d expected, no answer came.

Hermione had been waiting outside the classroom for several minutes, wishing she’d taken her time and had a couple more sandwiches, when the distinctive sound of running footsteps came around the corner.

A pair of girls appeared, covered from head to foot in what looked like flour, so that they left a trail of white along the floor behind them.

“I wouldn’t stay there, if I were you!” one of them said to Hermione. “Peeves is coming this way!”

Hermione hesitated for only a moment before taking out her wand, pointing it at the classroom door, and saying, “Alohamora!”

A few seconds later, from the safety of Professor Quirrell’s classroom, she heard the sound of screams, followed by a cackle. Peeves had apparently found another victim.

Hermione leaned against the door, feeling relieved it wasn’t her. She was just trying to decide whether Professor Quirrell would mind if she waited inside the classroom, when her eyes fell on his desk. There was a large, glass box sitting on top of it. Hermione suddenly felt a thrill of excitement; Professor Quirrell hadn’t brought any items along to their previous lessons. Of course, this item might not be intended for their lesson, but something left over from his last class before lunch, she realised. A slight sense of unease came over her as she wondered whether the box, rather than her expected visit, was the reason the classroom had been left locked.

Hermione decided to wait in the corridor, hoping that Professor Quirrell wouldn’t mind she’d popped into the classroom for a minute to escape Peeves. She had just placed her hand on the doorknob when a strange sensation came over her.

Suddenly, Hermione realised that she didn’t care what Professor Quirrell thought. In fact, she felt rather marvellously free of any cares or concerns, other than a desire to know what Professor Quirrell had locked the classroom for. She found her feet carrying her towards the desk, and an indescribable happiness embraced her as she indulged her curiosity.

The box contained a small painting in a brass frame, but Hermione couldn’t quite make out what the painting was of. She reached out to pick it up, then stopped herself. If Professor Quirrell had locked the classroom because of this painting, it might not be a good idea to touch it. Quirrell had warned them in his very first lesson that curiosity could lead to terrible things.

But, Hermione reasoned, Quirrell wouldn't have left the painting out if it was really dangerous. The wonderfully pleasant feeling was filling her again, and she knew the only thing that could possibly make her any happier was to get a closer look at the painting. She picked it up.

26 February

Draco Malfoy

Draco had hardly spoken to Harry since their argument after the Quidditch match. He’d planned to apologise over dinner the very same day, but then Harry had run off with Weasley and that know-it-all Granger. It was as though he had been trying to make a point about just low he was willing to drop his standards rather than be with Draco. In fact, given he’d done it at dinner, when everyone could see him, Draco was fairly sure that had been his intention. Draco hadn’t seen Harry with Granger again since, thank goodness, but he’d met up with the Weasel several times outside class.

To make matters worse, Harry had hardly said a word to him, either. He had asked Daphne for help with his Potions essay the other night, and he and Greg had taken to comparing notes after Prep. He had even played a game of chess against Teddy the other night, using the chessmen Draco had given him. Since they shared a dormitory, every lesson and still had Quidditch practice three times a week, it was getting quite uncomfortable to not be talking to each other.

Draco had decided several times to be the bigger person and make the first apology. Unfortunately, he had yet to follow through on it; every time he summoned the courage to do so, Harry had made some comment flaunting his new friendship with the Weasel. Draco was willing to admit he had been in the wrong, but he refused to apologise whilst he was being actively insulted.

It came as quite a surprise, therefore, when Harry turned around only moments after entering the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, and called down the corridor, “Draco, come quickly!”

Draco glared at Harry. “We’ve got five minutes before class. I’ll come—”

He broke off, suddenly realising that Harry’s face was white with terror. Draco stopped so suddenly that Vince walked into him.

“What’s happened?” asked Draco.

“It’s Granger,” said Harry. “I - I think she’s dead.”

Draco hurried to the classroom, Vince and Greg hot on his heels.

Granger was lying on the floor behind Quirrell’s desk. Her eyes were wide open, and she wasn’t moving. Draco took a hesitant step closer. It looked like there was something in her hand…

Draco took a moment to check what shoes he was wearing - dragonhide, luckily - then kicked Granger’s hand. The item flew from her grip.

“What the hell are—”

“She picked something up,” Draco explained to Harry. “Don’t touch it, you idiot!” he snapped at Vince, who had bent down and reached for the small object.

“Can I touch her?” asked Harry, kneeling down in front of Granger.

“It’s probably safest not to,” said Draco. “Someone should go and get Madam Pomfrey.”

“I’ll go,” said Harry.

“No,” said Draco. The rumour mill would go wild if he, Vince and Greg were found alone with what might well be the corpse of their Mudblood classmate. “Vince, you go.”

Vince glared at him, but sloped off out of the classroom.

“Do either of you have your gloves on you?” Draco asked, but Greg and Harry both shook their heads. Draco looked around the classroom, and spotted a glass box on the desk. He pulled the sleeves of his robes down over his hands and carefully picked up the box, flipped it over, and placed it over the item.

“Salazar’s Serpent,” he muttered, as the gooseflesh on his arm began to smooth. “Surely even a Mudblood could feel that aura.”

“She must have taken it off Quirrell’s desk,” Greg said unnecessarily.

“We should go,” said Draco.

“What, just leave her?” asked Harry.

“The box will have broken the connection, if stopping her touching it wasn't enough,” Draco explained. “There’s nothing else we can do to help, and I don’t want to—”

It was too late. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil walked into the room, giggling to each other. They stopped when they saw the three nervous-looking Slytherins.

“Granger’s been cursed,” said Harry. “Whatever you do, don’t move that box.”

Brown let out a little scream when she saw Granger, but to Draco’s surprised relief, neither she nor Patil started throwing around accusations. The rest of the class continued to arrive in small groups, each of them staring wide-eyed at the girl behind the desk, until finally Professor Quirrell entered the classroom.

His was by far the loudest scream, before he collapsed into a faint.

By the time he came back around, Madam Pomfrey had arrived, and the entire class were standing over their classmate and teacher, whispering nervously.

“Whatever happened, Quilius?” asked Madam Pomfrey, helping Professor Quirrell to his feet. “Mr Crabbe just said Miss Granger needed my help.”

“I was t-t-teaching the third years ab-b-bout auras before lunch,” sobbed Professor Quirrell. “Miss Granger m-must have p-p-picked up the p-p-painting.”

“It’s over there,” said Draco, pointing at the upturned box. “I isolated it.”

“Good thinking, Mr Malfoy,” said Madam Pomfrey, who was now kneeling over Granger.

Green vines spread from the end of her wand and brushed over Granger’s motionless form. They remained green as they conducted their exploration, which Draco knew was a good sign.

A couple of minutes later, Madam Pomfrey and a trembling Professor Quirrell were lifting Hermione onto a stretcher.

“Will she be OK?” Weasley asked Madam Pomfrey.

“She seems healthy,” said the witch.

“She’s j-j-just s-sleeping,” explained Professor Quirrell, stuttering worse than ever. “The p-p-painting, it b-b-bears a S-Sleeping B-B-Beauty curse.”

Madam Pomfrey let out a relieved sigh. “Then it is simply a matter of keeping her healthy until she wakes up,” she told the class. “How long that takes will depend on how long she was exposed.”

“What about true love’s kiss?” asked Dean Thomas.

As most of the class gave the boy puzzled looks, Draco heard Vince mutter, “Who’d want to kiss that?” Several people snorted.

“Superstitious Muggle nonsense, I’m afraid, Thomas,” said Madam Pomfrey. “Time is the only remedy, and Mr Malfoy’s actions have no doubt saved her a great deal of it. Ten points to Slytherin, I think. Oh, and another five for Mr Crabbe for fetching me.”

Draco exchanged a smug look with Vince.

“You should secure the object, Quilius,” said Madam Pomfrey, nodding at the painting beneath the glass box. “I’d like to give it to St Mungo’s in case there’s anything they can suggest to speed Miss Granger’s recovery.”

“Of c-c-course,” agreed Professor Quirrell. He looked around at the assembled students, his face chalk-white. “I’m afraid I d-d-don’t think I’ll b-be m-m-much use at t-t-teaching this afternoon. C-c-class dismissed.”

Draco thought cancelling the lesson was something of a missed opportunity. Seeing the effect of a Sleeping Beauty curse was by far the most interesting thing that had happened in Quirrell’s classroom all term. Certainly they’d learn more by watching Professor Quirrell securely contain the painting than they had listening to him lecture them about the classification of Dark Charms. As if anybody actually cared whether they were technically being hit with a hex or a jinx when they were busy trying to counter it - not that they were allowed to learn counter-jinxes yet, of course.

Most of his classmates agreed. They grumbled about being kicked out of the classroom all the way down to the Slytherin Wing.

“Why couldn’t we study the painting?”

“Why couldn’t we study Granger?”

Pansy was more upset that Madam Pomfrey had only given Slytherin fifteen points. “I mean, you saved her life,” she said indignantly, as they sank onto leather sofas in the common room. “Surely that’s worth at least fifty points?”

“Yeah, but it was Granger,” said Vince.

When the laughter that followed died down, Draco told Pansy, “I didn’t save her life. The danger in that sort of curse is taking it somewhere you won’t be found before you dehydrate or starve to death. All I did is save Granger a few weeks of missed classes.”

“I wonder how long she’ll be out,” said Tessie. “Ha, can you imagine her face if she wakes up and Pomfrey tells her the exams are starting in two days?”

Draco laughed. If Granger was out that long, Madam Pomfrey might be better off giving her something to keep her out for a couple more weeks and leaving her to wake up on the Hogwarts Express where her hysterics would be someone else’s problem.

“She was really lucky you were there, Draco,” said Harry. “I didn’t have a clue what to do.”

“You knew to call for me,” said Draco, smiling at Harry for the first time in several days.

“Oh, were you the one who found her, Harry?” asked Tracey. “Wow, what was that like?”

“Scary,” said Harry. “I thought she was dead.”

“Oh gosh, that’s awful,” said Daphne, giving Harry a pitying look. “I mean, it would be awful for anyone, but especially for you.”

“Why for me in particular?” asked Harry, looking confused. “I hardly know her.”

“I meant after what happened to your parents,” said Daphne, in a hushed voice.

Draco rolled his eyes. Having your parents murdered right in front of you was very different to finding a classmate unconscious because she was too ignorant to be wary of curses in a Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Still, Harry’s public denouncement of any sort of familiarity with Granger was almost as good as an apology.

He leaned closer to Harry as Millie and Tracey wondered aloud whether Professor Quirrell would get into trouble.

“Harry, I’m—”

“Why aren’t you lot in class?” demanded a familiar voice.

Draco looked over to the entrance to see his cousin Simon.

“Quirrell sent us away,” said Greg.

“A stupid Mudblood got herself cursed poking around in his classroom over lunch,” Tessie elaborated.

Simon snorted. “There’s always someone who has to learn the hard way,” he mused, before attaching the parchment he was holding to the noticeboard.

“Anything interesting?” Draco asked.

“Just the Hogwarts Express sign-ups,” Simon replied.

His words sparked an enthusiastic discussion about everyone’s plans for the holidays. Teddy boasted that his father had got four tickets to see The Hobgoblins in Ton Alley, and claimed he was still trying to decide who to invite to join him. Pansy, Vince and Greg were all hoping to watch the England-Spain Quidditch friendly which father had already promised to take Draco to.

“I’m staying here again,” said Harry. “Ron and his brothers are staying, too, so they’re going to teach me how to play two-a-side Quidditch.”

Draco should have invited Harry to spend the holidays at the Manor instead. Father had suggested it, since Draco had pretended the two of them were still best of friends, rather than admit to his parents that he had driven Harry to consorting with the Weasel through his childishness. The mention of the Weasleys drove all rational thought from his mind, however, and instead he said the very first thing that came to him.

“I bet Weasley’s mother’s delighted. That’s three less mouths to feed over the holidays. Four, if the prissy Prefect stays, too.”

“And I bet you’re delighted to get back to champagne and caviar,” retorted Harry.

Vince was one of those who laughed. Draco glared at him. It was a ridiculous comment; father said he’d grow to like caviar, but he couldn’t see how he’d ever like salty bubbles popping in his mouth.

Draco made a great effort after that to hold his tongue every time Harry mentioned Weasley. His offers to help Harry with his homework were gratefully received, and Harry even apologised for what he’d said after the Quidditch match. But still he persisted in spending some of his free time with Weasley, as though Draco and the other Slytherins weren’t good enough for him.

The biggest betrayal came in the penultimate week of term. On Dia Semini, Harry was nowhere to be seen when the Lower School Slytherins gathered in their usual courtyard to celebrate the equinox. Instead, he spent the festival with Weasley, celebrating a new beginning and the triumph of light over darkness with someone so low in social standing it was a wonder he’d even been admitted to Hogwarts.

Finally, the Hogwarts Express arrived to take him home to Malfoy Manor. Mother met him on the platform, and had the grace to wait until she’d Apparated the two of them into the Manor before she swept him into a tight embrace.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

At the sight of the tears in mother’s eyes, Draco burst into tears himself. Mother showed him to a chair in the library, offered him a handkerchief, and waited for him to regain control of himself.

“What’s wrong, dear? You seemed so happy in our chats.”

“I wish I was two months younger!” Draco knew it was petulant, but mother was willing to indulge a little petulance occasionally. “Everyone fawns over Harry, and sometimes it’s like I’m not even there! If I was just in a different year, I know Hogwarts would be everything you and father told me it would be!”

Mother gave him one of her most understanding looks. “Bella was four years above me at school, and she still overshadowed my every achievement. Everything I achieved, she’d either done first, better, or decried as worthless. When she left, I thought finally I might have my chance to shine, when along came my cousin, doing his best to ruin our family name.”

“Great,” choked Draco. “So even if I fail my end-of-year exams and get held back a year, he’ll still be looming over me like some awful sun and drowning out my light.”

Mother laughed. “I wouldn’t be half the witch I am if I hadn’t spent four years trying to prove I was every bit as powerful as Bella, and the next three learning how to be my own person and not just a younger, blonde version of her. And…” she hesitated, apparently trying to decide how best to phrase her next words. “And perhaps, we should all have accepted that we had complementary skills, rather than each seeking to be the best in everything. Perhaps Bella would not have gone to such lengths to prove herself in those Arts in which Andromeda and I have so little talent.”

Draco didn’t say anything. Mother hardly ever talked about her sisters. He’d seen photographs of them both, so alike in looks and yet worlds apart in how they’d chosen to live their lives. Though mother shared their beauty, she had little of their classic Black looks, and yet she was the only one of the three who had lived up to what a Black witch should be.

“If you think living up to our expectations of you is a daunting prospect, think how the Boy Who Lived must feel.”

Draco jumped. He hadn’t heard his father enter the library. He wiped his tears hastily on his sleeve.

“And you have a loving family, including both the patriarch and the heir to prepare you to take up our mantle,” said father. “Who does Harry have, besides you?”

“Ronald Weasley,” muttered Draco. “And he could have any friends he wants - people were practically falling over themselves trying to be his friend when we arrived.”

“And yet he chose you as his friend,” said father. “Would you really throw that away because you're jealous? Blood status notwithstanding, you’re the closest he has to an equal at Hogwarts, and friendly competition would do you both far more good than a bitter rivalry.”

Draco knew father was right. The only other boys on his level were Teddy Nott and Neville Longbottom. Given the embarrassment with Teddy’s brother, he was hardly the sort of person Draco wanted to become his best friend. The idea of befriending Longbottom was laughable. If Draco patched things up with Harry, there were bound to be times in the future when he’d find himself sidelined, but was that really any different to being sent to dine alone when his parents had important visitors? In fact, surely it was better, because Harry wouldn’t be the one doing the sidelining.

“You’re right, of course,” said Draco. He patted his eyes with the handkerchief again, then rose. “I should go and dress for dinner.”

“I’d like you to come to my study first,” said father. “Do you remember I said there’s something I’d like to teach you?”

“Can’t it wait?” asked Draco, unable to keep a hint of a whine from his voice.

“No,” said father, his brows knitting together in disapproval. “Since it’s technically illegal for me to begin teaching you before you come of age, I would like to maximise the time you have to practice before going back to school.”

Draco’s eyes widened. He knew there were plenty of things you had to be of age to do, but none of them were the sort of thing you needed lessons in. He felt a swell of pride as he realised it must be something incredibly complex or dangerous, and father thought he was ready to handle it.

That pride turned in an instant to nervousness as father added, “Besides, your first lesson will be much more effective if you’re feeling emotional.”

Chapter Text

1 April

Hogwarts Castle, Hogsmeade

Harry Potter

Enough students had stayed at the castle over the spring holidays that the House tables had only been halved, rather than replaced entirely as they had been at Christmas. Seniors outnumbered Juniors four to one, since many of the fifth- and seventh-years had stayed to study for their upcoming exams. Harry had noticed with amusement that there were almost as many Juniors from Ravenclaw still at school as there were from the other three Houses combined.

Despite the reduced number of seats, however, there was still space for students to sit in friendship groups rather than Houses. That usually only happened at breakfast and lunch during term-time, and Harry - who knew his Housemates far better than anyone else except perhaps Ron - had never sat away from his House before. Most of the Slytherin Senior Quidditch Team had stayed at school, and several of them had made an effort to speak to him over the first couple of evenings, but he was the only first-year at their table. As a result, he’d quickly taken to sitting with Ron for most of his meals.

In fact, Harry hardly spent a minute away from his friend since the start of the holidays, except to sleep. Ron’s brothers had all stayed at Hogwarts as well, and whilst Percy seemed to spend every day holed up in the library, the twins Fred and George were more than up for enjoying the sunshine. Harry thought the twins had been slightly nervous of him to start with, in a way they hadn’t been when they’d found out who he was on the train. He supposed it might be because they were on opposing House Quidditch teams. Letting them both try out his Nimbus seemed to have gone some way towards warming them back up to him.

It had certainly made Ron happy. The four of them spent several hours each day playing two-a-side Quidditch. It had taken a few tries to effectively balance the teams; Harry’s Nimbus made up for Ron’s borrowed school broom, but the twins outmatched the two of them in skill. Harry and either twin, against the other on their own broom and Ron riding Harry’s Nimbus, ended up working out fairly evenly. Harry decided the pleasure Ron got from being able to contribute to his team made up for not being able to fly his own broom.

Harry was particularly amused to discover that the twins’ birthday was April Fool’s Day, which was still a thing in the magical world. He and Ron had spent the morning playing chess in a empty classroom, since the twins had said they had other plans. Those plans became apparent when they headed to lunch; the marble staircase to the Entrance Hall had turned into a giant slide, at the bottom of which an exasperated Professor McGonagall was trying to calm an irate Filch whilst the twins stood nearby, trying to hide their grins.

“It’s midday,” snapped Professor McGonagall, when Filch finally gave up and stalked off, muttering to Mrs Norris. “That means no more tricks, do you hear me? If I hear any more complaints, I’ll be writing home to tell your parents you earned a detention on your birthday!”

“We’re done, professor,” said the twin Harry was fairly sure was Fred. He could just about tell them apart now.

“We promise,” said George.

“Good,” said Professor McGonagall. With a wave of her wand, she turned the staircase back into marble steps.

“What else did you do?” Ron asked excitedly, as he piled his plate with sandwiches.

“Used their wands like laser pointers to make Mrs Norris jump at people,” Percy Weasley said tersely, sitting down beside Fred. “It’s not funny,” he added, when Ron and Harry laughed. “She nearly knocked Penelope Clearwater down the stairs.”

“Who?” asked Fred.

“She’s a Ravenclaw Prefect.”

“It’s not our fault if people don’t look out for Mrs Norris,” said George.

“And I had to swap my revision around because Madam Pince said Roots and Bark is missing several pages after someone refused to let it stop them getting into the library.”

“Don’t you mean, missing a few leaves?” asked Fred.

Percy glared at him.

“Oh, lighten up, Perce,” said Fred. “It’s our birthday.”

Percy sighed heavily, then handed each of the twins an envelope, with a very reluctant-sounding, “Happy birthday.”

Harry suddenly remembered a conversation he’d overheard at Platform Nine and Three Quarters, between the twins and their sister. He didn’t have to wait long before Percy disappeared to resume his revision. Then he asked, “Did you ever send that toilet seat?”

“You know, I’d completely forgotten about that,” said George, looking thoughtful.

“If we do send one, will you sign it?” asked Fred.

“Then mum can’t even be mad at us,” said George.

Harry grinned. “I’d be honoured.”

A few days later, Harry and the Weasleys were halfway down to the broomstore when the heavens opened. They sprinted back up to the castle and huddled in the Entrance Hall, hoping to wait out the storm. But after ten minutes, it showed no sign of stopping.

“You up for it, then, Harry?” asked Fred. Harry had invited the twins to use his first name, since it felt awkward calling them by theirs to differentiate them whilst they still called him Potter.

“Up for what?” asked Harry.

“Sending a little something to Ginny,” chorused the twins.

Harry grinned. He still hadn’t touched any of the homework he’d been given for the holidays, but there were two weeks left for doing that. Joining in on one of the twins’ pranks sounded much more enjoyable.

Twenty minutes later, the four boys found themselves climbing the West Tower to the Owlery, badly concealing the seat they’d removed from one of the boys’ toilets at the bottom of the tower (without resorting to blowing up the toilet). Ron kept looking around nervously, and Harry got the distinct impression he would have abandoned him if they were with anyone but the twins.

“So how do I sign it?” asked Harry, as Ron positioned himself as a lookout at the top of the stairs. “A quill and ink’s not going to work, is it?”

“Ah,” said Fred.

“Would it be funny or just gross if you signed it in—”

“Hell, no,” said Harry, pulling a face.

“Well, then I’m all out of ideas,” said George.

“Gimme a sec,” said Fred, rummaging in the pocket of his robes. “Aha!”

He produced a tube of lipstick. Harry and George stared at it.

“Why’ve you got that?” George asked suspiciously.

“It’s the same shade Sophia wears. I was going to put a smudge on Patrick’s collar,” Fred explained.

“Oh, that is evil,” said George, with a wicked grin.

“Exactly why I didn’t,” said Fred.

Harry didn’t have a clue what the boys were talking about, but he could hear Ron muttering, ‘get a move on!’ from the doorway. He took the lipstick, removed the cap, and twisted the tube until there was enough sticking out for him to write with. In large, bright red letters, he wrote, to Ginny, here’s a taster of Hogwarts, from Harry Potter, on the underside of the lid.

“Excellent,” said Fred, tossing the lipstick tube out of a window.

“How many owls d’you think we’ll need for this thing?” asked George.

Harry scanned the walls of the Owlery. Owls of all sizes stared at them, pale faces and yellow eyes peering out from the darkness of the few-windowed room. None of them looked particularly eager to set out into the rain.

“I reckon a couple of big ones could do it,” he said, pointing at a pair of owls not much smaller than Mouser or Hedwig.

Fred picked up the toilet seat and carried it to that corner of the room, where the two owls Harry had indicated hopped obligingly from their perch.

“It’s a bit of an awkward shape for them to carry,” he said. “I think we’ll need to tie it on, but they’ll need to use the Post Office if we do that - they can’t fly all the way to Devon with it tied to their legs.”

“Damn, how much is an oversized parcel?” asked George, now rummaging in his pockets.

“No idea,” said Fred.

“I’ve got it,” said Harry. He dug in his robes for his coin pouch and pulled out two gold Galleons. “Reckon this is enough?”

“More than!” chorused Fred and George.

“Three Sickles would cover it,” said George. “Do you often walk around the castle with Galleons in your pockets, Harry?”

Harry shrugged, and swapped the two gold coins for three silver ones. He supposed it was rather odd to carry money around with him, when there was nothing to spend it on at school, but it was just the spare change from his shopping at Diagon Alley at the start of the year.

“Are you done yet?” Ron asked irritably.

“Just about,” said Fred, placing the coins into the pouch on the left owl’s leg. “There we go. That’s for Ginny Weasley, at The Burrow. Make sure she gets it, not her mother, OK?”

The two owls hooted agreement, then swooped out of the window, the toilet seat dangling beneath their feet. The boys watched as it disappeared into the distance somewhere over the Lake, then, to Ron’s obvious relief, started back down the stairs, their laughter echoing off the stone staircase.

“Oh, I wish we could be there to see her face,” said Fred.

“You’re a good sport, Harry,” said George. “I honestly didn’t think you’d do it.”

“Mum’s going to kill me,” moaned Ron.

“Is your name Harry Potter?” asked Fred.

“No, but you know she’ll blame me.”

“She won’t, will she?” asked Harry, feeling a little guilty. He didn’t care if the twins got into trouble - it was their idea, after all - but he’d pretty much dragged Ron into it.

“Don’t worry, Ronniekins, we’ll tell her you tried to stop us,” promised George.

Since it was still raining far too hard to go outside, Harry was resigned to finally making a start on his homework. He and Ron spent two hours in the library attempting to remember what Professor Binns had said about the Troll Brawls of 1431, and decided to reward their hard work with a game of chess after lunch.

When they arrived at the Great Hall for dinner, they were astonished to see Hermione Granger sitting on her own at the end of the Gryffindor table, beside a small pile of books.

“Hermione, you’re awake!” Ron said excitedly.

“Thank goodness,” said Granger. “I woke up this morning, but Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping me in all day for monitoring whilst the Anti-Atrophy Elixir worked. I can’t believe I’ve got so far behind on my schoolwork. I was going to go straight to the library rather than coming to dinner, but Madam Pomfrey said I need to get back on solid food as soon as possible.”

Granger looked just at stricken at the fact she’d missed three weeks of class as everyone had thought she would. Harry hid his grin, thinking it was probably insensitive to laugh at her.

“How are you feeling?” asked Ron.

Granger flapped a hand dismissively. “I’m fine. I can’t believe I went and got myself cursed in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, of all places! I knew that painting could be dangerous, and I picked it up anyway!”

“How wonderful to see you back among us, Miss Granger.”

Professor Dumbledore was standing behind the Gryffindor table, smiling at Granger, who looked alarmed to be addressed directly by the Headmaster.

“I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time?” asked Dumbledore. “I had hoped to catch you before you left the Hospital Wing, but Madam Pomfrey said you were not to be kept from your studies.”

Harry and Ron exchanged grins at that. Granger turned pink.

“Oh, yes, of course, Professor Dumbledore,” said Granger, getting to her feet.

“There’s no need to trek up to my office,” said Dumbledore. “I don’t want to keep you from your dinner any longer than necessary. Oh, Mr Potter!”

Harry started at his name.

“I’d like you to join us, too, Harry, if you don’t mind,” said Dumbledore. “This way, both of you.”

Harry exchanged a bewildered look with Ron before following Dumbledore and Granger along the Hall towards the teachers’ table. Dumbledore walked around the table and led them through a door behind it, into a small rounded chamber lined with portraits.

Dumbledore waved his wand and three elegantly-carved wooden chairs arranged themselves around the empty fireplace. He gestured to the two of them to sit down.

“Firstly, Hermione, I want to offer my sincere apologies that you suffered a curse here in my school,” said Dumbledore, in a sombre tone. “Professor Quirrell has assured me that it won’t happen again.”

“Oh, it wasn’t Professor Quirrell’s fault, professor,” said Granger, looking mortified. “The classroom was locked, and I only unlocked it to get away from Peeves. I knew I should go back outside to wait for him, but - my curiosity got the better of me.”

Dumbledore smiled. “Ah, well, I would urge caution the next time curiosity strikes, but I can assure you that even the best of us have been known to act without thinking when mysteries catch us in their thrall.”

Granger gave a small smile.

“And you are quite sure that it was your own curiosity that drove you to pick up the painting?” Dumbledore asked conversationally. “Nobody else encouraged you to do it?”

Granger shook her head, her blush deepening. “I was the only one in the classroom. It was entirely my fault.”

Dumbledore turned to Harry. “And you didn’t see anyone leave the classroom, Harry? I understand you were the first person on the scene.”

“No,” said Harry, wondering who Dumbledore thought could possibly have told Granger to pick up the painting. “I mean, yes, I was. But I didn’t see anyone.”

“Then I will allow you to return to your dinner and your studies, Hermione,” said Dumbledore. “Thank you.”

Harry half rose from his chair before he realised that he hadn’t been dismissed. He watched awkwardly as Granger left the chamber, wondering what else Dumbledore wanted from him.

“Do you think it was Snape?” he asked, as the door closed behind Granger.

“Professor Snape,” said Dumbledore, with a slight frown. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Harry.”

“Do you think Professor Snape told Granger to pick up the painting?” Harry explained. “Surely Professor McGonagall told you what I - er, I mean Ron - overheard between him and Professor Quirrell?”

Professor Dumbledore chuckled softly. “Ah, I did wonder what the two of them were doing discussing the Stone where they could be overheard by a student. I presume you were putting your Christmas gift to good use?”

Harry was too startled to discover that Dumbledore knew about his cloak to correct him. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never seen Professor Dumbledore’s handwriting.

“Well, I can assure you that I do not think Professor Snape instructed Miss Granger to subject herself to that curse,” said Dumbledore. “Nor do I believe he has any interest in obtaining the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “Then why did you want to speak to me, sir?”

“I had a curious conversation with the Hogsmeade postwitch this afternoon, Harry,” said Dumbledore. Harry’s heart suddenly began to race. But for some reason, Dumbledore didn’t seem angry. He was still smiling. “She told me that earlier today, a most unusual item transited her Post Office, destined for Greater Cornwall. That item, she claimed, was signed with your name. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

Harry wondered fleetingly if he could get away with denying it, but he knew the consequences would be much worse if he lied and got caught out than if he just admitted it now.

“Yes, sir,” he said meekly. “I, er, posted a signed toilet seat to Ron’s little sister. It was a joke.”

To his surprise, Dumbledore chuckled.

“Yes, I can imagine she will find it quite amusing to receive such an item,” said Professor Dumbledore. His expression became a little sterner, and he continued, “However, Mr Filch was not at all amused to discover this afternoon that one of the lavatories on the Second Floor of the West Tower was missing its seat.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Harry.

Dumbledore inclined his head at the apology. “I won’t ask you to betray your accomplices. The recipient and the nature of your delivery makes it quite clear to me who they were. But I am afraid I will have to ask Mr Weasley and Mr Weasley to join you in assisting Mr Filch to fit the replacement. And I believe the lavatories in question could do with a little extra cleaning. Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

Harry nodded, hoping he’d understood correctly that Ron wasn’t in trouble, since he’d tried to talk them out of it. “Sorry, sir,” he repeated.

“Well, I’ll let you enjoy your dinner before it gets cold,” said Dumbledore, rising to his feet and striding to the door.

Harry stared at his feet as he shuffled awkwardly to the door. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt more embarrassed in his life. He’d always imagined his first conversation with the Headmaster would be to receive congratulations for winning the Quidditch Cup, or something similarly impressive.

The next morning, a group of fifth-year Slytherins congratulated Harry on his toilet seat prank and invited him to tell them all about it over breakfast. The attention made him feel a little less downtrodden about disappointing Professor Dumbledore, especially as the group included Prefect Jessica Rowle.

“I heard you signed it in lipstick,” said curly-haired James Selwyn, to Harry’s surprise. He had never spoken to Harry outside Quidditch practice, despite them being related.

“Yeah, I did,” said Harry. “We couldn’t find anything else to use.”

A couple of the fifth-years snorted, but Selwyn sneered.

“You do know Arthur Weasley is fourteenth in line to the Weasley Warlockship, don’t you, Potter?” he asked. “And he works in Muggle protection.”

“Er, yes,” said Harry, who hadn’t known that Ron’s dad was anywhere in line to inherit a seat in Wizengamot. He supposed there must be hundreds of Warlocks if Ron was still considered low class despite being related to one. “So?”

“So, if you want to court common trash like that, could you wait until you leave school? You’ll make the rest of us look bad.”

“I wasn’t courting her!” Harry protested. He was too confused by the idea that his actions could be seen that way that he didn’t think to add that the Weasleys weren’t trash until James had already left.

When Harry approached the Gryffindor table a while later, a similar crowd of students around the Weasley twins were laughing at their account of the prank. Thankfully, none of them seemed to have interpreted the toilet seat as some bizarre kind of effort at courtship.

“Nice one, Potter!” said a round-faced girl whose hair hung in long plaits. “Shame you got caught.”

Harry’s grin slid off his face as her neighbour said snidely, “Typical Slytherin, dragging the twins into detention with you.”

Before Harry could defend himself, George said, “I told you, Ben, Professor McGonagall said it was obvious it was us from the fact that it was going to our sister!”

“Frankly, I’d be pretty concerned if someone posted part of a bog to my sister without my help,” said Fred.

Everyone laughed, except the boy who’d accused Harry of telling on the twins. He sneered at Harry instead.

“Thanks for not telling on me,” said Ron. “I hate cleaning.”

“But don’t you just use magic for it?” asked Harry.

“No,” said Ron, as though Harry had just suggested something very stupid. “We’re not allowed to use magic outside school, remember? Mum could do it in an instant, but she’s always making one of us clean, says it’s good practice for when we learn to do it with magic.”

Harry had completely forgotten that underage wizards weren’t allowed to use magic away from school. He was suddenly even more glad that he’d stayed at school for the holidays again, rather than going back to Privet Drive. Three weeks without being able to fly his broomstick or practice spells sounded like torture; he couldn’t imagine how he was going to manage two months of it over the summer.

His detention turned out to be both better and worse than he’d expected. Filch, apparently not trusting any of the boys to fit the replacement toilet seat, had already done so himself. He set them to cleaning straight away.

“You, take the last two cubicles,” he snapped at Harry, shoving a small box of cleaning supplies into his hands.

Harry peered into box, finding a cloth and scrubbing brush nestled between a multitude of bottles with labels like Mrs Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover and Mrs Skower’s Bathroom Blaster. The bathroom was the one room Harry hadn’t been expected to clean at home; Aunt Petunia had expressly forbidden him from touching the cabinet in which she kept the cleaning chemicals. He supposed these potions must be less dangerous than bleach. Still, he wished the box contained a pair of rubber gloves, conveniently forgetting that he hadn’t been at all worried about hygiene when removing the toilet seat to send to Ron’s sister.

He needn’t have worried, however; the first of the two cubicles he’d been assigned hardly looked like it needed cleaning to him. Still, he knelt on the hard stone floor, and set to work.

“Eurgh!” he heard one of the Weasleys exclaim from further down the bathroom. “That is rank!”

“Should’ve thought about that before you destroyed Hogwarts property, shouldn’t you,” came Filch’s reply, in a strangely happy voice. “Nasty little boys get nasty work. Maybe now you’ll think twice about breaking a school rule. Hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me… It’s just a pity they let the old punishments die out… hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days…”

Harry stifled a laugh as the last of this tirade was chorused in a low voice by whichever Weasley twin was closest to him. Filch continued to punctuate the sound of scrubbing and sloshing with suggestions of alternative punishments he thought were better suited to their misdeed. The nature of these suggestions might have intimidated Harry, if it weren’t for the fact that his neighbour continued to join in with most of the suggestions.

“Ooh, that’s a new one!” Harry heard, after Filch finished describing exactly how the three boys could be chained beneath one of the windows the Owlery’s residents particularly favoured for doing their business.

He let out a snort of laughter.

“Potter!” Filch snarled, hurrying to wrench open the door to Harry’s cubicle. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning, sir,” Harry said as innocently as he could, holding up his cloth.

“Well, clean quieter!” snapped Filch. “I want this bathroom sparkling before you leave. I want to see my face in the bowl!”

The moment Filch was out of earshot, Harry’s neighbour said, “I’d like to see your face in the bowl, too.”

Harry had to shove his arm in his mouth to stifle his laughter.

After a while, Filch declared his efforts sufficient and gave him permission to move to the next cubicle. Suspecting that the caretaker had simply decided he’d spent long enough rather than seeing any real difference - since Harry himself couldn’t - he considered simply sitting in his cubicle and waiting for Filch to give him permission to go. But, he decided, that would be even more boring than going through the motions of cleaning, so he unscrewed the bottle of Mrs Skower’s Bathroom Blaster again.

When they were given permission to leave the bathroom two and a half hours later, they had just missed the end of the lunch sitting. Harry had no doubt that was Filch’s intention, but it seemed Filch hadn’t counted on the Weasleys knowing how to get into the kitchen. Whilst George headed to Gryffindor Tower to see if Ron was up for another game of two-a-side Quidditch, Fred showed Harry down a staircase he’d never noticed before, off the corridor that led to the staff room.

“You ever seen a house elf before?” asked Fred, as they descended into the basement.

“No,” said Harry. He’d heard of the servant race, of course; Draco and Teddy had got into a boasting match over whose family owned the most house elves a few weeks ago.

“You’ll like this, then,” said Fred. He stretched a hand towards a painting of a fruit bowl, and tickled the pear. It giggled, then turned into a door handle.

Beyond the door was an enormous room, laid out to mirror the Great Hall above it, giving it a strangely cramped feeling with what felt like such a low ceiling in comparison. It was a hive of activity; two dozen small, strange-looking creatures dressed in tea-towels bearing the Hogwarts crest ran this way and that, bearing baskets of fruit and vegetables, trays of chickens and, between four of them, what looked like an entire pig.

“Mr Weasley!” one of them squeaked, spotting the boys. It ran forward and swept a bow. “And Mr Weasley’s friend!”

“Pleased to meet you,” Harry said politely. He didn’t know whether he should offer the elf a hand to shake or return the bow, so he nodded his head in an awkward greeting. “I’m Harry Potter.”

The elf suddenly prostrated itself, and within moments, Harry found himself surrounded by a dozen others, all of them bowing deeply, offering him a steaming cup of tea, a goblet of pumpkin juice, sandwiches, quiche and an entire treacle tart.

“I’m fine, honestly,” said Harry, as the offers continued to come despite the fact that he was already holding a cup of tea and an enormous plate of sandwiches, and Fred the treacle tart. “We just wanted a few sandwiches - we missed lunch.”

“Of course, Mr Potter, of course,” squeaked the elves.

“Please come back if you need anything else.”

“It’s our honour and our pleasure, Mr Potter.”

When Harry and Fred had backed into the corridor and the door swung shut in front of them, Fred grinned at him.

“So, that’s house elves,” he said cheerfully. “They love being helpful.”

“You mean they’re like that with everyone?” asked Harry.

“Well, they’re usually not quite that enthusiastic,” admitted Fred. “Apparently you’re famous among house elves, too. But George and I can never leave without them offering us several cups of tea.”

“And we’re allowed to just go down and ask for food whenever we want?”

Fred shrugged. “I don’t think we’re supposed to, but they’ve never turned us away. And nobody’s ever told us not to, so I guess they haven’t reported us. Don’t tell Ron though,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper, as they headed back up to the Entrance Hall. “He thinks it’s really impressive how George and I are always getting stuff from the kitchens; I don’t want to ruin the illusion. Maybe he can earn the truth if he joins us in detention next time.”

Harry grinned. “Maybe Filch is right - you need to spend a night hanging by your wrists in the dungeons so you’re not so eager for a ‘next time’.”

Fred laughed. “He’s a miserable git, isn’t he? I reckon he didn’t know when he took the job that Dumbledore had banned corporal punishment the year before.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t quit when he found out,” said Harry. Filch had sounded very regretful that the sort of punishments he’d spent their detention describing weren’t permissible any more.

“And miss the opportunity to piss all over the floor and make a student clean it up? Not likely.” Fred laughed at the horrified expression on Harry’s face and asked, “Just us, was it? I did wonder why you weren’t kicking up a fuss. I bet most of your Housemates would refuse to clean a toilet even if it was so clean they could see Filch’s face in it already. Mind you, Filch probably wouldn’t dare if he didn’t know our mum’ll just tell us we deserve it if we complain.”

A while later, Ron told Harry that he might as well have been in detention with them, since he’d spent the morning being alternately chastised by Granger and Percy the Prefect, both of whom had assumed that he was involved.

“Hermione actually threatened to report me to McGonagall!” he told Harry, as they walked down to the broomstore with the twins. “Can you believe it?”

“I don’t understand why you’re friends with her,” said Harry. “She’s a nightmare.”

Ron shrugged. “She’s alright, once you get to know her. She took responsibility for the troll when she didn’t have to. Anyway, she said Dumbledore asked if anyone told her to pick up that painting.” Ron took a deep breath, as though he was steeling himself for something, then asked in what might have been supposed to be an offhanded tone, “Did you see what direction Malfoy came from?”

It took Harry a moment to realise that Ron had asked about Draco, not Snape. “Draco’s the one who saved her, remember?” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but maybe he just did that because he didn’t get far enough away before you found her,” said Ron.

“Why the hell would he curse her?” asked Harry.

“Why wouldn’t he?” asked Ron. “Like father, like son.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Harry.

All three Weasleys stared at him.

“You don’t know?” asked George.

“Know what?”

“Lucius Malfoy was accused of supporting You-Know-Who,” said Fred.

Harry let out a bark of laughter, but none of the others laughed. “Wait, seriously?”

Ron nodded. “He wormed his way out of it at trial - probably bought off the Wizengamot. But everyone knows he was guilty.”

“But he’s head of the governors,” Harry protested. He couldn’t believe it; he’d met Draco’s father, and the man had seemed perfectly pleasant to him. “Surely Dumbledore wouldn’t let him have the position if he really did support Voldemort.”

The twins yelped.

“Merlin’s beard, Harry, you don’t have to say the name!” George protested.

“I don’t know how much say Dumbledore has over the governors,” said Fred. “Isn’t the whole point that they keep the Headmaster in check?”

Perhaps that was true, Harry thought, but Mr Malfoy wasn’t just head of the governors, he was friends with the Minister for Magic. If there was any real evidence against him - even if he’d managed to buy off the court, as Ron suggested - then surely someone as important as the Minister wouldn’t want anything to do with him. It seemed fairly obvious to Harry that Ron simply assumed the worst of Draco’s father because he was jealous of the Malfoys.

“If everyone knows he’s guilty, how come this is the first I’m hearing that he was even accused?” asked Harry.

“Well, it’s not exactly a secret,” said Ron. “Obviously everyone assumed you knew, and didn’t care.”

“Obviously I’d care if my mate’s dad supported my parents’ killer!”

“He’s not your mate!” Ron protested. “He hasn’t spoken to you for weeks!”

Harry glared at him. It was true that Draco had spoken to him less since their argument after the Quidditch match, at least until he’d finally got round to apologising. But it was also true, he realised, that every time Draco had chilled him out again after things started to feel normal between them, it had been immediately after he’d talked about Ron. That seemed like a pretty reasonable reaction, if this wasn’t the first time Ron had thrown these kind of accusations around.

“Even if it’s true, which I doubt”— the twins exchanged bemused looks —“why should it mean I can’t be friends with Draco? He didn’t support Vol— the Dark Lord.”

“He’s a stinking Slytherin!” spat Ron. “He—”

“So am I!” shouted Harry. His glare intensified. “And so was his father. Is that why you’re so convinced he was guilty? He was a good enough wizard to be Sorted in Slytherin, so he must be evil?”

“That’s not what I meant,” mumbled Ron. His ears were rapidly turning the same shade as his hair. “Sorry, Harry, I meant… well, I don’t know what I meant. But half your Housemates’ parents were accused as well. Obviously not all Slytherins are bad, but almost all the Dark wizards who went to Hogwarts were in Slytherin. And Malfoy is one of them - dad says he’s forced through several amendments to his Muggle Protection Act, and he’s trying to convince Fudge to overturn the whole thing. Why would he do that unless he had something to hide?”

Harry frowned. Maybe there was some personal history between Mr Malfoy and Ron’s dad - he could remember Draco saying he was obsessed with Muggles. But then, in the same conversation, Draco had called the Weasleys blood traitors, whatever that meant. A Muggle Protection Act didn’t sound like the sort of thing anyone should be opposed to, but from what he’d heard about Warlocks, they seemed to be something like lawyers, and Harry thought a lawyer probably knew better what the law should say than someone who worked for the government.

“I don’t know,” Harry replied stubbornly. “But if he wasn’t convicted, I’m not going to just assume the worst without evidence.”

Ron rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. His ears were still very pink.

“Sooooo,” said Fred.

“Lovely weather, isn’t it?” said George.

Harry smiled weakly at their attempt to move the conversation on, and they continued down the grassy slope towards the broom store.

Neither Harry nor Ron brought up Draco or his family for the rest of the holidays. Granger’s nagging that they needed to start revising rather than wasting time flying around became a regular feature of mealtimes, such that Harry started eating dinner back at the Slytherin table. Granger had usually disappeared to the library by the time he and Ron got up for breakfast, and she rarely stayed longer than it took to wolf down a couple of sandwiches at lunchtime.

He wondered, as she berated Ron for not sticking to the revision timetable she’d drawn up for him, whether she’d factored in time to nag them on her own timetable. Every five minutes between waking and going to bed seemed to be accounted for, its purpose written in tiny handwriting and colour-coded. She’d explained the system to him when he’d offered to give her his notes from the classes she’d missed, and he’d hastily refused her offer to draw him up a timetable as thanks. Vince had said before the holidays that a troll could pass the end-of-year exams, and since Vince usually got the worst marks in their class for his homework, Harry wasn’t worried if he wasn’t.

Ron, however, gave in to her nagging to do his homework as the start of term drew closer at alarming speed. Harry reluctantly joined them in the library. There were only four days of the holidays left, and he still hadn’t done any homework except the History of Magic essay.

By eleven o’clock, however, Harry had decided that he was never going to study with Granger again. Or rather, study near Granger. Having badgered Ron for days to do his homework, she had announced that she was going to do revision rather than helping them. Ron had looked appalled, but cheered up when he saw Harry’s notes.

The two of them took it in turns to shoot angry glares in Granger’s direction in response to her shushing any time their voices rose above the barest whisper. Then, after spending one of her scheduled ‘leg-stretches’ returning books to their shelves, Granger snatched up Harry’s essay and asked him in disbelief if he was going to hand it in.

“No, I was going to feed it to the Giant Squid later,” snapped Harry. “Yes, of course I was going hand it in. Why?”

“You’ve completely misunderstood Fortescue’s Law,” said Granger.

Harry glared at her. As much as he didn’t want to indulge Granger’s interference, he knew she was right - he couldn’t make head or tail of his notes on Fortescue’s Law, which was precisely what he and Ron had spent the last forty-five minutes being shushed at for trying to figure out.

By lunchtime, Harry had revised his earlier opinion; if the only alternative was trying to figure things out with Ron alone, he would maybe consider studying with Granger again. Ron’s notes were mostly a collection of unrelated quotes from the teacher, which Harry suspected he had scribbled down any time Granger chided him for not paying attention.

Having finished two essays, however, Harry felt he had earned a break, so he and Ron treated themselves to an afternoon playing with the twins. Harry spent the next couple of mornings in the blissful peace of the Slytherin Junior Common Room, finishing his essays from his own notes and the occasional helpful tip from an older student. The afternoons he spent with Ron and his brothers.

“You’ll never believe what Hermione told me yesterday,” Ron said by way of a greeting on the last afternoon of the holidays.

“You’re going to fail all your exams because we’re flying again rather than studying?” Harry suggested.

Ron snorted. “No. She said Hagrid’s been looking at books on raising dragons.”

“Right,” said Harry, who didn’t find this the least bit surprising, considering Hagrid was responsible for the monstrous dog on the Third Floor.

“Apparently he was really shifty about it, though,” said Ron. “You know him pretty well, don’t you? You don’t think he’d actually try to raise one, do you?”

Harry shrugged. “He said he wouldn’t mind having one as a pet, when we first met.”

“Bloody hell,” said Ron. “And I thought Charlie was mad! He’s just accepted a permanent contract at the reserve in Romania.”

Chapter Text

20 April

Hogwarts Express, en route to Hogsmeade

Draco Malfoy

Draco enjoyed the train ride back to Hogwarts a lot more than the ride home. Mother and father had made sure his homework was perfect, father had said he was making surprisingly fast progress with his new classes and, most importantly, he’d found out what Fluffy was guarding. After three weeks without civilised company, surely Harry would welcome him back with open arms once he revealed what he knew.

He felt even more buoyed when Vince and Greg returned from their visit to the witch with the sweet trolley bearing grins not just for the sweets overflowing their arms, but the news they’d overheard in the corridor.

“You’ll never guess what Harry sent to Ron Weasley’s little sister,” said Greg.

“What?”

“A bog,” Vince choked out around laughter. “Guess he realised how crap the Weasley’s are.”

Draco couldn’t help laughing, despite the vulgarity. “How do you know?”

“We overheard Snyde telling her friends,” said Greg. “Apparently Mrs Weasley spent the whole time ranting about it when the Diggorys went round for dinner. She seemed to think those twins of hers had roped Harry into it as a joke. She was furious they’d got him into trouble.”

“Oh, and get this,” said Vince. “Yaxley told me Roper got a fine for using magic.”

Draco was hardly surprised by the implication behind this statement, but Greg looked confused.

“What did she do?”

“Apparently she was just practising Levitation Charms,” said Vince. Draco thought he looked a bit disappointed at his lack of interest.

Greg frowned. Ever slow on the uptake, he said, “But why was she doing that out and about?”

“She wasn’t,” Vince said dramatically. “She was at home.”

The penny finally dropped. Greg’s eye went wide as saucers.

“You mean she’s a Mudblood?”

Vince nodded triumphantly. “Must be. I wonder who told her to pretend she was related to the Aragons.”

“Probably whatever idiot the Ministry sent to explain things to her,” Draco said dismissively. “They let anyone work for the Ministry these days - I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a Mudblood who told her to hush it up. It certainly can’t have been anyone of pedigree.”

“It gets better,” said Vince, who looked determined to impress Draco with his information. “Her father asked to pay the fine in instalments.”

“He did?” asked Draco, suddenly interested. “But I thought the first fine for underage magic is only five Sickles!”

Vince was smiling broadly now. “Apparently she’d accrued three fines by the time they sent anyone round to speak to her about it, so they hit her with two one Galleon fines as well.”

Draco snorted. “But that’s still hardly anything. She must be on a scholarship to afford Hogwarts.”

Vince nodded smugly.

“It’s disgusting,” muttered Greg. “Our parents - well, our parents,” he amended, indicating himself and Vince, “work hard to send us to Hogwarts. And Mudblood scum get a free ride.”

“And you can bet it would be all over The Prophet if I were in trouble with the law, even for something so petty as underage magic,” said Draco. “Well, it would if father didn’t have the editor’s ear. And yet there’s no fanfare when Mudbloods are caught doing it. The double standards are simply astounding.”

They reached the castle a short while later, and after a quick visit to the Slytherin wing, where Draco changed his robes for dinner, they went back up to the Great Hall for the start of term Feast. Draco hurried to the seat beside Harry before anyone else could take it.

To his relief, Harry smiled and said, “Hi, Draco, good holidays?”

“Very good, thank you. I found out what Fluffy’s guarding,” Draco said smugly.

“Oh, that,” said Harry, after a brief look of confusion. “Yeah, so did I.”

“You already know about the Philosopher’s Stone?” Draco asked glumly.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “And it’s not just Fluffy guarding it, it’s loads of the teachers, too.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “Right.”

Perhaps his disappointment had shown on his face, because Harry said, “But that’s great that you figured it out, too. How did you do it?”

“My father told me!” Draco explained eagerly. “I asked if he knew why the Third Floor Corridor was out of bounds, and he said he didn’t. So I told him I’d heard that there was some kind of monster locked up in there, and he went straight to Dumbledore to demand answers. Dumbledore told him his friend Nicolas Flamel  - he’s the Flamel Warlock, he’s over six hundred years old - asked him to look after the Stone whilst he finds a new place for it. Dumbledore told him not to tell me, of course, but father knows I wouldn’t tell anyone I don’t trust.”

Before Harry had a chance to thank Draco for trusting him, Vince called down the table, “Hey, Harry, did you really send a bog to Weasley’s sister?”

“It wasn’t a whole toilet,” said Harry. “Just the seat.”

For the next few minutes, nobody spoke about anything except Harry’s prank, and the degrading punishment he’d been given as a result.

“It’s not like the loos were actually dirty,” Harry explained, as though that justified it. “Mine weren’t, at least. Apparently Filch thought the Weasleys needed a bit of extra encouragement not to mess around again.”

The mental image of the Weasley twins elbow deep in filth cheered Draco up a bit, almost making up for the fact that Harry hadn’t been trying to insult the Weasleys after all, but working alongside them. He was so distracted that he didn’t hear what Harry asked next, but he couldn’t help but hear the reaction to it: several people gasped; Teddy Nott’s goblet clanged loudly as it dropped to the table. Everyone was staring at Harry.

“Pardon?” Draco asked nervously.

“I asked if your father really supported Voldemort,” said Harry.

The stares intensified. Draco’s joined them, as he wondered what on earth had possessed him to ask such a question so publicly.

After a moment to gather his composure, he said smoothly, “My father was cleared of all charges by the Wizengamot.”

“Yes, I know, but did—”

“I said, he was cleared of all charges,” Draco repeated firmly, giving Harry what he hoped was an unmistakable let’s-talk-about-this-later look.

To his relief, it appeared Harry got the hint. He nodded and said, “Right.”

Draco struggled to enjoy his dinner after that. His palms became so clammy he was struggling to hold his cutlery, and he could feel eyes crawling all over him. To make matters worse, Harry kept peering at him as well, apparently unsatisfied by his rebuttal and seemingly  oblivious to the curious - and in some cases, scared - looks people were directing in his direction.

The feast finished late enough that most people headed straight to the dormitories rather than lingering in the common room to chat. Draco could feel the disappointment rolling of those who had been sitting near him at dinner when he and Harry did the same, and felt their curious looks burning into his back as they disappeared into the dormitory corridor.

“Blaise,” said Draco, when they reached the door to their dormitory. “Would you mind—”

“Got it,” said Blaise, looking equally relieved and disappointed. “I fancied a bath anyway.”

As soon as the door had closed behind them, Draco rounded on Harry, and said coolly, “Never ask anyone that in public again.”

Harry looked baffled. “What? Why?”

Draco gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Because you’re giving them an impossible choice, obviously!” Since Harry continued to look blankly at him, he explained, “Look, the Ministry say they found the Dark Lord’s body, but they never showed anyone. The only reason everyone knew he was gone was because the people he’d bewitched came back to their senses, like my father. There was a lot of fear, in the early years, that he would come back. If he does return - properly return - how will he treat those who denied following him? But if anyone did admit to following him, they’d end up in Azkaban.”

To his surprise, Harry was now staring incredulously at him.

“So I shouldn’t ask, because anyone who’s guilty would have to choose between facing justice now, or Voldemort’s wrath”— Draco flinched —“in the future?” asked Harry.

Draco frowned. Put like that, it did sound like a custom that had grown up to protect the guilty.

“No - that’s not…” he fumbled. “OK, let me put it this way. There were hundreds of people charged with supporting the Dark Lord after you defeated him - charged but acquitted. Not just my father. Vince’s and Greg’s, too,” he ticked them off on his fingers. “Teddy’s… I don’t think Tessie’s was ever actually charged, but from what I’ve heard there were rumours.”

Harry looked like he was about to cry. “I guess I can see why everyone hates Slytherin,” he said quietly.

Draco rolled his eyes. “At least most of the Slytherins were acquitted. There are plenty of people from other Houses who were actually convicted of supporting the Dark Lord - from other schools, too. Rookwood and Crouch were Ravenclaws. My mother’s cousin was a Gryffindor who went to Azkaban after the Dark Lord disappeared, so your Weasley pal can get off his high—”

“Draco, telling me that a Gryffindor who’s related to your mum was convicted isn’t making this any better,” said Harry numbly.

“Oh… yeah.” Draco sighed. Now clearly wasn’t the right time to mention Aunt Bellatrix. “Look, all I’m trying to say is, there may well be people who escaped justice, people who would murder and torture again if they thought they could get away with it. And those who were falsely accused,” he continued, trying to remember how grandfather had explained it to him, “would be easy targets, unless they could convince the Dark Lord’s true supporters that they actually had been willing supporters before, and had tried to stay out of Azkaban so they could support him again when he returned. That’s why grandfather was so upset that my father’s trial was such a spectacle - my family’s stuck walking a delicate tightrope between demonstrating our obvious innocence to the world, and encouraging enough doubt in the right places that we won’t be targeted if the Dark Lord ever comes back.”

“Oh,” said Harry. Draco was relieved to see that he looked mollified, even a little guilty. “That makes sense. Sorry for asking in front of everyone. I didn’t believe it,” he added earnestly. “Your father’s really nice, I don’t see him supporting Vol— sorry, the Dark Lord - willingly.”

“He was one of the first to be freed from the curse,” Draco said proudly. “That shows he must have been cursed by the Dark Lord himself. I suppose nobody else would have been powerful enough to control him, especially not to do such awful things.”

He shuddered. He’d never asked father what precisely he’d been charged with, nor read even a summary of the trial. He’d heard enough about the atrocities the Death Eaters had committed to actively avoid finding out what his father had done, even unwillingly. He supposed the rift between father and grandfather was understandable; grandfather had lived through the trial, had sat in the very court that determined father’s innocence. He doubted father would ever look at him the same way, if he was ever accused of using an Unforgivable Curse.

He startled, as Harry wrapped his arms around him.

“I’m sorry Draco,” he said, and his arms wrapped tighter, then released Draco. “I won’t mention it again.”

22 April
Hogwarts School, Hogsmeade

Harry Potter

Harry found himself immediately glad he’d finally made some time to do his homework over the holidays. After stern reminders that the end-of-year exams were now only eight weeks away, their teachers launched into lessons far more complicated than anything they’d done in the previous terms. They didn’t even have the week off Prep that a new term usually brought, and the homework assignments started immediately. As after the last holidays, their timetables remained largely the same, with only one change: Defence Against the Dark Arts had now been replaced by two new classes. Whilst Draco and the rest of Harry’s Housemates would be attending Muggle Studies, Harry’s timetable had Wicchen Studies in the same Wednesday afternoon slot. Draco had tried to persuade Harry to come to Muggle Studies with the rest of them.

“Your class will be full of Mudbloods,” Draco had pointed out. “Anyway, you probably know most of what’s going to be covered anyway. They’ll probably spend the first lesson trying to teach you how to hold a wand properly!”

Harry thought this was a rather odd claim, since they’d already covered the correct way to hold a wand in Practical Magic Foundations, but he had to admit he’d rather go to Draco’s lesson. Of the classmates he knew were Mudbloods, he’d never exchanged more than a few words with any of them except Granger. The thought of being paired with her if there were any exercises was not an appealing one.

When he arrived at the classroom, which was located on the Transfiguration corridor, only the Gryffindors were already there. Granger waved enthusiastically at him from beside Dean Thomas. Since she was at the end of the row and he wasn't about to get roped into sitting next to her, Harry waved back. He had just taken the seat behind her when the Hufflepuffs arrived.

“Good afternoon, Potter,” said a curly-haired boy. He held out a hand to Harry. “I’m Justin Finch-Fletchley. Delighted to finally meet you properly.”

Harry shook the offered hand, and Finch-Fletchley sat down beside him.

“You’re the Eton guy, right?” asked Harry, remembering a conversation he’d had with Ron where he’d tried to explain why, if Eton was the Muggle equivalent of Hogwarts, Harry had never expected to go there before he found out he was a wizard.

Finch-Fletchley looked delighted, and said pompously, “Not really, I suppose, seeing as I never actually took my place, but yes, I was expecting to go to Eton. It took more than a little convincing from the DME officer before my parents agreed to let me come to Hogwarts, I can tell you. They thought I was throwing my future away, but they’re starting to see the light. Quite literally - we had a powercut over Easter, and I used the Wand-Lighting Charm so mama could see her way outside to fire up the generator.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” asked Harry.

Finch-Fletchley looked sheepish. “Yes, mama was quite upset when I got a warning letter for it, but Ernie says it’s technically a disciplinary offence, not a crime. Anyway, I’d do it again. The Ministry said next time I use magic away from school I’ll get a fine, but I’m sure if I explained it was necessary, they wouldn’t actually pursue it.”

“Right,” said Harry. He wondered what was wrong with just using candles, but he didn’t say anything, because Finch-Fletchley seemed friendly enough and it would be nice to have a friend in this class.

The room continued to fill up. There were more students than Harry had expected based on what he knew of people’s blood status. A grinning Seamus Finnigan slipped into the seat beside Thomas, who looked relieved to have company other than Granger. He was followed by Sally-Anne Perks, also of Gryffindor, and three Ravenclaws.

“Surely you can’t all be Mudbloods?” Harry asked Finch-Fletchley, as the students around them chatted loudly to each other.

Finch-Fletchley suddenly looked very unfriendly. Then he said stiffly, “No. Seamus, Sally-Anne and Mandy are half-bloods.”

“So what are they—”

Professor McGonagall arrived, and the room fell silent. She nodded a greeting to the class, and proceeded to take the register.

Harry paid a little more attention than usual, deciding he might as well try to learn everyone’s names seeing as he had none of his friends in this class.

“Sophie Roper.”

“What?” Harry said out loud.

Professor McGonagall peered down her nose at him. “Potter, do you know where Miss Roper is?”

“Presumably in Muggle Studies,” said Harry. “Why would she be here?”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow, and proceeded to call Sally Smith’s name. Harry wondered how Sophie’s name had ended up on the list for Wicchen Studies. The two girls Finch-Fletchley had confirmed as halfbloods were on the register, but Finnigan wasn’t; he’d had to tell Professor McGonagall when she finished reading out names. Harry supposed someone had just got their names mixed up.

“Good afternoon, class,” said Professor McGonagall, Vanishing the register with a wave of her wand. “And welcome to the first of your classes about our wonderful world. I’m sure some of you are thinking it’s a little late to be holding an introduction”— Granger nodded enthusiastically —“but we find that holding this class later in the year prevents any… divisions from arising.”

Harry thought she glanced in his direction when she said this last part, but before he could feel offended by this, the door opened, and Sophie Roper entered, looking very red in the face.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” she said quietly. “I got lost.”

“It’s not problem,” said Professor McGonagall. “Sit down, please. I had only just started.”

Sophie took the remaining seat next to Granger.

“Now, I know that some of you are more familiar with the magical world than others, so I may call on you to provide anecdotes to support my lessons,” said McGonagall. “I think it would be good to start the lesson by getting to know each other’s backgrounds. I’ll start. You all know me, of course, but what you might not know is that my father was a Muggle, and I was raised predominantly in the Muggle world. I was brought up knowing I was a witch, but I knew little about our kind until I started at Hogwarts. Mr Rivers, would you like to go next?”

The tall, black-haired boy at the end of the front row nodded and said nervously, “I didn’t know anything about magic until the people from the Ministry came to tell me. I thought I was Muggle-born, but I found out at Christmas that my grandfather’s parents were wizards. So I’m not really sure what that makes me.”

“It makes you a wizard, Mr Rivers,” Professor McGonagall said warmly. “Thank you for sharing. Miss Turpin?”

Rivers was the only student who’d known nothing about magic, but later found out he was related to wizards. Everyone else was the only witch or wizard in their family or, in the case of the halfbloods, had known they had powers as soon as they were old enough to walk and talk, like Professor McGonagall. Sophie Roper, of course, fell into the second group.

“I’m a halfblood,” she said, it when was her turn to introduce herself. “My mum was a witch, but she died when I was four, so I’ve known the Muggle world for longer than the magical one, I guess.” Turning red, she added, “I was very surprised when my Hogwarts invitation arrived, though. I never dreamed I’d be able to come here.”

“We’re delighted to have you,” said Professor McGonagall. “Mr Potter?”

“Er,” said Harry, who was still recovering from the shock of discovering that Sophie had apparently lied about her father’s parentage for several months. “Well, everyone knows about me. I’m a halfblood, and I would’ve grown up knowing it if Voldemort hadn’t killed my parents.” He ignored the squeaks of terror that some of his classmates made, and added, “I live with my Muggle aunt and cousin.”

When they had finished introducing themselves, Professor McGonagall went over the plan for their lessons. Harry was pleased to see that Draco was wrong; he didn’t know anything about different forms of magical transport yet, and despite Draco’s best efforts, he hadn’t been able to follow his explanations of the functions of the Ministry of Magic.

“For the rest of this lesson, however,” Professor McGonagall concluded, “we will cover the Statute of Secrecy. You should all be aware that underage wicchen are forbidden to use magic away from school, however”— Finch-Fletchley wasn’t the only one trying to avoid her gaze —“some of you do not appear to have taken that on board.”

Harry wondered as he walked to his next class whether the sole purpose of the lesson had been to scare them all out of using magic at home. He’d already known, of course, that they weren’t allowed to do magic at home (although he hadn’t known the name of the Decree which made it law), but it was news to him that wicchen could be sent to Azkaban for deliberately revealing the existence of magic to Muggles who weren’t entitled to know. They’d all been very relieved when Professor McGonagall told them that it was almost two decades since anyone underage had been incarcerated, and that had been for murder.

“How was your lesson?” Harry asked Draco, when they caught up in the break in the Slytherin Common Room.

“A waste of time,” Draco said dismissively. “I don’t know why they make us take it - when am I ever going to talk to a Muggle? There aren’t any within twenty miles of the Manor. What about yours?”

“Not bad,” said Harry. “But McGonagall went a bit hard on the ‘no magic at home’ thing.”

“Oh, yes,” said Teddy, who had been listening to their conversation. “You aren’t allowed to do magic at home. You and Roper.”

“It must have been awful when her mum died,” said Harry. “At least I was too young to remember what I was missing.”

“What do you mean?” asked Draco.

“Her dad’s a Muggle,” Harry explained. “Apparently it was only her mum who was magical, so she was living like a Muggle after her mum died, before she started here.”

Since the next half of the Inter-School Cup was taking place over the next three weekends, they were down to only one Quidditch practice a week again. Harry and Draco mostly ignored Flint’s suggestion that they should use the extra time to fit in some revision, so they wouldn’t feel too much pressure when they ramped up the amount of practice again. Instead, they spent a lot of their time playing with Vince and Greg, sometimes joined by some of the other Slytherin first-years. Some days it was nice enough to do this on the lawns outside, rather than being confined to the castle, but after the pleasant weather Harry had enjoyed for most of the holidays, summer was slow in coming.

Hogwarts won their away match against Morgana’s, but the Morgana’s team pulled an enormous win out of the bag the following week away at Merlin’s, which meant both Merlin’s and Hogwarts were in the running to win the Cup in the final match, hosted by Hogwarts.

Despite the fact that the O.W.L exams were starting the very next week, it looked like the entire school had crowded into the Quidditch stands, hoping to watch a Hogwarts win.

“Will they really do a Firsts versus Teachers match if we win?” Harry asked Draco, as they waited for the match to start.

“As long as there are enough teachers willing to play,” Draco replied. “And father says their arguments over who gets onto the team sometimes get so bad, they have to ask the governors to decide, so we should be safe.”

Unfortunately, the Firsts versus Teachers match wasn’t to be. The game got off to a good start for the Hogwarts side, with Flint scoring three goals before the Merlin’s team even seemed to have woken up. But when a Bludger wrapped Gryffindor’s Wood around his middle hoop, leaving him holding on for dear life as Preece and Price streaked off after his riderless broomstick, Merlin’s quickly made up the difference. The game went downhill from there; Wood, eventually admitting he was too injured to play on, was replaced by Ravenclaw’s Biggins, who let every other shot pass through his hoops. By the time the Merlin’s Seeker caught the Snitch, cementing Hogwarts’ loss, Harry felt quite sorry for Biggins, who had disappeared into and back out of the changing rooms almost before the stands even began to empty.

“Let’s go and see Hagrid,” Harry suggested to Draco, as they shuffled forwards in the queue for the long staircase. “I need something to cheer me up after that performance.”

The two of them arrived at Hagrid’s hut some fifteen minutes later. They were surprised to see that the curtains were closed. Hagrid called “Who is it?” before he let them in and then shut the door quickly behind them. He looked shocked to see Draco, and for a moment, Harry thought he was going to kick him out, but then he shrugged and offered them tea and stoat sandwiches. They accepted the tea and refused the sandwiches.

“Was the match as bad as it sounded?” Hagrid asked conversationally, as Harry rolled up his sleeves. It was stiflingly hot; even though it was the warmest day of the year so far, there was a blazing fire in the grate.

“Worse,” said Harry. “How come you weren’t watching?”

Hagrid glanced at the fire, but to Harry’s dismay did not move to put it out.

“Been busy here, haven’ I?” said Hagrid. “How’ve yeh been keepin’? Looking forward ter yer exams?”

“Oh, I’m great,” said Harry. “Hagrid, can we have a window open? I’m boiling.”

“Can’t, Harry, sorry,” said Hagrid. He glanced at the fire again.

Harry looked at it too. “Hagrid - what’s that?”

Something huge, round and black was in the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle.

“George’s sword!” exclaimed Draco, leaping from the sofa and backing up to the door. “What the hell have you got it in the fire for?”

“Ah,” said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard. “It - er… it’s supposed ter bring out the colour.”

“That’s not all it’ll bring out if you leave it there long enough, you imbecile!” shouted Draco.

“Sshhh!” Hagrid hissed.

Harry gave Draco a shocked look. He’d never heard his friend be so rude to anyone, but Draco was now backing slowly towards the sofa, eyeing the fire warily.

“It’s not goin’ ter hatch just yet,” said Hagrid.

“Hagrid, is that a dragon egg?” Harry asked, recalling what Ron had said to him before the start of term.

“Yep,” said Hagrid, looking alternately guilty and pleased. “I won it, jus’ before school came back. I was down in the village havin’ a dew drinks an’ got into a game o’ cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest.”

“Because it’s illegal to even own it,” said Draco. “Hatching it would be ten times worse!”

“It’s OK, I’ve been doin’ some readin’,” said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. “Got this outta the library - Dragon-breeding for Pleasure and Profit - it’s a bit outta date, o’ course, but it’s all in here. Keep the egg in the—”

“It’s out of date because it’s illegal,” Draco said loudly. “What are you going to do if it actually hatches? You live in a wooden hut!”

“It’s only illegal if yeh get caught,” Hagrid said nonchalantly.

Draco scoffed and stood up. “You’re mad,” he declared. “Utterly raving. Come on, Harry.”

“Yeh’re not goin’ ter tell someone?” asked Hagrid, leaping up from his chair.

For the most fleeting of moments, Harry was worried what he might do to try to stop Draco. Perhaps Draco was worried too, because he quickly said, “Of course not. But I’m not going to hang around here and see what breed of monster comes out of that fire looking for its first meal!”

He took two steps to the door, then looked expectantly at Harry.

“Er,” said Harry, looking from his friend to Hagrid and back.

Draco rolled his eyes, threw open the door, and stepped outside. Harry called, “Sorry, Hagrid,” over his shoulder as he hurried after him.

“I told you that oaf is dangerous!” hissed Draco. “We should report him.”

“But you said you wouldn’t!” Harry protested. “And didn’t you say he could get into awful trouble?”

“Fine,” Draco said resignedly. “We won’t report him. Anyway, we won’t need to, it’ll be obvious he’s raising a dragon before it’s a month old.”

Harry knew that was probably the best he was going to get. He wanted to go back and try to persuade Hagrid to get rid of the egg, but he doubted the gamekeeper would listen to him. Which was why he went to catch Ron on the way out of the post-match Feast that evening.

“Granger was right,” he said, as he pulled his friend aside in the Entrance Hall.

“Obviously,” said Ron. “About what, in particular?”

Harry pulled him round the corner into a bathroom, and whispered, “Hagrid’s trying to hatch a dragon.”

Ron’s eyes went wide. “What kind?”

“How the hell should I know?” asked Harry. “But Draco said he could get in serious trouble for it.”

“Well, yeah, it was outlawed by the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709,” said Ron. “Everyone knows that.”

“I didn’t,” said Harry. “If I did, I’d have been more concerned when you told me before.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ron. He frowned. “Do you know how close it is to hatching?”

“No idea,” said Harry. “He said he got it just before term started, and he had it in the fire - his hut was absolutely roasting.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Ron. “I think their mothers only breathe fire on them directly in the last few days, to encourage them to hatch. I’ll go and talk to him.”

Harry was so busy with schoolwork and Quidditch practice (which was now twice a week despite the fact the fifth-years were about to start their O.W.Ls) that it was another couple of days before Ron spoke to him about the dragon again.

“Do you want the bad news or the not-quite-so-bad news?” Ron whispered to him behind their cauldron.

“Bad news first,” said Harry.

“He’s still trying to hatch it,” said Ron. “He said he knows what he’s doing and he can look after a dragon.”

“Right,” said Harry, glancing at Longbottom and hoping he wasn’t listening to them. He’d probably done the right thing going to Professor McGonagall about the Philosopher’s Stone, but Harry wasn’t sure whether they should trust him with the dragon. “And what’s the better news?”

“We think it’s a Norwegian Ridgeback,” Ron whispered. “Charlie would know for sure, but none of the other illustrations in Hagrid’s book really fit. They’re not too dangerous - as dragons go, I mean. Their spines won’t do much damage until they’re adolescents, and their fire breath’s got quite a short range. But short is still thirty feet, once they’re fully grown.”

“That’s the good news?” Harry asked, only just remembering to whisper.

He glanced around to check nobody had heard, and saw Professor Snape stalking towards their cauldron.

“Not yet, Longbottom!” Snape snapped. “What shade do you call that?”

Longbottom looked at the contents of their cauldron, and up at the professor. “G-green, sir?”

“And what shade should it be when the eggs are added?”

Longbottom stared helplessly at his notes.

“Moonlit sage,” supplied Harry.

“Five points from Slytherin,” snapped Snape. “I wasn’t asking you, Potter. And five points from Gryffindor, Longbottom.”

Harry glared at Snape’s back as he resumed his prowl around the dungeon.

“Sorry,” mumbled Longbottom. “I thought I’d get on with the potion whilst you two were talking.”

“Well, don’t,” Harry said impatiently. He was trying to think of a way to keep Longbottom occupied so he and Ron could finish their conversation, without letting him ruin their potion entirely, when his eyes fell on the bowl of salamander eggs in Longbottom’s hands. “And that’s far too much - we only need one ounce.”

When Longbottom turned to weigh the eggs again, Harry leaned forward and whispered, “Thirty feet? Hagrid’s hut can’t be more than twenty feet across!”

“I said it was the not-quite-so-bad news, remember,” said Ron. “Anyway, I’m going back tonight with Hermione to try to convince him again.”

“You told Granger?”

Ron shrugged. “I thought she’d probably threaten to report him, and then maybe he’d realise he’s being an idiot.”

Harry took the much emptier bowl of salamander eggs from Longbottom, and added them to the potion, which was now the correct shade. He supposed telling Granger wasn’t such a terrible idea.

12 May

Ron Weasley

Even with Hermione’s help, Ron couldn’t persuade Hagrid to take the egg out of the fire and hand it in. Her help fell short of threatening to tell on Hagrid, and Ron wasn't even sure that would be enough to convince him; they had both told him how much trouble he could be in he got caught.

“He thinks it’s going to happen tonight,” Ron reported cryptically to Harry during History of Magic on Tuesday morning. “I’m going to go and watch.”

“Seriously?” asked Harry, looking shocked.

“Seriously,” Ron confirmed. “It’s not like I’m ever going to get another chance.”

“But is that”— Harry glanced at Neville, and dropped his voice to a whisper —“you know - safe?”

“Sure,” said Ron, hoping that was true. From what Charlie had told him about the dozens of hatchings he’d witnessed, it was the mothers you needed to watch out for, not the hatchlings. “So are you coming with me?”

“I’m in. Go down after last period?”

Hermione took a lot more convincing to join them.

“We’ll be in terrible trouble if anyone finds out!” she protested. “No, I can’t go, and you shouldn’t either!”

“But how many times in our lives are we going to get to see a dragon hatching?”

“I’m quite happy with zero, thank you,” Hermione insisted. “Anyway, I can’t take the time away from revision.”

He tried a different approach on the walk from the Great Hall to Professor Flitwick’s classroom after lunch. “I’m sure it’ll be very educational. Charlie says they sometimes invite groups from the local schools to come and watch if they manage to hatch an egg from an abandoned clutch.”

Hermione frowned, pouted, then said, “Oh, all right, then. But if we get caught, I’m going to claim total ignorance and you’re going to back me up.”

“Fine,” Ron agreed.

He was very surprised when they returned from the Herbology out in the greenhouses later that afternoon and found not just Harry waiting in the Entrance Hall for them, but Draco Malfoy as well.

“You’re not bringing him?”

“He is bringing himself,” Malfoy said coolly. “It’s not like I know anyone else idiotic enough to hatch a dragon, this might be my only chance to see it.”

“It’s going to be disgusting in Hagrid’s hut with all of us there and the fire going,” Ron complained, as they began to make their way across the grounds.

To his delight, Malfoy suddenly paled. “Is it safe, for it to be that crowded?”

“I dunno,” said Ron. “Maybe you better stay behind, just in c—”

“I’m not staying behind!” Malfoy protested. “I was the first one to see the egg. You only know about it because Harry told you.”

“Because I know about dragons,” said Ron. “If anyone should be there, I—”

“Oh, shut up, both of you,” snapped Hermione. “Do you want everyone to know what we’re doing?”

Ron grinned at the look on Malfoy’s face at being told to shut up, but Hermione had a point; it was a warm, sunny afternoon and there were plenty of other students in the grounds.

“You are sure this is safe though, aren’t you?” Malfoy asked as they neared Hagrid’s hut.

“If you’re too chicken, Malfoy, go back to the castle,” Ron suggested.

“It’s just that people will actually care if Harry and I are—”

“Draco, don’t be an arse,” said Harry.

Hagrid greeted them looking flushed and excited. “It’s nearly out.”

He ushered them inside. It was just as cramped as Ron had expected. Hagrid dragged a stool over to the table so they all had something to sit on, and they crowded around the table, on top of which lay the egg. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it.

For a long time, the clicking was all that happened, then all at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped on to the table. It looked a bit like a crumpled, black umbrella, but there was a strange sort of beauty to it that made it easy to see why Charlie had decided to stay in Romania. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body and it had a long snout with wide nostrils, stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout; Malfoy grabbed Harry’s sleeve.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon’s head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.

“Bless him, look, he knows his mummy!” said Hagrid.

“Hagrid,” said Hermione, “how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?”

Hagrid was about to answer when the colour suddenly drained from his face - he leapt to his feet and ran to the window.

“What’s the matter?”

“Someone was lookin’ through the gap in the curtains - it’s a kid - he’s runnin’ back up ter the school.”

Ron bolted to the door, but Harry got there first.

“It’s Teddy,” he said to Malfoy. “He must’ve followed us.”

“Teddy?” Ron repeated. “Teddy Nott?”

“How many other Teddies do you know?” snapped Malfoy. He looked worried, which worried Ron. He’d assumed Malfoy and Nott would be good friends, seeing as both of their fathers had wormed their way out of Azkaban for supporting You-Know-Who.

“Hagrid, you need to hand him in,” said Hermione. “Say you found him in the Forbidden Forest or something. If you report it before Nott does, you might manage to avoid—”

“Teddy won’t report it,” said Malfoy.

Ron snorted.

“He won’t,” Malfoy insisted. “Not when he can use it to blackmail me and Harry.”

“Into what?” asked Harry.

“No idea,” said Malfoy. “Throwing our exams so we don’t do better than him. One of us pretending to be ill and convincing Flint to let him take our spot on the Quidditch team. Or maybe he’ll just ask for Harry’s broomstick.”

“He’s not having my Nimbus!” Harry protested.

“But he won’ tell anyone if yeh do what he says?” Hagrid asked hopefully.

“Give it a week and that thing will have destroyed all your furniture,” said Malfoy. “Harry and I just need to hold him off until you come to your senses.”

Chapter Text

19 May

Draco Malfoy

Draco didn’t like the smile on Teddy’s face at dinner. Of course, he didn’t say anything about the dragon. He didn’t have to; they both knew he’d seen it, and he knew they knew. If he knew what he was about, he’d let them stew for a couple of days, wondering what he might say, so that whatever demands he eventually made sounded more reasonable than whatever they’d imagined. Draco considered telling father, but he doubted he’d agree to speak to Mr Nott without knowing what leverage Teddy had over him, and father would probably report Hagrid himself if he found out. Draco was enjoying being back on friendly terms with Harry too much to risk that.

Of course, there was something he could do that might get Teddy to back down, but Draco wanted to keep that in his pocket for now. Vince probably wouldn’t be too happy if he had to follow through on any threat to use it. Father might be more accepting, seeing as he was the one who’d pointed out that people might figure it out for themselves before too long, but he’d still want to know why Draco had felt the need to use it.

“Maybe he’s not going to do anything,” Harry said hopefully, when Teddy still hadn’t given any indication he’d seen the dragon by the time they headed to their dormitory that evening.

“Oh, he’s definitely going to do something,” said Draco.

“How do you know?”

“Because I would, if the boot was on the other foot,” Draco explained. “Wouldn’t you?”

“No!” Harry protested. Then he considered. “Well, maybe,” he admitted. “But you don’t really think he’ll ask for my broomstick, would you?”

“No, he wouldn’t want a broom someone’s already used,” said Draco. “But he really might ask us to throw the exams. I think he’s worried he’s not even going to come in the top half of the class. And father will be very disappointed if a— if he beats me,” he amended hastily. Now more than ever, he wanted to keep that bit of information for if he really needed it.

“But why does he care?” asked Harry. “I thought Notts didn’t have jobs. Why does it matter how well he does in the exams? Or how well you do, for that matter?”

“Because,” Draco said, with strained patience, “exams are the first objective test of our magical abilities. Father knows I’m better than Teddy, so if I don’t prove it, I’ll be letting him down. But the Notts aren’t quite as rich as they once were, or as influential. If it looks like Teddy isn’t capable of picking up his father’s mantle, he’ll have to settle for a wife who’s grasping, or someone of equal status who’s equally untalented.”

Harry giggled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just… you sound like someone out of one of Aunt Petunia’s TV shows.”

“What’s a teevy show?” asked Draco.

“It’s…” Harry looked just as confused as Draco felt. “It’s like a play, but on a screen. Kind of like your mirror.”

That made about as much sense as a Merman under a Babbling Hex, so Draco assumed it was some Muggle nonsense.

“It’s important to have as much choice as possible in terms of future partners,” Draco quoted mother. “Marriage is a lifelong commitment, and committing to the wrong person is committing to a life of misery. And potentially the ruin of the family.”

“In the Muggle world, it’s not,” said Harry. “More than a quarter of Muggle marriages end in divorce. I used to wish my aunt and uncle were one of them.”

Draco couldn’t help looking scandalised. He covered it up, but not before Harry smiled wryly and said, “Yeah, that’s what Aunt Petunia thinks. She won’t let Dudley play with anyone from a ‘broken home’ as she calls it. But if she and Uncle Vernon were divorced, I’d have had entire weeks without seeing Dudley. And I wouldn’t have needed to see Uncle Vernon at all.”

“I can’t believe you got sent to them,” said Draco.

He could only assume the Ministry had sent Harry to his aunt and uncle whilst they rounded up the Dark Lord’s followers, and then forgotten about him by the time the Death Eater trials concluded. Or, he thought, as he remembered something father had said about how turbulent that first year had been, they hadn’t wanted to risk rocking the boat by choosing one of his many second cousins to take him in. Father would surely have been at the top of the list, but even now there were some who doubted his innocence; only a year after the Dark Lord’s fall, there must surely have been more.

Harry shrugged, as though being raised in total ignorance of his birthright was no big deal. “Do the exams matter for me?” he asked. “If Teddy asks us to throw them, I can do it, right?”

Draco laughed. “Yeah, you’ll be fine. You could probably not get a single O.W.L and still be one of the most eligible guys in our year.”

Teddy only made it to lunchtime the next day before he gave the first hint of what he’d seen. Harry had been down to Hagrid’s hut twice in that time to try to persuade him to give the dragon up, despite Draco’s insistence that it wasn’t necessary yet.

Draco had just reached for a scotch egg, when Teddy said, “Careful with those, Draco. They’re very hot.”

Draco and Harry’s heads snapped round to look at him. He was smirking. “They must be freshly hatched - I mean cooked.”

“Ignore him,” Draco whispered to Harry, turning his head so Teddy couldn’t see. “Don’t let him see he’s got you worried.”

He distracted Harry by dragging him to the library to do some revision after Prep, rather than sitting in the common room under Teddy’s smirking gaze. But he couldn’t distract Harry from the needling that continued during their lessons the next day.

“Professor,” Teddy said in Practical Magic Foundations. “When will we learn the Fire-Making Charm?”

“When you start Charms classes in your third year,” squeaked tiny Professor Flitwick. “You need a solid foundation before you start playing with fire, Mr Nott.”

“I was asking for Draco, sir,” Teddy said smugly. “I’m not sure he can wait that long, it seemed quite urgent.”

Professor Flitwick looked very confused, but he smiled at Draco. “I can’t think why you’d need it urgently, Mr Malfoy, but I’ll happily jar a flame for you.”

“Oh, is that safe?” asked Teddy. “Keeping something fiery in a confined space?”

“Shut up, Teddy!” snapped Harry.

“It’s OK, professor,” Draco said quickly, stamping on Harry’s foot under the desk. “Thank you for the offer, but I don’t need it. I think Teddy must have got the wrong end of the wand.”

Although Teddy said nothing for the rest of the day, it was clear he was simply choosing his moments. And so, after Quidditch practice on Saturday, Draco allowed himself to be dragged over to Hagrid’s to try to help Harry persuade Hagrid to give the dragon up. There they discovered that the dragon had doubled in size since it had hatched less than a week ago, and had been given the name ‘Norbert’. There were chicken feathers all over the floor and a mountain of empty brandy bottles by the back door; Draco assumed that Hagrid had taken to drinking to deal with looking after the thing, until he explained that Norbert consumed a diet of whisky mixed with chickens’ blood. The half-hourly intervals of this feeding explained the enormous bags under his eyes and the stronger-than-usual unwashed smell that emanated from his clothing.

“I’m not going back there,” Draco informed Harry on the walk back up to the castle. They were both sporting a number of small burns on their hands and sleeves, where the dragon had spat sparks at them. “Hagrid’s made his bed. If Teddy asks too much of us, he can damn well lie in it.”

Apparently, Harry had far less sense than Draco had credited him with, because he went back to Hagrid’s on Monday evening, to try once again to convince the idiot to hand in his monster. When he returned, he informed Draco that not only had the dragon bitten Weasley (so perhaps it did have some redeeming qualities), but Hagrid had told them off for scaring it.

“We should tell a teacher,” said Draco. “Before the beast bites someone who actually matters.”

Harry grave him a reproachful look.

“Then what do you suggest?” Draco asked irritably. “I don’t want to spend my evenings wondering whether you’re coming back from there in one piece!”

“Ron said his brother might be able to come and get Norbert,” said Harry. “If we haven’t convinced Hagrid to do something himself by Friday, he’s going to write to Charlie and ask if he can come and get him.”

“That’s your solution? Arrange some illegal dragon-smuggling?”

“Hagrid won’t abandon Norbert, but he can’t hand him in either, not without getting into trouble,” Harry explained. “If Charlie can take him, nobody else needs to know, and Hagrid will be happy that Norbert’s going somewhere safe.”

Draco snorted. “I don’t think Hagrid knows the meaning of the word ‘safe’.” He held up his hands placatingly as Harry looked reproachful again. “I’m just saying! But apart from the whole illegal dragon-smuggling, it’s actually not a bad plan.”

As he said it, Draco wondered if that was what Hagrid had been angling for all along. Of course, he would get into terrible trouble for hatching, raising and then smuggling a dragon out of the country, but Harry probably wouldn’t get more than a few detentions. Hagrid’s reluctance to giving the dragon up so far seemed genuine, but perhaps he had just been waiting for one of them to suggest a solution that let him avoid the consequences. Draco wouldn’t be at all surprised if once Weasley’s brother provided the means for getting the beast away safely he agreed without complaint.

When Professor Binns announced the topic of their lesson the next day, Draco knew Teddy was going to be unbearable. He tried to concentrate on writing his notes on the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709, but Teddy, who sat smirking in his peripheral vision, kept looking pointedly in his direction every time Professor Binns said the word ‘dragon’. The fact that he was only looking at Draco, and ignoring Harry, gave Draco the horrible feeling he knew exactly what Teddy was angling for. Father’s lessons were clearly paying off, as he managed to keep his expression neutral throughout the lesson and resist rising to the bait.

Draco pulled Teddy into a broom cupboard on the way to lunch. He regretted having to play his ace card so soon, but Harry had made it clear he’d go to great lengths to protect Hagrid. Of course, if Draco was going to threaten Teddy, he’d need to give him something in return or risk making an enemy of him.

“Get off me!” Teddy protested. “If you do anything to me, I’ll report the dragon.”

“You won’t,” Draco said in a low voice. “I’ll give you what you want.”

Teddy’s eyes widened.

“I’ll let you challenge me, and win,” Draco continued, “but you—”

“I don’t need you to let me win,” Teddy argued.

Draco let that slide, even though both of them knew it was a blatant lie. “And you can stop dropping ridiculous little hints about the dragon. I’ll make a scene this afternoon to give you grounds to challenge me, and Harry and I will both let you win so you can make your daddy proud.”

Teddy’s hands balled into fists, and Draco smirked, remembering how angry he had been when Harry said something similar to him.

“I don’t need—”

“If you want a victory, you’ll agree that the only you’re capable of is the one we hand you,” snapped Draco. “And unless you want that victory to go down like a damp squib, you won’t demand any concessions from either of us.”

Teddy paled, as though he’d only now realised that Draco had leverage over him that was far worse than what he had on them. Draco smirked again. Hadn’t Teddy realised Vince wasn’t the only one who knew, or had he just not thought Draco would be willing to use the information? He was rather surprised none of the others had figured it out already, or perhaps they had, and had demanded their own rewards for keeping quiet.

“Your word,” he pushed.

“Fine,” snarled Teddy. “My word that I won’t demand any concessions when I beat you both.”

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Draco said cheerfully, ducking a derisive bow. “I look forward to insulting you later.”

The opportunity arose in Practical Magic that afternoon. Professor Flitwick had them practising the Levitation Charm, which most of the class had learned during Reading Week. Teddy, who was one of the few Slytherins who had gone home for the holiday, was struggling to lift his feather off the table.

“I don’t know why Attius Nott let Teddy go home for Samhain,” Draco said to Greg in a stage whisper. “He’d honour his mother’s memory far better by learning to be a proper wizard than making her an offering in own home.”

Greg snorted, then paled. Draco turned around and followed his gaze to find Teddy fixing him with a look of fury that belonged on a man twice his age. He smirked. Nobody would begrudge Teddy pursuing that insult, but he’d sowed the seeds that would ensure Teddy followed through on their bargain.

Since they had Quidditch practice after Magic Theory, he didn’t have a lot of time to clue Harry in on the situation. As they walked back up the castle from the broomstore, he whispered, “Teddy’s going to challenge us.”

“What?” asked Harry. “Like, to a duel.”

Draco resisted the urge to roll his eyes and simply said, “Yes.”

“How do you you know?”

“Because it’s what I’d do, and because he’s been trying to rile us into insulting him in public. Look, I’ve taken care of it, but before we follow through, I need to know, are you willing to throw a duel with Teddy to protect your big pal?”

Of course, stupid noble Harry Potter nodded with barely a moment’s thought, as Draco had assumed he would.

“Then you should know I’m doing this for you, not Hagrid,” said Draco, to make sure Harry knew he would owe a favour in return at some point.  Seeing as he’d probably lost the right to claim his favour from Tryouts by kicking off after Harry won their last match, it wouldn’t hurt to have another one in the bag. “He’ll probably challenge you first, to try to humiliate you for not knowing the rules,” he explained. “Ask him who his witness is. When he presents one, tell him you accept his challenge, and you’ll meet his wand at the time of his choosing. With any luck, he’ll delay long enough for Weasley to send that letter.”

Harry suddenly looked nervous. “He won’t hurt us, will he?”

Draco snorted. “He probably won’t be able to do any more than Body-Bind us until the timer runs out. No, he might give us a kick or two whilst we’re down but he’s not going to hurt us. Just humiliate us.”

His suspicions were confirmed as soon as they entered the Slytherin Wing after dinner. The common room was full of Lower School students heading to their Prep rooms, when Teddy’s voice rang out.

“Harry Potter, you broke the second rule.”

There was sudden silence, followed by furious whispering. Draco waited for Harry to acknowledge the challenge, but he was staring at Teddy in confusion.

“Who’s—” Draco nodded impatiently, as Harry looked to him for confirmation. “Who’s your witness?” Harry asked.

Draco allowed himself to enjoy the brief look of irritation that flickered over Teddy’s face at Harry’s proper response. Teddy scanned the first-years, his deliberation making it obvious that he had plenty of witnesses to call on.

“Sophie Roper,” he said eventually.

Draco’s jaw dropped. Even if most people still believed she was a halfblood rather than a Mudblood like he thought, asking Roper to back his challenge was beyond insulting. He couldn’t tell Harry to demand a better witness, though, not without making Harry look even weaker.

“Sophie, did you witness Harry telling me to shut up in front of a dozen Hufflepuffs last week?” asked Teddy.

“I did,” Sophie said hesitantly. She clearly had no idea what was happening, but Draco supposed she had no reason to lie. Everyone had heard it.

“Fine,” said Harry. “You choose when we meet.”

Draco didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Since Harry clearly understood what was happening, others would probably interpret his attitude as intentionally casual, which given his challenger was just as insulting as Teddy using Roper as a witness. He could only hope Teddy didn’t take it that way, or he decide reporting the dragon was worth Draco announcing what everyone could have worked out for themselves anyway. Or worse, he might ask one of his cousins to stand as his champion; Draco thought he might be able to hold his own against Fortuna, but Harry wasn’t ready to face off against a third-year yet, and neither of them stood a chance against Ceres.

“Tonight, at half past eight,” Teddy declared.

So much for putting it off, Draco thought bitterly. He should have demanded that when he’d confronted Teddy, but he supposed even Teddy wasn’t stupid enough to throw away that kind of advantage.

“Come off it, Nott,” Jessica Rowle called from the cluster of Seniors who had stopped at the top of the staircase to watch the exchange. “We’ve got exams to study for.”

“It’s my right,” Teddy insisted.

“The challenge duel will be fought at half past eight,” Rowle declared irritably.

Teddy smiled, then turned to Draco.

“Draco Malfoy, you broke the second rule.”

Draco ignored the whispering that had broken out again at the second challenge. “Name your witness,” he demanded.

“Daphne,” said Teddy, treating him with the respect he had refused Harry.

Without waiting to be asked, Daphne said in a clear voice, “I heard Draco Malfoy insult Teddy Nott’s abilities before outsiders to this House.”

“I accept your challenge,” said Draco, offering Teddy the smallest bow he could without being insulting. It was through gritted teeth that he added, “I will meet your wand at the time of your choosing.”

Teddy looked pleased with the deference, but Draco was pleased to hear a few scattered murmurs of surprise, even though Teddy did technically outrank him.

“Tonight, at quarter to nine,” said Teddy.

That caused another bout of whispers. Of course, nobody would really expect a couple of first-years to go at it for more than a couple of minutes in a duel, but by announcing his intention to fight again only fifteen minutes later Teddy was making it quite clear he was confident he would win, and win well. Apparently, Teddy’s cousin thought his confidence was misplaced; Draco could see her frantically trying to signal him to amend his words from behind Rowle.

“The challenge duel between Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy will be fought at quarter to nine,” said Rowle. “And any Lower Schooler not in their Prep room in the next thirty seconds will earn a detention.”

She sounded serious enough that there was a frantic rush to get to the Prep rooms. The seventh-year who was supervising them tonight looked up from her notes when the first-years tumbled into their room.

“Sit down and be quiet,” she snapped.

Draco sat down next to Harry. “Make sure you’re in the common room at half eight,” he whispered, as he pulled his work from his bag. “One of the Prefects will be there to supervise and explain how it works.”

“Harry,” he heard Greg whisper from the other side of Harry. “Remember that Pus-Squirting Hex?”

“Silence!” hissed the Prep monitor. “I’m not going to fail my Transfiguration N.E.W.T because you lot don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘quiet’!”

Nobody dared speak for the rest of the hour, despite the excitement. They’d had enough stressed-out Prep monitors already this term not to want to rile her up, even if she couldn’t actually give them detention without referring them to one of the Prefects.

As soon as the bell rang the end of the Prep hour, however, the room exploded with noise. Draco smirked at Teddy’s retreating back as the other boy hurried from the room, no doubt afraid Draco would try and lock him in to force a forfeit or employ some other underhand trickery. He was pleased to see that most of their classmates stayed behind with him and Harry rather than following Teddy out.

“I can’t believe it’s taken almost an entire year to see a Second Rule Challenge,” said Milly. “Mother had me thinking there’d be one every week until I got here!”

“There might be now Teddy’s reminded everyone it’s a thing,” said Daphne.

“Not in exam season,” Tessie pointed out. “The Seniors are all too busy to deal with any grievances right now. I bet they only let Teddy get away with issuing a challenge because his father’s a Warlock.”

Draco threw an arm around Harry’s shoulder, realising that Teddy could resort to the same kind of trickery he’d feared from them. “Come on, let’s get back to the Common Room before Teddy decides to try locking us in here or something.”

The sofas and tables that usually filled the Common Room had been pushed to the sides of the room, to make way for a large, circular stage that now stood proudly in the centre. He wasn’t surprised to see that it was Walter Winickus and Gemma Farley who stood before it, waiting for them. Traditionally, it should be the fifth-year Prefects presiding over a duel between Lower Schoolers, but they were in the middle of exams that mattered.

“Potter, do you know the rules of engagement?” asked Farley.

“Er, no,” said Harry.

“You’ve agreed to a duel over insult given in public to a fellow Slytherin,” Farley said formally. “The duel will take place on this stage, at half past eight, and will last until one party surrenders, is forced from the stage or is incapacitated for at least ten seconds. You must wait until Nott has cast his first spell before you can respond. If you wish to surrender, simply say ‘Yield’ or shoot red sparks into the air - you do know how?”

“Yes,” said Harry, looking a little insulted.

“Good,” said Farley. “I doubt either of you is capable of it, but tradition requires me to inform you that you are forbidden to cause lasting harm. No illegal curses, no dismemberment or permanent scarring.”

“Don’t worry,” said Draco, as Farley’s words caused a look of panic to spread across Harry’s face. “Teddy’s definitely not capable of that sort of magic.”

“I assume you know the rules?” Farley asked him.

Draco nodded.

26 May

Harry Potter

Harry gripped his wand tightly as Teddy stepped onto the stage. He had changed out of his school robes and was wearing an outfit made from what looked like dragonhide. Harry wondered whether Teddy was trying to rub it in further, or if the material served some purpose.

The stage’s tiled floor formed a mosaic of an enormous green serpent, coiled in the middle of the circle. Its head turned, watching Teddy as the boy crossed the stage and came to a stop a couple of paces from the edge.

“You may face your challenger,” said Farley.

The serpent’s head turned towards Harry. He stepped forward, watching Teddy like a hawk. He couldn’t attack until Teddy did, but nobody had told him whether Teddy had to wait for him to get into position, or if he could just attack as soon as Harry was on the stage.

But Teddy stood and waited for Harry to approach. When they were opposite each other, he smirked, and said, “Bow.”

Harry bowed reflexively; Teddy didn’t move. Harry heard scattered whispers around the stage, but he ignored them. He could ask Draco what it meant later.

Teddy raised his wand. Harry tensed, but the boy didn’t attack. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face; perhaps he’d hoped to trick Harry into attacking first, which was against the rules.

Then, so quickly that Harry hardly had time to react, he shouted, “Furnunculus!”

Harry leapt to the side, gripping his wand so tightly he feared it might snap, and dodged the spell. For all that they both knew he was going to throw the duel, Teddy looked a little uneasy at having lost his advantage.

“Claude!” shouted Harry, at the same time as Teddy repeated, “Furnunculus!”

Teddy stumbled and lost his footing, but not before his spell caught Harry in the face, which suddenly began to itch in several paces. As people laughed, Harry raised his free hand to  one of the itchy spots and found a lump. The itching became painful as it hardened under his finger.

He gritted his teeth, and pointed his wand at Teddy, who was back on his feet. “Tabumplodo!”

There were howls of laughter from the onlookers as pus squirted from Teddy’s nose, but Harry let out a shriek. The spots covering his face had exploded too, spraying pus everywhere. Harry hastily wiped a large splatter off one of his lenses, and waited for Teddy to make the next move.

“Petrificus totalus!” shouted Teddy.

The incantation was long enough that Harry dodged the spell easily. He wondered how long he was supposed to fight before he let Teddy win. He didn’t particularly fancy being covered in boils again, but he could hardly just stand still and just wait for Teddy’s spells to land.

Harry ducked another of the boil-creating spells, side-stepped another Body-bind and caught Teddy with another Tripping Jinx. Teddy’s nostrils flared furiously as he stopped himself from falling off the edge of the stage, and Harry realised how he could throw the duel without making it too obvious.

When Teddy cast his next spell - another Body-bind - Harry dived out of the way, right off the stage. Several people laughed. A few cheered.

Harry turned around to face the stage. Tiles rose from it, twisting and turning in the air until the serpent’s head stood erect, face to face with Teddy. It bowed to him, and hissed, “Victor.”

“Victory to Theodore Nott!” called Farley. “Do you have any demands for the defeated party?”

“To have proved myself the better wizard is satisfaction enough,” Teddy said pompously.

Harry heard someone snicker behind him, and hid a smile. He’d have bet several Galleons that Teddy had used every duelling spell he knew in the last five minutes. Draco’s smirk suggested he was thinking the same thing.

“Nice job,” he whispered to Harry. “I’ll have to go over common interactions to the spells I’ve taught you, though.”

“I can’t believe you exploded your own pimples!” laughed Vince. “I think you squirted more pus than Teddy did.”

Harry looked down at his robes and grimaced at the pus covering them.

“You should see your face,” snorted Greg.

“You can go clean it up when I’m done,” said Draco. “This shouldn’t take long.”

“Someone’s confident,” observed Tessie. “Sure you’re not going to get chased off the stage like Harry?”

Harry felt his cheeks burn, even though that was precisely what he’d intended it to look like. He gave Draco a puzzled look as his friend puffed out his chest and said, “Oh, I’m sure.” Draco had said they were both to throw their duels, but it sounded like he was actually intending to beat Teddy.

A dollop of pus slid down his nose, and he made to wipe his face on his sleeve. Daphne cleared her throat and held out a handkerchief. He took it gratefully, wiped his face, and, after a look at the pus-soaked handkerchief, tucked it into a pocket. The house elves would be able to return it to Daphne once it was washed, since her initials were embroidered in the corner.

A moment later, he wondered if he’d done something wrong. Teddy was glaring furiously at him, his eyes lingering on the pocket in which Harry had stowed the handkerchief. A quick glance at Draco reassured him; his friend was wearing his characteristic smirk.

It wasn’t long before Teddy and Draco stepped up onto the stage. They both bowed to each other, but Teddy didn’t try to trick Draco into making the first move. As soon as the two boys’ heads were raised, he threw a Body-bind Jinx at Draco, who idly stepped aside. Teddy followed it up with the pimple spell he’d used on Harry; Draco dropped to the tiled floor, rolled, and sprung back to his feet.

Draco lowered his wand as Teddy began the Body-bind incantation again. He stiffened as the spell hit him, his smirk frozen on his face. A handful of tiles rose from the stage and formed the shape of a number ten above his head, then shifted to nine… to eight.

As soon as the coutdown hit zero, Draco shivered, and bowed to Teddy. Tiles surged upwards as the mosaic serpent rose from its coils to do the same.

“Victory to Theodore Nott,” Farley said in a bored voice, to a smattering of applause. “Do you have any demands?”

Teddy looked like he was struggling to decide what to say. But after several seconds, he smiled, and said, “I accept Draco’s surrender as a retraction of his earlier insult.”

Farley rolled her eyes, and Harry saw several of the older students mutter to each other.

“Then get off the stage so I can put the common room back to normal,” said Farley. “And before anyone else wastes the Prefects’ time over petty squabbles, you should know that I’m prepared to stand as champion for whoever you challenge. So I suggest you consider just how insulted you really are before you demand satisfaction.”

As soon as Teddy had stepped off the stage, it lowered, sinking into the floor. The tiles rippled, then merged with the stone, so that only a very faint outline of the serpent could be seen. Harry wondered if it had always been there; he’d never noticed it before. Farley waved her wand and students moved out of the way as sofas and tables shuffled themselves into their usual positions.

The common room was almost entirely empty of Seniors by the time everything was back in place. Only the two fifth-year Prefects and Teddy’s seventh-year cousin remained. The latter gave Harry a smug look as she passed him on her way to the staircase.

“That went well,” Draco said cheerfully, when Harry entered their dormitory after a much-needed bath. “Unless you tell anyone you lost on purpose, I don’t think we need to worry about Teddy reporting the dragon.”

“Great,” said Harry, “so now all we need to do is wait for Ron to write to Charlie and convince Hagrid to give Norbert up.”

One of things was going to be significantly easier than the other. Granger’s threats to tell someone hadn’t worked; Harry suspected Hagrid knew she was too worried about getting into trouble herself to say anything. He just hoped Charlie wasn’t as much of a rule-follower as Percy.

Harry pulled on his pyjamas, thinking about his first ever duel.

“I guess that challenge thing is what Selwyn was talking about during Tryouts?” he asked. “I didn’t realise it was so formal. I mean - I know he’s a Prefect, but I thought the Prefects would tell us off for duelling rather than act as referee.”

“It’s an ancient tradition,” Draco said knowledgeably. “Apparently, Salazar Slytherin himself started it, when two of his students started hexing each other in class. He called all of his students together and made the two resolve their differences in a duel. He used to impose penalties on the loser, but nowadays it’s the victor who does that.”

“What sort of penalties?” asked Harry.

“It depends what caused the challenge,” said Draco. “My mother said someone in her year was banned from talking to boys for the rest of the year after her boyfriend caught her kissing a Ravenclaw. That was after the serpent disapproved of the boy’s first demand - apparently it does that sometimes. Mother wouldn’t tell me what he asked for the first time.”

Harry wondered if the serpent would have spoken out against Teddy taking his Nimbus for the minor insult of being told to shut up.

“And why did Teddy say you surrendered?” he asked, remembering what Teddy had said when declining to demand anything from Draco.

“He was protecting our honour. There was no way he could win convincingly if I actually tried. If I’d actually surrendered, it would suggest that either I’m a coward, or I didn’t think him capable of proving himself. It looked better for him to acknowledge my lack of defence as a surrender than pretend he’d actually beaten me.”

Harry didn’t see why pretending Draco had surrendered was honourable if actually surrendering wasn’t.

“Was it OK for me to lose on purpose?” he asked nervously.

Draco snorted. “Teddy provoked you into telling him to shut up so he’d have grounds for a challenge, and then blackmailed you into losing. Trust me, your honour is entirely intact.”

Chapter Text

27 May

Harry Potter

Harry was excited to tell Ron that they didn’t need to worry about Teddy any more, but the next morning, Ron wasn’t at the Gryffindor table at breakfast. Granger kept shooting him pointed looks across the Great Hall.

“Meet you in class,” Harry muttered to Draco once he’d finished eating.

No sooner had he left the Great Hall than Granger seized his arm and pulled him into a cupboard barely big enough for the two of them.

“You need to send this to Ron’s brother,” said Granger, handing Harry a roll of parchment. “Hagrid’s agreed to give Norbert to him, but we can’t send it with a school owl and Ron doesn’t want Percy asking questions if he asks to borrow Hermes. You’ll have to use Hedwig.”

“How do you know about Hedwig?” asked Harry.

“Hagrid told Ron he bought her for you,” explained Granger.

“Where is Ron?”

“The hospital wing,” said Granger. “His bite got worse. Madam Pomfrey’s been asking a lot of questions. We said it was a stray dog, but I don’t think she believes us - I’ve asked Charlie if he can recommend anything for it.” Granger nodded at the letter in his hand.

“Right,” said Harry. “Sure, I’ll send it later.”

Draco was waiting for him just outside the double doors. Harry handed over the letter and explained what had happened as they walked round towards the greenhouses.

“Why do you have to send the letter?” asked Draco. “Hagrid must have an owl, and it’s his mess to sort out.”

“Yeah, but Hagrid doesn’t want to sort it out,” Harry pointed out. “If we leave it to him to send an owl, we’ll still be waiting when we come back after the summer.”

“That might be the case anyway,” said Draco, handing Harry back the letter Granger had written. “The Owl Watchers will see right through that if you send it through the Post Office!”

“Hmm?” asked Harry, skimming the letter. If anything, it looked too subtle to him; it simply asked if Charlie could help Hagrid out by taking a pet who needed specialist care off his hands.

 “It’s an acrostic. ‘Dear Charlie. Ron is our friend,” Draco explained, pointing at the first letter of each sentence. “It starts off OK, but who signs off a letter, ‘nice to meet you, sort of’? She might as well have written ‘we need you to smuggle an illegal dragon’ in capital letters! And signing it with your name - is she trying to get you in trouble?”

Harry shrugged.

“We’ll swap it to Granger’s name later,” said Draco. “My father says the Post Office network is where most owls get intercepted, so you should be safe enough if you tell Hedwig not to use it. Weasley should be able to reply the quick way, assuming he can afford the postage. With any luck, Norbert will be gone before we finish our exams.”

Harry wasn’t surprised that Draco refused to come with him to Hagrid’s hut at lunchtime. He didn’t particularly want to go himself, but he was worried that if Hagrid heard Ron was in the Hospital Wing, he might assume nobody was going to arrange for Norbert to be taken away. Whilst any normal person would have turned Norbert in at that point, Harry was sure Hagrid would only get even more attached to the little monster.

He was relieved to find that Norbert was in the middle of his lunch when he arrived. Fang was cowering in the corner of the room with his tail wrapped in a thick bandage; he wagged it half-heartedly when he saw Harry, then let out a whine of pain. Harry hastily explained the plan to Hagrid, managing to finish before Norbert reached the bottom of the enormous bucketful of rats that his meals now consisted of. He declined a cup of tea, gingerly accepted a rock cake that looked - from its charred appearance - as though Norbert had coughed near it at some point, and hurried back up to the castle to eat his own lunch before heading to Wicchen Studies

Professor McGonagall was teaching them about different travel methods today. Harry was fascinated to hear that there were multi-seater broomsticks, and he couldn’t wait until he was old enough to learn to Apparate, but it was Floo Powder that really grabbed his attention. Professor McGonagall placed a small bowl filled with glistening emerald powder on her table, and explained that it could be used to travel, or communicate, between fireplaces.

“Of course, both fireplaces have to be connected to the Floo Network, so don’t go trying this out at home,” said Professor McGonagall. “And, for various reasons, many homes only have a Hot Head connection. Some homes don’t have a fireplace large enough to facilitate full connectivity, but usually it comes down to cost. Even here at Hogwarts, only the Heads of House’s and Professor Dumbledore’s fireplaces are connected to the external network. The rest are only connected to the internal network, and most are disabled for both Hot Head and Full Body connections. I’ve had this classroom enabled for the afternoon in order to demonstrate.”

She took a pinch of the emerald powder between her fingers, walked to the fireplace, and knelt down in front of it, as the class watched excitedly.

“It’s very important to speak clearly,” Professor McGonagall announced. “When you’re more experienced, you’ll be able to direct yourselves without speaking. For now, however, you will need to state your intended destination in a clear voice. Like so… Professor Oliver Booth’s office.”

She had thrown the powder into the fireplace as she spoke, where emerald flames roared into life. The class gasped as Professor McGonagall leaned forward, so that her head was entirely surrounded by flames. After several seconds, she leaned back, and the flames vanished. Professor McGonagall stood up, brushed soot off her shoulders, and turned to face the class. Her glasses, which were usually square-shaped with thin rims, had transformed into a large, rounded pair just like those Professor Booth wore. Professor McGonagall removed the glasses, pointed her wand at them, and restored them to normal.

“Remember, when you use a Hot Head connection, your head is actually in the other place. If the person you’re calling on is toasting marshmallows in the fire when you arrive, you may end up with a poker through the eye. Unlike for a Full Body Transfer - where either your arrival will either be anticipated, or your destination set up to avoid collisions - it is advisable to wait at least a couple of seconds after announcing your destination to allow anyone on the other side to clear your path.”

Everyone nodded, and Professor McGonagall walked back around to her desk, where she proceeded to talk about Portkeys, which they were all very disappointed not to have a demonstration of.

“If we can do all this, how come we have to get the train to school?” asked Dean Thomas at the end of the lesson. “It’s difficult enough for me to get to King’s Cross with all my stuff, and I live in Stratford. What about all the people who live here in Scotland and stuff?”

“There are gateways to Platform Nine and Three Quarters in the capital of each of the seven nations,” Granger told him immediately. “Only Muggle-borns have to go King’s Cross, and only the first time.”

Harry hardly listened as Professor McGonagall explained the various things that had gone wrong before students all arrived at Hogwarts together on the train. He was eyeing the bowl of Floo Powder on the desk, waiting eagerly for Professor McGonagall to dismiss the class, so he could attempt to act on the brilliant idea that had come to him.

Finally, the bell rang, and Professor McGonagall set them homework of researching one of the ways of travelling she had described. Harry smiled to himself as he packed his things away, taking his time. He doubted what he had in mind was the type of research she was thinking of. When everyone else had left the classroom, Harry walked around to Professor McGonagall’s desk.

“What is it, Potter?”

“I just wondered if it was possible to connect a Muggle fireplace to the Floo network,” said Harry, as he fumbled behind his back for the silver bowl.

“It’s certainly possible,” said Professor McGonagall, “but it requires an adult witch or wizard to be registered at the property, and Muggle-built homes increasingly don’t have fireplaces which meet the requirements for a Floo installation. Professor Burbage thinks it’s only a matter of time before they stop building chimneys at all!”

Harry tucked the hand which was now tightly fisted around a small amount of Floo Powder into his robes. “Oh, right,” he said. “Oh well. Thanks, professor.”

He sneaked a glance over his shoulder on his way out of the classroom, and was pleased to see that he hadn’t spilled any Floo Powder over the desk. He used the twenty minute break between periods to go down to the Slytherin Wing and store it in an unused inkwell in his dormitory before Astronomy. Professor Sinistra seemed to have a nose for trouble, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she could sniff out the powder.

Harry didn’t get a chance to explain his plan to Draco until just before dinner. He had expected his friend to be impressed with his master plan, but instead Draco stared at him as if he’d gone mad.

“I’m not breaking into Snape’s office for that oaf! I’ve risked making an enemy of Teddy for him, I’m not going to risk one of my father’s closest friendships as well!”

“Will you at least try to distract him so I can sneak in under my Invisibility Cloak?” Harry pleaded.

“No, he’ll know I’m just trying to distract him!”

“Don’t be silly, how would he know?” asked Harry. “Go on, Draco. Norbert might send Hagrid’s hut up in flames if we don’t do something soon!”

But Draco would not be swayed. He insisted that Harry owed him a favour and not the other way around, at which point Harry decided he was enjoying being good friends with Draco again too much to let this turn into an argument. He would just have to do it alone.

Ron was much more enthusiastic about the plan, when Harry went to see him in the Hospital Wing after Prep.

“Brilliant!” he said, grinning. “It’s totally mad, but brilliant! This way you won’t have wait days for Hedwig to get to Romania and back. Norbert might even be gone before Madam Pomfrey lets me leave!”

His hand was still an unpleasant shade of yellow, and his fingers were stiff and swollen. He’d told Harry that it had looked ten times worse when he’d first come in, and since Ron was making such a good recovery, Madam Pomfrey had stopped pressing him for details.

“My father said she never asks too many questions,” Draco said knowledgeably, when Harry told him this later. “She can’t afford for us to be so scared of getting into trouble that we let things get really bad before we go to her.”

“As long as you can tell her enough to work out how to fix you, she’s happy,” said Blaise, who had come to bed halfway through their conversation. “So what did bite Weasley?”

“No idea,” Harry and Draco said together.

Blaise shrugged. “Well, whatever it was, I hope you’re not still involved with it. I’ve put a five Galleon bet on us winning the Cup on Saturday and we won’t win if you’re both in the Hospital Wing.”

“Don’t worry,” said Draco. “I didn’t want anything to do with it in the first place, and neither of us is going anywhere near it again.”

Harry read his revision notes by wandlight behind his curtains as he waited for Draco and Blaise to fall asleep. Shortly after Blaise’s familiar snoring began, the sound of snores came from Draco’s direction as well. Harry was just about to pull back the curtains when he hesitated. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Draco snore before. He waited for a couple more minutes, taking deep, slow breaths as though he was asleep, then—

“Harry?” he heard Draco whisper.

Harry continued to mimic sleeping, as he was now convinced his friend had been doing. He continued for several minutes, until the sound of Draco’s breathing, just barely audible underneath Blaise’s snores, shifted. Then he waited several more minutes to be sure Draco really was asleep this time, before slipping from his bed, pulling on his Invisibility Cloak, and taking a large pinch of Floo Powder from the inkwell he’d filled earlier. He was glad he hadn’t told Draco where he’d hidden it.

He opened the dormitory door as quietly as he could, tiptoed along the corridor, and opened the door to the common room a crack to check if the coast was clear. There were still several people in the common room, but they were either engrossed in studying or talking to friends with their backs to the door, so he opened it a little wider and slipped through. Rather than heading straight for Snape’s office, however, Harry perched on the edge of a sofa near the exit, waiting for soft ring of the second curfew bell, by which time he hoped Snape would have gone to bed.

He woke with a start a while later, and hurriedly checked that he was still covered by the Cloak. To his relief, he was. The clock on the wall said it wasn’t quite midnight. He hurried out of the Slytherin Wing and along the corridor to Snape’s office. He pressed his ear to the door to check that Snape had definitely left, then crept inside.

A silver bowl filled with now-familiar emerald powder glistened beside an empty fireplace, and Harry felt a little foolish for having stolen the powder in class. He threw the pinch he’d brought with him into the fireplace, and said, as clearly as he could in a whisper, “Charlie Weasley’s house in Romania.”

It was only as emerald flames flared that he realised it was now probably so late that nobody would be up on the other end. He wished Professor McGonagall had explained the etiquette for making a midnight Floo call to someone you’d never met before. He started to panic, as he realised he didn’t even know if it was still the right side of midnight in Romania - what if they were several hours ahead? He thought Muggle Romania was probably in the same place as wicchen Romania, but that wasn’t much help, as he couldn’t point to either of them on a map.

Hoping he would find Ron’s brother sitting in front of the fire despite the late hour, Harry pulled off his Invisibility Cloak, knelt down on a thick, narrow rug in front of the fireplace, and thrust his head into the emerald flames. It felt as though his head was being sucked down a giant plug hole. He could still feel the rug beneath his knees, but his head was spinning very fast… the roaring in his ears was deafening… he tried to keep his eyes open but the whirl of green flames made him feel sick… something knocked his glasses askew, but he didn’t dare reach up to straighten them, afraid that his hand might be ripped from his arm on the way to his head.

Finally, it stopped. Harry opened his eyes. A young man was snoozing in an armchair in front of the fireplace. A book stood upright on its pages between him and Harry; he appeared to have dropped it. Harry was worried he’d got the wrong house, because the man didn’t look much like Ron or the other Weasleys.

Harry cleared his throat. The man stirred, opened his eyes sleepily, and fixed his gaze on Harry. He didn’t look at all concerned to find a stranger’s head in his fireplace.

“Er, hi,” said Harry, feeling very stupid. “Are you Charlie Weasley?”

“No,” said the man, then bellowed, “CHARLIE! THERE IS IN THE FIRE A BOY ASKING FOR YOU!” He nodded to Harry, and said at a normal volume, “He will be very soon here.”

Harry hoped the man was right; even with the rug to kneel on, he was very uncomfortable. He looked around the room his head had arrived in. As well as the two armchairs before the fireplace, there was a small, circular table under which stood four roughly carved wooden stools. The far wall appeared to serve as a kitchen; an oven stood beside a single cabinet, another two overhead. One of them was missing a door; Harry could see a ramshackle assortment of crockery stacked wonkily on its shelves.

Realising that it was probably be rude to inspect the house so, Harry glanced back at the man, but he had picked up his book and was busy trying to find his page.

Harry was just wondering whether he ought to make small talk with the man, when he heard footsteps approaching. The red-haired man who entered the room stifling a yawn was instantly recognisable as Ron’s brother. He frowned upon seeing Harry’s head in the fireplace.

“Thought it would be Fred or George,” he said. “Are you friends with them?”

“No,” said Harry. “Well, yes, I suppose so, but I’m Ron’s friend.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “You’re not Harry Potter?”

The man in the armchair dropped his book again. He too was staring at Harry.

“Yes, I am,” said Harry. “I’m here to—”

“Bart des Merlins!” Charlie’s friend interrupted. “Harry Potter in our fireplace! Can I have your autograph?”

“Er, can I do that through the Floo?” asked Harry.

“Never mind that, Adrian,” said Charlie. He dropped into a crouch. “Is Ron OK?”

“He’s fine. Well, he’s been bitten by a dragon, but Madam Pomfrey’s looking after him.”

“A dragon?” Charlie repeated. “At Hogwarts?”

Harry nodded. “That’s why I’m here. Hagrid - you know Hagrid, right?” When Charlie nodded, he went on, “He won a dragon egg in a bet and he decided to hatch it. And, well, he obviously can’t keep it, but he refuses to find it a new home.”

Charlie was grinning broadly. “And Ron suggested I might be able to help relocate it,” he said. “Yeah, I can do that. A couple of my mates are visiting their families back home at the moment - I should be able to get them to swing by the castle on their way back out. How soon do you think you can convince Hagrid to agree to let them take the dragon.”

“He’s already agreed,” said Harry. “I think Ron’s bite made him realise he can’t hope to keep Norbert a secret.”

“OK. I’ll speak to my mates and get them to send you a letter to confirm the time and place. Bernard went to Hogwarts, so he knows his way ar—”

A hand seized the back of Harry’s pyjamas, and with a yell of surprise, he was yanked backwards, his head hurtling through the flames once more, his open mouth filling with ash.

When he had finished coughing violently, Harry turned on his knees and looked up at the person he least wanted to see in the world.

“Explain yourself,” was all Snape said, his voice a furious whisper.

Harry resumed his coughing fit, trying to buy himself time to think of an excuse. He climbed slowly to his feet, but no reasonable explanation presented itself.

“Who were you talking to?” Snape demanded.

Harry said nothing. Snape’s nostrils flared. His black eyes bored into Harry’s, and he repeated the question in a dangerously quiet voice, “Who were you talking to?”

Thoughts raced through Harry’s mind. He’d said enough to Charlie that he might still manage to get Norbert to his friends, if Harry didn’t get himself expelled first. But if Charlie now decided it was too risky for his friends to come for Norbert, how much more damage would the dragon do before Hagrid admitted it was fruitless trying to raise him? And how much more trouble would they be in, the longer it took? But Harry had no doubt that Snape would take great delight in reporting him to the Ministry for facilitating illegal-smuggling, even if it hurt his colleague in the process.

“Nobody,” Harry lied. “I - just wanted - to see how Floo Power worked, after our Wicchen Studies lesson today. I went to Malfoy Manor, but Draco’s family were all already in bed.”

“Really?” Snape asked doubtfully. “Then tell me, in what room did you find yourself?”

Harry’s heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he was sure Snape could hear it. “I don’t know, sir,” he said, in a remarkably even voice. “It was dark, you see.”

“Do you know what I think?” Snape whispered, looming over Harry and leaning forward, so that Harry had to lean right back to look up at him. “I think you’re lying, Potter. And I think you deserve to spend every weekend in detention until you can convince me that you’re telling the truth.”

Harry couldn’t believe his luck. He tried to keep his elation at not being kicked out of Hogwarts from his face, as he stared at his feet and waited for Snape to dismiss him. A small, optimistic part of him even wondered if he might be able to get enough details about Malfoy Manor from Draco that he could convince Snape he’d been telling the truth.

The next morning, Harry told Draco what had happened in a whispered conversation on the way to breakfast. His friend was appalled to hear that he’d gone through with it, and horrified that Snape had caught him.

“I’m going to go down to Hagrid’s at lunchtime,” said Harry. “I told Charlie enough for him to sort something - if he hasn’t been spooked by me disappearing. If his friends still come through, I want Hagrid to be ready.”

“There’s no point,” Draco whispered back. “Snape will know everything by now. Norbert’s probably long gone, and I bet Hagrid’s on his way to Azkaban.”

“What? How could he know?”

Draco didn’t answer until they’d passed through the crowded Entrance Hall. To Harry’s dismay, Hagrid’s seat a the teachers’ table was empty.

“He’s probably got the fire monitored,” said Draco. For some reason, he sounded almost hopeful. “How else would he have known you were using it? Even if he doesn’t know who you contacted, it was obviously someone far away. If Madam Pomfrey’s voiced any suspicions about Weasley’s bite in the staff room, it wouldn’t take much to put it together.”

Harry thought even Snape wasn’t clever enough to put those few breadcrumbs together, but when Hagrid’s seat remained empty as breakfast went on, he began to wonder if it was true. But if it was, he mused, surely Snape would have expelled him by now.

“Is it true?” an angry voice demanded from behind him.

Harry turned around, and looked into the furious face of Marcus Flint. James Selwyn stood behind him, by contrast looking elated.

“Is what true?” asked Harry.

“Have you got yourself detention on Saturday? Selwyn says Snape told him he’ll need to step in.”

Draco gasped. Harry’s heart sank, as he realised for the first time what having detention that weekend meant. He’d thought the worst thing about getting caught was that Snape had confiscated his Invisibility Cloak, but this might be even worse. He glanced up at the teachers’ table again; Professor Snape was regarding him with a thin, satisfied smile. Now Harry knew why Snape hadn’t expelled or, at the very least, suspended him; he clearly thought letting Harry stay, but making him miss the Quidditch Final was a good enough punishment.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“How could you?” shouted Flint. Heads turned to stare at them, and he lowered his voice a fraction. “Don’t you care about the Cup?”

“I do care!” Harry protested.

“We’re still going to win the Cup,” said Selwyn. “We don’t need Potter.”

“Shut up, Selwyn,” snapped Flint, without looking at him. He was stills staring daggers at Harry. “Who gave you detention? If I speak to them, maybe they’ll—”

“It was Snape,” said Harry.

Flint’s jaw dropped. He looked up at the teachers’ table, where Snape’s thin smile had been replaced by a look of indifference, then back at Harry.

“What the hell did you do to make Snape risk us losing the Cup?”

Harry shrugged. “I was out after curfew.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit! What did you really do?”

“Flint, come off it,” said Draco. “You know Snape hates Harry. And James is a decent flyer - Snape’s probably hoping this’ll show everyone he’s not biased for his own House, without costing us the Cup.”

“If we don’t get it, you can kiss goodbye to even trying out next year, Potter,” Flint snarled.

Harry tried to finish his breakfast, but he was too upset about missing the Quidditch match, and worried about Flint’s threat. He let Draco handle everyone’s questions about his argument with Flint, as they headed off to lessons.

He was so wrapped up in his own worries that he’d completely forgotten about his concern that Hagrid might have been fired, until Draco asked him on the way to lunch whether he was still going to go down to his hut.

“I’ll come with you,” Draco offered unexpectedly. “It’s kind of my fault if he has been fired - I should have tried harder to stop you being an idiot.”

As they got closer to Hagrid’s hut, Harry realised that the four figures ahead of them were walking in the same direction. He sped up; if Hagrid was about to be arrested, this might be his last chance to see him.

But when he caught up to the four people, just as they reached the door to Hagrid’s hut, Harry realised they didn’t look like they were there to arrest him. They were carrying sleek broomsticks, and wearing brightly-coloured robes. In fact, he recognised one of them.

“Harry Potter!” exclaimed the man who Harry had woken from the fireplace. He dropped his broomstick and began rifling through his pockets. “Wunderbar, now I can get that autograph.”

“Are you here to take Norbert?” asked Harry.

“Bloody hell, Ade,” said a wizard in lime green robes. “You didn’t say Harry Potter was the one who asked Charlie to do this.”

Charlie’s friend Adrian produced a scrap of parchment and quill from his robes, and offered them to Harry. “Sorry, Dumbledore did not want your name to be named. But these are good men, you can trust them.”

“Sure can,” said the lime-robed wizard. “If we can get an autograph, too.”

“Dumbledore asked you to come?” Harry heard Draco ask, as he awkwardly signed his name, feeling his cheeks burn. He wondered if he should have practised an autograph; his signature didn’t look particularly interesting, nor did the four versions he produced bear much resemblance to each other.

“’Course he did,” said one of the other wizards. He had a long, braided beard. “He was hardly going to tell the Ministry his gamekeeper’s been raising a dragon in the castle grounds, was he? You made the right call contacting Charlie, Potter. A school’s no place for a dragon.”

“You didn’t get into too much trouble, no?” asked Adrian. “The way you disappeared, it looked like someone caught you.”

“I’ve got detention tomorrow,” Harry said miserably.  He handed over several signed scraps of parchment. “With Professor Snape. During the Quidditch match.”

“Oh, that’s a bummer,” said the lime-robed wizard. He glanced at Harry’s robes. “Snape’s head of Slytherin, though, isn’t he? I bet he won’t keep you for the whole game. You’ll probably be able to catch the end.”

“He’s supposed to be playing in it,” said Draco.

“Whoa, no way!” said the bearded wizard. “Does he even know who you are?”

The fact that even total strangers thought Snape’s detention was too much cheered Harry up a bit, even if it did nothing to change the fact that he’d miss the Final.

“How’re you going to get Norbert into Romania?” asked Draco. “Don’t you need papers and things?”

“We’ve got them,” said Adrian. “Professor Dumbledore had them ready for us when we arrived. Charlie spoke to him last night after you disappeared.”

“Dumbledore’s told the Ministry that Hagrid found a baby dragon,” the lime-robed wizard explained. “It was abandoned in the Forbidden Forest, so Hagrid took it to his hut to make sure it wouldn’t accidentally wander up to the school, and asked Dumbledore to help him relocate it somewhere more appropriate.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. He turned to Draco, expecting his friend to be furious that they’d been blackmailed by Teddy when they could have turned Hagrid in without incident.

To his relief, Draco just chuckled and said, without reproach, “I told you we should’ve just reported it.”

One of the wizards knocked on the door to Hagrid’s hut, and they heard a great, wracking sob come from inside the hut. A moment later, a blotchy-faced Hagrid opened the door, clutching his spotted handkerchief.

“D’yeh really have ter take him?”

“We really do. But he’ll be much happier on the reserve than he would be staying here, Hagrid. He’ll be with his own kind, with room to fly, and sheep to eat.”

Hagrid sniffed. “I coulda got him sheep.”

But he heaved a large, wooden crate onto the table. Norbert was already inside, and as they watched, Hagrid squeezed a stuffed teddy bear through the bars.

“Wood?” one of the wizards asked incredulously. He pulled out his wand, tapped the crate, and murmured an incantation. The wood slowly smoothed and drained of colour, turning to metal. “There, hopefully that’ll hold long enough for us to get him home.”

“Bye bye, Norbert,” Hagrid said tearfully. “You be good, won’t yeh.”

Harry, Draco and Hagrid watched the four wizards squeeze the crate through the front door and secure it to their broomsticks. Then they kicked off the ground, and soared off over the Forbidden Forest to the sound of Hagrid’s loud sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, after blowing his nose on his spotted handkerchief. “I’m not very good company today. What did yeh want, Harry?”

“To make sure you were OK,” said Harry. “I was worried Snape was going to get you arrested!”

Hagrid stopped mid-sob. “Snape?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “He caught me talking to Charlie Weasley last night. In his fireplace.”

“I thought yeh were gonna write ter him, Harry,” said Hagrid, shaking his head. “Not break in ter Snape’s  office!”

“Yeah, well Snape’s already given me detention during the Quidditch final, so you don’t need to lecture me,” Harry said miserably.

“He wouldn’t have needed to do it if you hadn’t decided to ignore all reason and hatch that monster in the first place,” Draco said coolly.

To Harry’s surprise, Hagrid let out a great sob, and clapped him on the shoulder so hard he sank an inch or two into the ground.

“Malfoy’s right,” Hagrid said tearfully. “I shoulda waited ’til the end of term, so I coulda had Norbert house-trained before yeh all came back ter school next year. I’m sorry, Harry. D’yeh think it’d help if I had a word with Snape?”

Harry didn’t think it would make any difference at all, but he was pleased by the offer, even if Hagrid still didn’t seem to realise quite what he’d done wrong. He accepted the offer of a cup of tea and he and Draco stayed a while longer to console Hagrid, then headed back up to the castle to grab a sandwich before afternoon lessons.

“This is great,” Draco said excitedly, as soon as they were out of earshot of Hagrid’s hut. “Didn’t you say Snape said you’ve got to do detention until he believes you’re telling the truth? You can tell him now - Norbert’s gone, so you won’t be getting Hagrid into trouble. And he can’t punish you for trying to illegally arrange dragon-smuggling when Dumbledore’s gone and done it in your stead! You’ll be able to play in the match after all!”

Chapter Text

28 May

Harry Potter

Harry went to Professor Snape’s office as soon as class finished that afternoon, but he knew immediately that he had been right to doubt Draco's optimism.

“How kind of you to knock, Potter,” said Snape, when he opened the door. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I wanted to tell you why I was here last night,” said Harry.

Snape’s lip curled. “How peculiar,” he said coolly. “I was under the impression that you had already told me why you were here. Perhaps, after several hours in Draco Malfoy’s company, you wish to tell me that you have miraculously remembered in what room of his home you found yourself?”

“Er,” said Harry.

“Or do you mean to tell me that you were not, in fact, researching Floo Powder by making an unarranged house call to one of the country’s most important households?” suggested Snape, standing stone still on the threshold of his office like an ugly gargoyle.

“Yes, sir,” said Harry. “I was talking to Charlie Weasley, to ask him to arrange to collect a dragon from Hagrid’s hut.”

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Are you the Headmaster of this school, Potter?”

“No,” said Harry, wondering why Snape would ask such a stupid question.

“Did the Headmaster perhaps lose his senses entirely and request that you use my fireplace to arrange the collection of a baby dragon?”

“No.”

“Then why,” Snape asked, his nostrils flaring, “did you take it upon yourself to invite people to the castle, something which only the Headmaster has the authority to do?”

Harry looked up at Snape, wondering if he actually wanted him to answer the question.

“I’m waiting, Potter.”

“I thought that Hagrid would get into trouble if anyone knew he had the dragon,” Harry mumbled. “I know I should have gone to Dumbledore, but—”

“The Headmaster does not have time to listen to the trivial concerns of every eleven-year-old with an inflated ego,” snarled Snape. “When you couldn’t persuade Hagrid to turn the dragon in, you should have gone to one or of the Prefects, or come to me.”

“Right,” said Harry, trying to imagine a world in which he’d ever go to Snape for help. “Sorry, sir. But you know I’m telling the truth, right?”

“Are you referring to your lacklustre apology or your confession?”

“Er - both, sir?” said Harry, wishing he hadn’t let Draco convince him to try appealing to Snape’s better nature. The man clearly didn’t have one.

“Since the Headmaster informed me this morning that he had been contacted by a certain Mr Weasley who had received an anonymous tip that a dragon was present in the castle grounds, yes, I believe you are telling me the truth.” Snape’s sneer twisted further. “If you hope that fact means I no longer expect you to serve detention, you’re sorely mistaken. You will present yourself to my office at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, where you will wait”— he glared angrily to punctuate his point —“for my invitation to enter.”

For a moment, Harry considered protesting and pointing out that Snape surely wanted to see his own House win the Cup, but the glint in Snape’s eyes told him that would be a very bad idea. For the same reason, he didn’t ask if he could have his Invisibility Cloak back.

“Yes, sir,” he said, trying to sound respectful.

“Oh, and Potter,” said Snape, his lips turning up in a menacing smile, “I suggest you bring a pair of gloves on Saturday.”

Harry didn’t bother going to Quidditch practice. The rest of the team, all except for Draco, were furious with him for getting detention. Like Flint, they all assumed he must have done something particularly terrible for Snape to make him miss the final. Even James Selwyn was furious with him, perhaps taking it personally that everyone else was so upset that he would be playing in Harry’s place. After enduring angry looks from his classmates throughout Prep, Harry spent the evening in his dormitory doing revision away from everyone’s gaze.

The next day, he was relieved to see that Ron had been released from the Hospital Wing. He spent every moment outside class with his Gryffindor friend, who was so thrilled Harry had got rid of Norbert already that he only mentioned once that Harry’s detention might give Gryffindor a chance to win the Cup on points. Draco had tried to show solidarity with Harry, but Flint had seen the three of them heading into an empty classroom after fourth period, and hauled Draco away by his robes, telling him not to fraternise outside his House so close to the match.

Harry skipped breakfast the next morning rather than facing the filthy looks of his Housemates. He wished Draco good luck for the match at five to ten, then walked to Snape’s office carrying his dragonhide gloves, wondering what horrible task the Potions Master had prepared for him that made them necessary.

Snape opened the door and jerked his head in what Harry assumed was the invitation he’d been instructed to wait for, though a rebellious part of him longed to question it. A small chair, like the sort he’d used at primary school, was positioned behind an equally small wooden table in the middle of the office, opposite Snape’s desk. On top of the table was a pair of brass scales.

“Sit,” ordered Snape.

Harry sat.

A large trolley filled with glass beakers wheeled itself across the office and came to a stop on one side of the table. On the other, Snape dumped an enormous sack.

“Professor Sprout needs this divided into six ounce portions for her N.E.W.T Herbology class,” he told Harry. “If any one is more than a single dram off when I check them, you will be back tomorrow to repeat it.”

Harry pulled open the top of the sack, and retched.

“Let me know when you’re done,” said Snape, with a twisted smile. “I’ve got plenty more tasks to see us though to the end of the match.”

Harry pulled on his gloves and looked around. He hadn’t been provided other than the beakers, sack and scales. Snape sat down behind his desk, watching expectantly - waiting, Harry was sure, for him to ask for a trowel. Harry refused to do so. He met Snape’s gaze, and stretched a gloved hand into the sack, taking a handful of something rough but yielding. The look of disappointment that he’d hoped to see didn’t come; Snape’s face was expressionless as he lowered his head over a pile of essays.

The contents of the sack turned out to be dragon dung, and the stench of it was even worse now that Harry was holding it. He had filled five beakers before he realised they were different weights, but he refused to look up to meet Snape’s smirk as he emptied the last four and re-balanced the scales. By the time he’d filled the eleventh beaker, he wondered how dragons didn’t burn themselves from the inside out. The dung, which was steaming faintly, was either so hot or so corrosive that Harry could swear it was burning his hands through his dragonhide gloves. To make matters worse, there were large clumps of matter in the dung that made precise measurements difficult. He was immensely glad he’d skipped breakfast, because some of them were so poorly digested he could have guessed what creature they came from as he fished them out to achieve the perfect weight.

When the bell rang for lunch, Professor Snape clapped his hands twice and a plate appeared on his desk. Steam rose in little puffs from an enormous slice of what looked like steak and kidney pie, and butter glistened on the heap of vegetables. Harry’s stomach rumbled loudly, but he carried on with his task without asking if he was allowed his own lunch. Snape made a great show of enjoying his meal, though how he could possibly do so with the rancid scent of decomposing meat filling his nostrils, Harry didn’t know.

“You may take ten minutes to use the bathroom,” Snape said when he had finished.

Harry threw his gloves on the table and leapt for the door. When he returned a few minutes later, the stench hit him like a brick wall and he couldn’t help retching again.

“Continue,” Snape said with a smirk.

The seconds crawled by. Every time Harry looked at his watch, the minute hand did not seem to have moved at all. But, infinitesimally slowly, it crept forward. He finished filling the beakers and was presented with a large jar full of claws and a mortar and pestle.

“Grind these,” ordered Snape. “Make sure to remove any rotten ones.”

Harry didn’t need to ask how he would know which ones were rotten. They made his eyes water before his nose even registered their foul odour, which was somehow even worse than the dung. Thankfully, the healthy claws didn’t seem to smell at all, but they were sharp and hard, and it took forever to grind just one of them into the fine powder Snape expected.

Despite the miasma surrounding him, Harry’s stomach continued to grumble increasingly loudly, until, after one particularly ferocious growl, Snape looked up from his marking.

“You may take another bathroom break. Wash your hands thoroughly.”

When Harry got back, he was astonished to see two slices of plain buttered bread on his table. He ate them greedily, not caring that the bread tasted stale; he’d had worse meals when confined to his cupboard by the Dursleys.

Finally, when Harry had almost reached the bottom of the jar and was dreading to see what Snape produced next, the unmistakable sound of dozens of people running along the corridor could be heard outside. Harry looked up hopefully; Snape had said he was to stay until the end of the match. Delight flooded him as he heard what could only be whoops of jubilation from the passing students.

“Continue working,” ordered Snape, as he rose from behind his desk. “I’m going to congratulate the winning team.”

Harry scowled at his retreating back, and halfheartedly returned to grinding. His fingers ached, as did the rest of him from sitting in the ridiculously small chair. He wished he’d done some stretches during his breaks.

After several long minutes that felt like hours, Snape returned. He cleaned Harry’s gloves with a wave of his wand and dismissed him with another jerk of the head.

Draco was waiting outside the office.

“We won!” he screamed into Harry’s face. “Two hundred and eighty to two hundred! We won the match and the Cup!”

“Amazing!” grinned Harry.

“Come on!” said Draco, grabbing his arm. “Flint wants to get a photo of— eurgh, you stink! What the hell has he had you doing?”

“Weighing out dragon dung and grinding what I can only assume were dragon claws,” said Harry.

Draco snorted. “Well, the punishment certainly fits the crime,” he said with a grin. “But I hope someone can do a Cleaning Charm on you, or you’ll empty the common room out. Yuck, even Zonko’s Extra-Strength Dungbombs don’t come close to that.”

Inside the common room, a party was in full swing. Just as at Dia Meti, music blared from an ancient-looking gramophone and several sofas and tables had been pushed aside to make space for people to dance. All of the Senior Quidditch team were taking part, even those who were halfway through their N.E.W.T exams, along with several other students from the Upper School.

“Draco!” bellowed Greg, spotting the two of them at the entrance. “He’s back! Malfoy! Malfoy!”

Others took up the chant, and Draco beamed.

“You had a good game, then?” Harry asked, speaking directly into Draco’s ear to be heard over the cacophony.

“Flint let me play as Seeker,” Draco replied. “I pointed out that my broom’s faster than Selwyn’s, and he still hadn’t caught the Snitch during practice even though you weren’t there.”

James Selwyn was standing next to the rest of the winning team. His already scowling face turned positively green with envy as Snyde and Mulciber lifted Draco onto their shoulders and carried him across to join his teammates. Harry walked beside them, feeling equal parts happy for his friend and upset that it wasn’t him who had earned the adoration of the entire House.

Harry felt a moment of panic as Simon Selwyn pointed a wand at him, but the Prefect simply said, “Tergeo.” Harry let out a great shiver as a strange sensation washed over him. His robes felt suddenly heavy with the weight of an entire bathtub of water, and freezing cold, then a moment later, they felt normal again. He tentatively sniffed at his neckline, then grinned at his second cousin and said, “Thanks.”

“I’m sure James would rather I left you smelling like dragon-leavings, but you were putting me off my pumpkin juice,” said Selwyn.

The mention of pumpkin juice made Harry realise how thirsty he was. He fought his way through the crowd to a table at the edge of the room, which was covered in goblets filled with pumpkin juice and steaming mugs of tea. Harry took one of each, drained the pumpkin juice in three gulps, and cradled the cup of tea as he made his way back over to Draco, who was now standing on top of a table and bowing.

Harry grinned and exchanged a bemused look with second-year reserve Bertram Yaxley.

“He might’ve won that match for us, but you won the last two,” said Bertram. “Get up there with him.”

Before Harry had a chance to protest, Yaxley took his cup of tea and a pair of large hands seized him around the waist and hauled him onto the table beside Draco. Harry turned to see Marcus Flint grinning up at him, as everyone cheered. Draco grabbed one of his hands, and the two of them bowed together, like Harry had once seen actors do during a school trip, at the end of their play.

The party resumed after dinner, but when the bell rang for first curfew, the seventh-year Prefects ordered everyone to be quiet. Flint argued with them for so long that it was closer to ten o’clock by the time the gramophone actually ground to a halt, and Harry was almost relieved to finally stop celebrating and go to bed.

By the time lessons started again on Monday, it was as though Harry had never missed the final. He’d heard Draco giving a play-by-play of the match so many times that he could probably repeat the entire thing himself, and once word got around about what Snape had made him do for detention, even James Selwyn seemed less upset with him.

For once, their teachers didn’t set any homework, since the end-of-year exams would start the very next week. They didn’t even have Prep, as the seventh-years whose turn it would have been to supervise it were in the middle of their own N.E.W.T examinations. The Prep rooms, however, were almost full from the end of last period through to first curfew, as everyone tried to make up the revision they’d been neglecting thus far.

“I thought you said these exams don’t matter,” Harry muttered to Draco, as the two of them headed up to their dormitory after a long evening of trying to memorise dates for History of Magic.

“That was before we let Teddy beat us in front of the entire House,” Draco pointed out. “My father was so furious to hear there’d been a dragon in the school grounds that I didn’t tell him why I insulted Teddy badly enough to be challenged. He told me last night that he expects me to make up for the duel with my exam results. He said winning the Quidditch Cup only means I get a pass for not being in the top five in one class.”

For the first time in his life, Harry felt glad that his aunt and uncle didn’t care in the slightest how he did at school. He still felt a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders, however. When discussing their parents’ expectations for their exam results, it transpired that both Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass had been told that they would be held to Harry’s standard. Since Daphne was almost as clever as Granger, and Pansy no slouch, their parents clearly expected him to do well.

Pansy seemed to expect it, too. “If you could throw a couple of questions in each exam, I’d owe you,” she whispered to Harry as the conversation moved on.

When the weekend arrived, and the first of the two Senior Quidditch Cup matches with it, everyone was in need of the distraction from revision. Nobody minded that the match lasted all afternoon, ending only when Madam Hooch’s long whistle announced that the full six hours had elapsed. Harry didn’t even mind that Gryffindor’s one hundred point margin meant the Slytherin Seniors now needed to win next weekend’s match by seventy points to win the Cup.

It was back to revision the next day, and Harry was fed up of re-reading his notes by the time he and Draco headed up to dinner. He was crossing the Entrance Hall when a familiar voice boomed his name.

“Hi Hagrid. Did you watch the match yesterday?” asked Harry.

“I did,” said Hagrid. “It was nice ter have somethin’ ter take me mind off Norbert. I was thinkin’, I know yeh’re busy studyin’ fer yer exams, but would yeh like ter come fer a walk with me ’n Fang this evenin’?”

He looked so hopeful that Harry couldn’t possibly say no. To his surprise, and apparently to Hagrid’s, Draco accepted the invitation as well.

“If that’s OK, of course,” said Draco, who obviously hadn’t missed Hagrid’s look of surprise.

“Course it is,” said Hagrid, beaming at them. “How about eight o’clock? Fang doesn’t like ter walk far in the heat, an’ both of yeh can get a bit o’ revision in after dinner first if yeh need to.”

“I thought you didn’t like Hagrid,” Harry said to Draco, as the two of them tried to find a large enough gap that their wouldn’t stick to their neighbours in the heat.

“I think he’s a monster-loving lunatic,” said Draco. “But he owes me after what happened with Teddy. You can bet now that I don’t have to risk my life with that dragon of his, I’m going to keep him friendly enough to call in a favour one day. Anyone who can loan out a Cerberus as a favour is worth having in your pocket.”

Harry thought that sounded quite manipulative, but he supposed it made sense. At least Draco was honest about his intentions. Hagrid’s willingness to let Teddy blackmail them rather than getting rid of Norbert had been rather manipulative as well, even though he didn’t think Hagrid had meant it to be.

Chapter Text

6 June

Harry Potter

A few hours later, Harry and Draco walked down to Hagrid’s hut together. The sticky day had now turned into a cool, pleasant evening. When they had walked far enough down the slope to Hagrid’s hut to leave the castle’s long shadow, the sun was still warm against their skin.

Hagrid beamed at the two of them when they arrived, and Fang leaped up to put his paws on their shoulders and lick each of their faces in turn. Harry scratched Fang behind the ears, and grinned as Draco copied him.

“Yeh don’ mind if we take a little wander into the Forest, do yeh?” Hagrid asked, shouldering a large crossbow. “Madam Pomfrey asked me ter pick some toadstools.”

“Why?” asked Harry.

Hagrid shuffled his feet. “Well, I’m - er - I’m not supposed ter tell anyone, so don’ go repeatin’ this, but apparently some o’ the seventh-years over-indulged a bit after their last exam. She’s run outta Sober-Up Solution an’ she doesn’t want ter ask Professors Sprout or Snape fer help replenishin’ her supplies.”

“We’re not really going into the Forest, are we?” asked Draco. He looked rather nervous.

“Not far, and we’ll stick ter the path,” said Hagrid. “Yeh’ll be fine with me ’n Fang.”

“Then what’s that for?” asked Draco, looking at the crossbow.

“Stoats,” said Hagrid. “Fang’s not too good at catchin’ ’em, see.”

Harry and Draco exchanged bemused looks, wondering whether Hagrid was pulling their legs.

“You’re sure it’s safe?” asked Harry, who hadn’t forgotten Dumbledore warning them that the forest was out of bounds. “Completely safe?”

“Completely,” Hagrid agreed. “We’re not goin’ far, the toadstools I’m after don’ like it ter be too dark.”

“Fine,” said Draco, in a determined voice. “But I am not touching a stoat.”

They crossed the last few feet of grass and passed between the first trees of the Forbidden Forest. Harry shivered, whether with excitement or nerves, he couldn’t tell. The trees were far enough apart that the dappled sunlight still illuminated their path, but the angle of the sun made their shadows very long, so that even the smallest branches looked long and crooked on the uneven ground.

Hagrid’s strides were so long that Harry and Draco had to take three steps for every one of his, but thankfully he stooped every few paces to pluck a few toadstools from where they nestled amongst the roots of the trees. He held each up to his hairy face and inspected it thoroughly before adding it to the basket he’d brought with him.

“Have you heard anything from Charlie?” asked Harry.

“Only ter say they got there safely,” said Hagrid. “He’s promised ter send me photos of Norbert as he grows, though.”

Harry wondered how soon those photographs would depict a dragon the size of Hagrid’s hut, and whether Hagrid would then finally realise how bad an idea trying to raise Norbert himself was.

“Yer mum used ter come an’ walk with me sometimes,” Hagrid said, after they’d walked for several minutes in companionable silence. “I saw a lot of her at the start of her sixth year, but a lot less after she an’ yer father made Head Boy and Girl.”

“Really?” asked Harry. He knew Hagrid had known his parents, of course, but he didn’t remember ever hearing that his mother had visited Hagrid as he did.

“We used ter walk along this path,” Hagrid reminisced. “She’d bring a basket”— he held up his own —“an’ pick things fer potions. She was right good at potions, yer mum was.”

Harry listened raptly as Hagrid related the story of a time his mother had almost got into terrible trouble in her third year. The two of them had found an injured Crup and had stayed so long to heal it that it had been well past second curfew when she returned to the castle. The caretaker, a man called Pringle, had seen her coming back into the Entrance Hall, and had bellowed so loudly at her that Hagrid, who was already halfway back to his hut, had stormed in to defend her.

“An’ there was the time she—” Hagrid suddenly looked around. “Where’s Malfoy?”

Neither Fang nor Draco were visible on the path behind them. There was a bend a fair way back, but Harry couldn’t believe they’d walked so far past it without realising Draco wasn’t there.

Suddenly, a distant shout cut through the Forest.

“FINE!” Harry couldn’t make out much of what Draco shouted next, but he heard something that sounded horribly like, “DIE!”

Suddenly terrified, Harry sprinted back along the path. As soon as he rounded the bend, Draco and Fang came into sight. Draco was sitting on the ground, inspecting his leg. Suddenly, he looked off to the side, past Fang.

“What happened?” Harry called to him. “Draco, are you—”

“Sshh!” Draco hissed, still staring wide-eyed past Fang, whose tail was between his legs. “There’s something over there!”

Hagrid dashed past Harry, his crossbow raised.

“Who’s there?” he called. “Show yerself - I’m armed!”

“It is only I, Hagrid,” came a deep voice from the depths of the trees. “I heard a noise.”

“So did half the ruddy Forest, probably,” muttered Hagrid.

“Well, I’m so sorry if my almost breaking my neck disturbed you,” said Draco, pushing himself to his feet.

“Yeh all right?” asked Hagrid, eyeing the cut on Draco’s leg with concern. “I can carry you up ter the castle if yeh—”

“I’m fine,” Draco said haughtily. “Just don’t walk so quickly. I fell over trying to keep up.”

“Oh,” said Hagrid. “Sorry, I forgot how small yeh are.”

Something moved in the trees to their right. A moment later, a centaur emerged from the shadows. He had a horse’s gleaming chestnut body with a long, reddish tail that matched the hair and beard on his human head.

“How are yeh, Ronan?” asked Hagrid.

“Good evening to you, Hagrid,” said Ronan, in the same deep voice they had heard before. “Are these your foals?”

“This is Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy,” said Hagrid. “Students up at the school.”

“Good evening,” said Ronan. “Students, are you? And do you learn much, up at the school?”

“Er,” said Harry.

“Yes,” said Draco, rather aggressively. “We start our exams tomorrow and we’re going to be top of the class.”

Ronan sighed. He flung back his head and stared at the sky. “You are already influenced by the approaching conjunction, I see.” He turned to look at Harry, a frown creasing his forehead. “You should not be here, Harry Potter.”

“Er - why not?” asked Harry.

Ronan’s gaze drifted upwards again. “Jupiter approaches the moon,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “Perhaps greater clarity will allow me to see something I missed before.”

“Right,” said Hagrid. “Well, we’ll leave yeh to think about it, then.”

Ronan didn’t reply. He was still staring through a gap in the trees, though how he could see the planets when it was still so light, Harry didn’t know. Draco hobbled past him, closing the last few paces between him and Harry. The cut on his leg looked very painful.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” asked Harry. “We can go back. Hagrid must have enough toadstools by now.”

“I’m fine,” said Draco.

“No, yeh’re not,” said Hagrid. “We’ll fork left in a minute an’ head back around the edge o’ the forest. Yeh’ll have an easier time walking on the grass than through the trees.”

Draco nodded, and the three of them retraced the path Harry and Hagrid had walked once already. Harry was rather glad that Hagrid had slowed his pace; he hadn’t noticed how much he had been struggling to keep up with the enormous gamekeeper, but the sprint back to Draco on top had left him quite winded. They continued for several more minutes before they reached the fork Hagrid had mentioned. He stopped at it, and picked another toadstool, but his hand froze with the small fungus halfway to his face.

“What is it?” asked Draco, sounding scared.

Harry didn’t blame him; if Hagrid had been paralysed by a dangerous species of toadstool, there was no way the two of them could drag him out of the forest and up to the castle for Madam Pomfrey to help him. But Hagrid wasn’t paralysed.

“Look,” he said, dropping the toadstool, and pointing a huge finger at something which glistened in a faint ray of setting sunlight, standing out against the shadows. He took one enormous step over a rotting tree trunk and touched the tips of two fingers to the substance. It was silvery-blue, and Hagrid’s face drained of colour as he inspected it.

“It’s fresh,” he murmured. “The poor thing might still be alive.”

“What thing?” asked Draco.

“A unicorn,” said Hagrid.

From the look of shock on Draco’s face, Harry took it that unicorns were either incredibly rare, or very difficult to injure.

“Take Fang an’ follow that path there,” said Hagrid, pointing at the left fork. “Yeh’ll be outta the Forest in less than two minutes.”

“You’re not coming with us?” asked Harry.

“This blood can’t be more than an hour old,” said Hagrid. His black eyes looked fierce. “If there’s a chance it’s still alive here somewhere, I’ve got ter find it. I thought whatever killed the last one was long gone, or I’d never have brought yeh in here.”

“Something killed a unicorn?” Draco asked in a terrified squeak.

“A couple o’ months ago,” said Hagrid. “Go on, get outta here. Wait in me hut fer me ter get back. I’ll explain ter Professor Snape if yeh miss curfew.”

“But—”

Draco grabbed Harry’s arm and limped along the path Hagrid had indicated, so that Harry had no choice but to follow him or pull Draco over.

“Hagrid will be OK, won’t he?” asked Harry.

“Shut up,” hissed Draco.

Harry doubted their whispers were any louder than the sound of their footsteps over broken twigs and dry leaves, but Draco looked so afraid and uncomfortable that he fell obligingly silent. He slipped his arm under Draco’s, to take some of his weight off his injured leg, so they could move faster. He didn’t know whether Hagrid had taken their usual pace into account in his two minute estimate, let alone Draco’s injury. There was certainly no sign of the trees thinning out ahead.

Suddenly, Fang let out a whine. They turned around. The boarhound was standing in the middle of the path behind them, his hackles raised, tail between his legs. A faint sound came from the trees further along the path.

“Who’s there?” called Harry, in a trembling voice. “Ronan, is that you?”

But the noise hadn’t sounded like hooves, he realised. It had sounded like a cloak trailing over the forest floor. As Harry peered into the darkness, trying to see what had made the noise, his scar suddenly seared with pain.

“Ouch!” he hissed, clapping a hand to his forehead.

“What’s wrong?” asked Draco.

“My scar,” Harry replied in a whisper. “It’s burning.”

Suddenly, something crawled out of the shadows. To Harry’s horror, Fang let out a howl, and leaped into Draco, knocking the boy off his feet. The boarhound disappeared into the trees, and Harry watched, rooted in place by terror, as a cloaked figure crawled towards him like a stalking beast. The figure raised its hooded head, and the pain in Harry’s scar grew stronger. Beside him, Draco let out a scream.

Unicorn blood was dribbling down the figure’s front. It got to its feet and came swiftly towards Harry. His scar felt like it was on fire - half-blinded, Harry staggered backwards.

Hooves sounded to the side of them, a thundering gallop, and something jumped clean over Draco, charging at the figure. The pain in Harry’s head was so bad he fell to his knees. It took a minute or two to pass. When he looked up, the figure had gone. Draco was standing in front of him, wand pointing at a centaur who looked younger than Ronan. He had white-blond hair and a palomino body, and he paid no heed to the wand in Draco’s trembling hand, stepping around hms and lowering a hand to Harry.

“Are you all right?” asked the centaur, pulling Harry to his feet.

“Yes - thank you - what was that?”

The centaur didn’t answer. He had astonishingly blue eyes, like pale sapphires. They scanned Harry from head to foot and back, coming to rest on the scar which was still throbbing painfully on Harry’s forehead.

“You are the Potter boy,” he said. “What are you doing here? The Forest is not safe at this time - especially for you.”

“We were with Hagrid,” said Harry. “But he went to look for an injured unicorn.”

“The unicorn is dead,” the centaur said mournfully. “Can you ride? It will be quicker this way.”

Without waiting for an answer, he lowered himself on to his front legs so that Harry could clamber on to his back.

“You are injured,” the centaur observed, looking at Draco’s leg. “I will allow you to—”

There was suddenly a sound of more galloping. Ronan and another centaur came bursting through the trees, their flanks heaving and sweaty.

“Firenze!” Ronan’s black-haired and -bodied companion thundered. “What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?”

“Do you realise who this is?” said the centaur Firenze. “This is the Potter boy. The quicker he leaves this Forest, the better.”

“What have you been telling him?” growled the black centaur. “Remember, Firezene, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?”

Ronan pawed the ground nervously.

“Perhaps tonight luck is with the Potter boy,” he said slowly, “and some error in our readings will become clear.”

“Another unicorn was killed,” said Firenze. “Do you not understand why?”

Bane kicked his legs in anger.

“I understand!” he bellowed. “What has it to do with us? Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our Forest!”

Firenze suddenly reared on to his hind legs in anger, so that Harry had to grab his shoulders to stay on.

“The planets speak of fortune and prosperity tonight. I will not allow what is lurking in this forest to prosper, Bane. I set myself against it, yes, with humans alongside me if I must.”

And he leaned down and with one strong hand, threw Draco onto his back behind Harry; with the two of them clutching on as best they could, they plunged off into the trees, leaving Ronan and Bane behind them.

Only a few seconds later, they reached the rolling green grass of the castle grounds. Firenze slowed to a walk.

“Why’s Bane so angry?” asked Harry. “What was that thing you saved me from, anyway?”

Firenze did not answer Harry’s question. They made their way around the edge of the forest in silence. When Hagrid’s hut came into view, however, Firenze suddenly stopped.

“Harry Potter, do you know what unicorn blood is used for?”

“No,” said Harry, startled by the off question. “We’ve only used the horn and tail-hair in Potions.”

“Because unicorn blood is cursed,” Draco said hoarsely. “Only the foulest rituals require it.”

It was another long minute before Firenze spoke again. “Your friend is correct, he said. “Only one who has nothing to lose and everything to gain, would commit the crime of slaying  a unicorn. For its blood will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself and you will have but a half life - as your friend says, a cursed life - from the moment the blood touches your lips.”

Harry and Draco exchanged a confused look.

“But who’d be that desperate?” asked Harry. “If you’re going to be cursed for ever, death’s better, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Firenze agreed, “unless all you need it to stay alive long enough to drink something else - something that will bring you back to full strength and power - something that will mean you can never die. Mr Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone! Of course - the Elixir of Life! But I don’t understand who—”

“The Dark Lord,” Draco said in a horrified whisper. “He isn’t dead, is he? But how—”

“Harry!” Hagrid crashed through the trees to their left. “Are yeh all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Harry, though he felt anything but. “The unicorn’s dead, Hagrid. Firenze found it.”

“This is where I leave you,” Firenze murmured. “You are safe now.”

Harry and Draco slid off his back.

“Good luck, Harry Potter,” said Firenze. “The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times.”

He turned and cantered back into the Forest, leaving Harry shivering on the grass.

Hagrid walked them back up to the castle and all the way up to the Hospital Wing, for which Harry was very grateful. He could tell Draco was itching to talk about what Firenze had said, and he was glad of the chance to think it over on his own first. Madam Pomfrey bustled out of her office as soon as they entered the Hospital Wing.

“Oh, Hagrid, you’ve got them already?” she asked.

“’Fraid not,” said Hagrid. “I dropped them. Malfoy here needs his leg patched up.”

It was only then that Madam Pomfrey spotted Harry and Draco standing beside the enormous man, both pale as bone and sweating with exertion and fear. She shepherded Draco to a bed and tugged off his inner robe, clicking her tongue.

“What on earth did you do?” she asked.

“I fell over,” said Draco.

Harry was relieved he didn’t say where exactly he’d fallen over; he still wasn’t entirely sure they were allowed in the Forbidden Forest even if they were with Hagrid.

“I need ter go an’ speak ter Professor Dumbledore,” said Hagrid. “Yeh’ll make sure they don’t get into trouble if they go back after curfew, won’t yeh?”

“Of course,” said Madam Pomfrey.

She held her wand over Draco’s leg, and crooned a simple Healing Charm. Draco winced and gritted his teeth, but within a couple of minutes, his leg was good as new. He swivelled round on the bed and pulled his lower robe back on.

“Wait there a moment,” ordered Madam Pomfrey. “Both of you look like you could use a little pick-me-up.

She emerged from her office a minute later carrying a small glass bottle.

“Half each,” she said sternly, passing the bottle to Harry. “I wouldn’t normally suggest even that much just before bed, but without it I expect you’ll collapse before you make it down to the dungeons.”

The impending exams meant the common room was empty when they got there, despite the fact that the second curfew was still almost an hour off. Rather than going to their dormitory, Harry and Draco sat in front of the empty fireplace. Or rather, Draco sat. Harry was pacing up and down, still shaking.

“Snape wants the stone for Voldemort,” he said. “And Voldemort’s waiting in the Forest… and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to get rich…”

“Stop saying the name!” said Draco in a terrified whisper, as if he thought Voldemort could hear them.

Harry wasn’t listening.

“Firenze saved me, but he shouldn’t have done… that other centaur - Bane - he was furious… he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen… They must show that Voldemort’s coming back… Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me… I suppose that’s written in the stars as well.”

“Will you stop saying the name!” Draco hissed. “And why on earth do you think Snape is the one who’s trying to steal it?”

“So all I’ve got to wait for now is Snape to steal the Stone,” Harry went on feverishly. “Then—”

“Harry, are you mad?” interjected Draco. “You think Snape’s trying to steal the Stone?”

“I overheard him threatening Quirrell months ago,” said Harry. “Ron and Longbottom went to speak to Professor McGonagall, but she said they were just comparing their protections, so we thought it was safe. Oh no! That was only a couple of weeks before Granger got cursed - you don’t think McGonagall told Snape someone suspected him, do you?”

“Even if she did, what would that possibly have to do with Granger getting herself cursed?” asked Draco, looking at Harry as though he’d gone quite mad.

“You said Snape wanted to teach Defence - he must know loads about the Dark Arts!”, said Harry, trying to explain the various threads that had converged in his mind. “He must have thought it was just Granger who was onto him, and tried to get her out of the way. Thank God he didn’t know it was me, or he’d probably have staged some kind of ‘accident’ when he had me in detention.”

Draco shook his head. “Harry, listen to me, whoever’s trying to steal the Stone for the Dark Lord, it’s not Snape. And anyway,” he continued, in a comforting voice, “everyone says Dumbledore’s the only one the Dark Lord was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, the Dark Lord won’t touch you. Besides, who says the centaurs are right? Centaurs aren’t even proper Beings, you know, and it sounded like Firenze and Ronan doubted whatever they thought they’d seen.”

It was well past midnight before they stopped talking. They went to bed exhausted, their throats sore, but the night’s surprises weren’t over. When Harry pulled back his sheets, he found his Invisibility Cloak folded neatly underneath them. There was a note pinned to it:

Just in case.

“There you go!” whispered Draco, when Harry showed it to him. “You said Snape had your cloak, right? Why would he give it back if he was trying to steal the Stone for the Dark Lord?”

Harry didn’t answer. The only thing more terrifying than the idea that Snape was trying to bring Voldemort’s powers back was the possibility that someone else was trying to do it and that he had no idea whatsoever who.

Chapter Text

8 June

Draco Malfoy

Draco couldn’t blame Harry for not wanting to get out of bed the next morning. He’d heard Harry wake several times, gasping for breath, obviously waking from a nightmare, or perhaps just the memory of the Dark Lord. He hadn’t slept much better himself, of course. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how his petulance had almost got his friend killed. He was certain the Dark Lord had only found them because of his shouting a few minutes before. If he hadn’t been so jealous of his best friend talking about his dead mother that he threw himself on a tree root just to get attention, Harry wouldn’t have had nightmares the night before his first exams.

Despite wanting nothing more than to stay in bed himself, Draco forced himself to get up, and tried to convince Harry to do the same. He knew both of them would do better with something to take their mind off things, and he didn’t want to add failing Harry failing his end-of-year exams to his list of things to feel guilty for. In the end, it took him threatening to tell Professor Snape that Harry wasn’t feeling well to convince his friend to get up. Clearly, Harry was just as convinced as he had been the night before that Snape was the one trying to steal the Stone for the Dark Lord.

Draco kept looking guiltily at Harry during their morning exam, which took place in a room so hot and airless that it looked like Harry wasn’t the only one struggling to stay awake. After two hours and five pages of questions on Magic Theory, they were finally free for a couple of hours before their afternoon exam. He wondered whether telling Harry what he’d done would assuage some of guilt, so he could concentrate on his exams. To his surprise, rather than heading down the Great Hall, Harry walked right past it, heading for the staff room.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I need to talk to Dumbledore,” said Harry. “I doubt Hagrid told him half of what happened last night, and he didn’t hear what Firenze said. He needs to know who really wants the Stone.”

“Harry, it’s a weekday,” Draco pointed out. “He’ll be at the Ministry.”

Harry stopped dead. “Then what’s to stop someone from stealing the Stone right now?”

“How about a few hundred students and fifty teachers wandering around the castle?” said Draco, hoping that really was enough to stop whoever was working for the Dark Lord. At least there were older students everywhere even during the times the rest of the school were in exams; the fifth- and seventh-years had finished their exams now, and after weeks of expecting silence from the Lower School, were getting themselves into all sorts of trouble going wherever and whenever they pleased.

“I’ll try again after dinner,” Harry said reluctantly.

After dinner, Draco showed Harry to the seventh-floor corridor where a gargoyle guarded Dumbledore’s office. Before Harry could reach over its stone head and knock on the wall, however, a familiar voice sounded behind them.

“I believe I told you the Headmaster has no interest in your problems, Potter,” said Snape.

Draco wondered if he should say something to father about how rude Snape was to Harry. He treated Sophie better than him, and he had to know her parentage.

“It’s important, sir,” said Harry.

“What is?” demanded Snape.

Harry didn’t reply.

“Clearly it isn’t that important, then,” said Snape. “I will let the Headmaster know you wanted to talk to him on Thursday.”

“On Thursday?” Harry repeated. “But—”

“Oh,” said Snape, with a smirk. “The Headmaster didn’t tell you he was staying in London this week? Clearly, you’re not quite the close confidant you thought. He told all the staff.”

Draco wished he could tell Snape what was going on. Snape’s attitude was only making Harry more nervous that he was the would-be thief, which of course meant Harry would be even more upset if he stepped in to explain why they wanted to talk to Dumbledore.

“Right,” said Harry, failing badly at sounding offhand. “Well, I guess I’ll wait until—”

“Someone’s trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone,” Draco blurted out. “Probably this week, if Dumbledore’s not here.”

Draco could feel Harry staring at him in horror and betrayal, but he watched Snape carefully, looking for any of the signs father had taught him.

Snape merely said, “I know.”

“Do you know that they want it for the Dark Lord?” asked Draco, visualising the figure that had attacked Harry in the Forest.

Snape froze. His eyes flickered to Harry, and back to Draco again.

“The Dark Lord is dead,” he said softly. “The Stone is well-guarded. Dumbledore would not have left the castle if he thought his staff inadequate to defend it in his absence. I suggest you stop worrying about things that do not concern you and focus on your revision, Draco. Your father is most concerned by your recent failure, and I do not want to have to tell him Nott outperformed you in your exams as well.”

Draco could feel his cheeks turning scarlet.

“Potter, if I catch you Out of Bounds on the Third Floor, I shall personally recommend to the Headmaster that you are expelled. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harry, and Draco hurried after him as he fled.

“What the hell did you tell him for?” demanded Harry, when they had reached the safety of their dormitory.

“He’s probably the most powerful teacher here,” said Draco, who couldn’t possibly explain that Snape would have known their concerns whether they’d told him or not. “With Dumbledore gone, someone needs to know that the Stone’s in danger.”

“Yes, from him!” Harry said angrily. “Why do you think he looked so pleased that Dumbledore isn’t here? He knows he can go for it tonight, and now you’ve given him the perfect excuse to try and make sure I’m not there to stop him!”

Draco resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was obvious - to him, at least - that Snape must know that Harry had his Invisibility Cloak back, even if he wasn’t the one to have returned it. It was clear, too, that Snape wouldn’t have given him such a dire warning to avoid the third floor corridor if he was the thief, when he could simply capture Harry there, steal the Stone and spirit both of them away to the Dark Lord.

“Come on, Harry,” he said, trying to make his friend see sense. “There’s no way Snape’s working for the Dark Lord! He’s one of my father’s closest friends.”

“So?” demanded Harry.

“So he’s hardly going to try to help the Dark Lord get his powers back, is he?” said Draco, but even as he said it, a tiny slither of doubt wriggled into his mind. After all, father and grandfather had said that they would be safe - if the Dark Lord ever returned - if his father walked the line between further denying any willing association with the Death Eaters, and confirming it. He knew his father had friends who might have supported the Dark Lord willingly. Could Snape be one of those?

“If it’s Snape, why would he let you have your Cloak back?” he pointed out, falling back on a stronger argument.

“Maybe Dumbledore insisted,” said Harry. “Maybe that’s exactly why left it for me, because he looked into my concerns about Snape and realised he is trying to steal the Stone, after all.”

Draco scoffed. That made no sense at all. “So he gave you back your Cloak and then decided to stay at the Ministry overnight?”

“Look,” said Harry. “Maybe it’s not Snape trying to steal the Stone. But someone is, and soon. I’m not going to sit around waiting for them to succeed, and for Voldemort to come and kill me. I’m going down that trapdoor tonight.”

Draco’s jaw dropped. “To do what?” he asked.

“To try to get to the Stone first.”

“Harry, we don’t have a clue what’s protecting the Stone apart from Fluffy,” Draco pointed out. “Snape said you’ll be expelled if he catches you out of bounds, and if Fluffy’s the first protection, think what the others could be! You could get yourself killed!”

“SO WHAT?” Harry shouted. “Don’t you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort’s coming back! There won’t be any Hogwarts left to get expelled from! He’ll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts. If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I’ll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there. It’s only dying a bit later than I would have done, because I’m never going over to the Dark Side! I’m going through that trapdoor tonight and nothing you can say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?”

Draco felt a wave of crushing guilt as Harry glared at him. It had been bad enough almost getting Harry killed with his dramatics in the forest, but now Harry was about to walk into a death trap. He still had a favour to cash in with Harry, but he could tell even a hundred favours owed wouldn’t sway Harry from his plan. There was only one thing for it.

“Fine,” said Draco. “But I’m coming with you.”

Harry stared at him as though not quite sure he’d heard correctly. Draco might have been hurt by his incredulity, if a large part of him wasn’t already regretting his decision.

“You’re right,” Draco explained. “Not about Snape, I hope, but the rest of it. If the Dark Lord comes back, he’ll definitely try to finish you off, and possibly my father too. I’m not letting you try to stop this thief alone.”

He set an alarm for shortly after the second curfew bell, and stuffed his clock under his pillow. Then the two of them went to bed. Neither of them had slept much last night, but if they were going to take on the enchantments protecting the Stone, they needed to be well-rested.

It seemed like only minutes later that he was shaking Harry awake. They dressed silently, casting anxious glances at Blaise’s bed.

“I went to the loo a couple of minutes ago, to check Snape hadn’t set someone watching our dormitory,” Draco whispered, as they hid themselves under the Cloak. “But he might be outside the Common Room.”

“So you agree it’s Snape, now?” asked Harry, as they crossed the Common Room on tiptoes.

“No, but if he thinks there’s the slightest chance we’re doing this, he’ll try to stop us,” Draco explained.  He’d secretly been hoping Snape would be waiting to catch them sneaking out, so they didn’t have to go through with this hare-brained idea. “He won’t want to have to tell my father I got my head bitten off by a Cerberus.”

Snape wasn’t waiting outside the Common Room. Nor was he hiding anywhere else on their route to the Third Floor Corridor. Unfortunately, Peeves was bobbing halfway up the staircase between the Second and Third floors, loosening the carpet so people would trip.

“Who’s there?” he said suddenly as they climbed towards him. He narrowed his wicked black eyes. “Know you’re there, even if I can’t see you. Are you ghoulie or ghostie or wee student beastie?”

He rose up in the air and floated there, squinting at them.

“Should call Filch, I should, if something's a-creeping around unseen.”

“Peeves,” Harry suddenly said, in a hoarse whisper, “the Bloody Baron has his own reasons for being invisible.”

Peeves almost fell out of the air in shock. He caught himself in time and hovered about a foot off the stairs.

“So sorry, your bloodiness, Mr Baron, sir,” he said greasily. “My mistake, my mistake - I didn’t see you - of course I didn’t, you’re invisible - forgive old Peevsie his little joke, sir.”

“I have business here, Peeves,” croaked Harry. “Stay away from this place tonight.”

“I will, sir, I most certainly will,” said Peeves rising up in the air again. “Hope your business goes well, Baron, I’ll not bother you.”

And he scooted off.

“Brilliant, Harry!” Draco whispered.

A few seconds later, they were there, outside the third-floor corridor - and the door was already ajar.

“Well, there you are,” Harry said quietly. “Now we know why Snape wasn’t waiting to stop us. He’s already got past Fluffy.”

Seeing the open door somehow seemed to impress on both of them what was facing them. Underneath the Cloak, Harry turned to Draco.

“If you want to go back, I won’t blame you,” he said. “You can take the Cloak, I won’t need it now.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Draco, hoping he sounded braver than he felt.

Harry pushed the door open.

As the door creaked, low, rumbling growls met their ears. All three of the dog’s noses sniffed madly in their direction, even though it couldn’t see them.

“What’s that at its feet?” Draco whispered.

“Looks like a harp,” said Harry. “Snape must have left it there.”

“Oh!” said Draco. His mother had told him that playing music could send some Beasts to sleep, when she’d tried to persuade him to learn to play the piano. He told Harry as much.

“Great,” said Harry. “Can you reach the harp?”

“No, and I don’t have a clue how to play it,” said Draco. “But I bet anything that carries a tune will work.”

Before Harry could stop him, he pursed his lips, and whistled. At the first sound, one of the dog’s heads came dangerously close to them, jaws snapping inches over the Cloak, and he almost lost his nerve. But he carried on, blowing out note after quavering note. The beast’s eyes began to droop. Slowly, its growls ceased - it tottered on its paws and fell to its knees, then it slumped to the ground, fast asleep.

“Keep whistling,” Harry warned him, as they slipped out of the Cloak and crept towards the trapdoor. They could feel the dog’s hot, smelly breath as they approached the giant heads.

“I’m going to pull the trapdoor open,” said Harry, peering over the dog’s back.

Draco nodded, still whistling. Harry stepped carefully over the dog’s legs. He bent and pulled the ring of the trapdoor, which swung up and open.

“There’s no way to climb down,” he told Draco. “We’ll just have to drop. Wait there until I tell you it’s safe.”

“No, let me go first,” said Draco.

In the seconds he took to say the words, the dog growled and twitched; he hurriedly began to whistle again.

“No, I can’t whistle,” said Harry. “I’ve got to go first.”

Draco wanted to point out that surely humming would work just as well, but he didn’t dare speak again, and Harry looked determined.

“If anything happens to me, don’t follow,” Harry said quickly. “Go and find Professor McGonagall - she must have a way to contact Dumbledore.” As though sensing his desire to argue, he added, “I know you don't think it’s Snape down there, but McGonagall’s closer, and she’s Deputy Head.”

Draco rolled his eyes, but nodded. Harry lowered himself through the hole until he was hanging on by his fingertips. Then he looked up at Draco, said, “See you in a minute, I hope.”

And he let go.

A few seconds later, his voice called from what sounded like a great distance, “It’s OK. It’s a soft landing, you can jump!”

Draco peered into the opening, still whistling his tune. He couldn’t see Harry at all. He drew his wand, lowering himself carefully through the hole so he wouldn’t drop it, then whispered, “Lumos,” at the same time as he let go.

Cold, damp air rushed past him as he fell down, down, down and—

FLUMP. With a funny, muffled sort of thump he landed on something soft. He sat up and looked around. What he saw made his blood run cold. A mass of snake-like tendrils had wrapped themselves around Harry’s leg and torso. Apparently Harry not noticed them before; at the look on Draco’s face he looked down, and jerked as though to grab his own wand, but his arms were bound fast in the dark green creepers.

“Stop moving!” Draco ordered. “This is Devil’s Snare! The more you fight, the faster it’ll fight back. Oh, but I can’t remember anything else about it! Our Herbology exam’s not until next week.”

“Light,” Harry wheezed. It looked like the creepers over his chest were beginning to suffocate him.

“Of course!” Draco pointed his wand at Harry’s chest, and shouted “Lumos Solem Maxima!”

Harry squeezed his eyes tightly shut at the sudden brightness, and Draco shielded his own eyes. To his great relief, he saw the plant immediately loosen its grip, cringing away from the light. Wriggling and flailing, it unravelled itself from Harry’s body and he was able to pull free.

“Thanks,” said Harry, wiping sweat off his face.

“Don’t mention it,” said Draco. He reduced his wandlight so that it was just enough to keep the plant at bay as they edged past it towards a stone passageway which was the only way on.

All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. The passageway sloped downwards, and as they descended, another sound joined the trickling water.

“Can you hear something?” Draco whispered.

They stopped moving. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

“Do you think it’s a ghost?” asked Harry.

“I don’t know… it sounds like wings to me.”

“There’s a light ahead - I can see something moving.”

They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy, wooden door.

“Do you think they’ll attack us if we cross the room?” Draco asked warily.

“Probably,” said Harry. “They don’t look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once… Well, there’s nothing for it… I’ll run.”

Before Draco could tell him they should wait and think of another plan, he had sprinted halfway across the room. Draco hurried after him, shrinking down to avoid the sharp beaks and claws he was certain would tear at him at any second, but nothing happened. They reached the door untouched. Harry pulled the handle, but it was locked. They tugged and heaved at the door, but it wouldn’t budge, not even when Draco tried “Alohamora”.

“Now what?” asked Harry.

“These birds… they can’t just be— they’re not birds!” Draco realised aloud. “They’re keys! Winged keys - look carefully.”

“So that must mean…” said Harry, as Draco continued staring up at the keys. “… Yes - look! Broomsticks! We’ve got to catch the key to the door!”

“But there are hundreds of them!”

“We’re looking for a big, old-fashioned one - probably silver, like the handle,” said Harry, who was studying the door.

The seized a broomstick each and kicked into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. The bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to see which was the one they needed, let alone try to catch one.

After a minute’s weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, Harry called out, “That one! That big one - there - no, there - with bright blue wings - the feathers are all crumpled on one side.”

Draco went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing. He swiped at the key, brushing it with his fingertips, but it darted out of his grip. The two of them chased the key, flailing and swiping until, finally, Harry’s hand closed around it.

“Whoo!” Draco shouted, as the two of them dived for the door. “Guess I’m back to Chaser next year, then.”

The key struggled in Harry’s hand, but he rammed it into the lock and turned - it worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took flight again, looking rather battered now that it had been caught twice.

“Ready?” Harry asked Draco, his hand on the door handle. When Draco nodded, he pulled the door open.

The next chamber was so dark they couldn’t see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight. They were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber, were the white pieces. Harry and Draco shivered slightly - the towering white chessmen had no faces.

“Now what do we do?” Harry whispered.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said Draco, feeling simultaneously nervous and excited. “We’ve got to play our way across the room. Look - the other door’s over there. I think we’re going to have to be chessmen.”

He walked up to a black knight, and put his hand out to touch the knight’s mount. At once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed the ground and the knight turned his helmeted head to look down at Draco.

“Do we have to join you to get across?”

The knight nodded.

“We need to pick our pieces carefully,” said Draco. He didn’t bother asking Harry’s permission to take charge; they both knew he was by far the better chess player of the two of them. “Obviously neither of us is going to be a pawn, and the Queen’s a bad choice, too. I think - yes, Harry, you take the place of that fool, and I’ll replace this tower.”

The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words a fool and a tower turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board leaving two empty squares which Harry and Draco took.

“White always plays first in chess,” said Draco, peering across the board. “Yes… look…”

A white pawn had moved forward two squares.

Draco started to direct the black pieces. They moved silently wherever he sent them, trying not to worry about what would happen if they lost.

“Harry - move diagonally four squares to the right.”

Their first real shock came when one of their pawns was taken. The white queen smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, face down.

“That’s fine,” said Draco, trying to project confidence. “That’s fine, all fine. Right, I’ll take this fool.”

He walked up to the white fool, and, not wanting to punch solid stone, tapped it with his wand. The fool bowed to him, then walked to the side of the board and toppled over on its side.

Every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed no mercy. Soon there was a huddle of limp black players slumped along the wall, but, thanks to Draco’s nightly matches with his parents or grandfather, the pile of defeated white pieces was just as large. Once, he only just noticed in time that Harry was in danger, but thankfully Harry himself didn’t appear to have noticed.

“We’re nearly there,” he thought aloud, as the white queen defended her King from check once again. “Let me think - let me think…”

The white queen turned her blank face towards him.

“Yes!” Draco shouted. “You there, knight”— the knight turned its head towards him —“go to Queen’s Seventh.”

No sooner had the knight finished his move than the white king took off his crown and threw it at the horse’s feet. They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear. Draco charged through it, followed a moment later by Harry. The two of them stopped at the end of the next passageway.

“What do you reckon’s next?” asked Harry, sounding nervous.

“I don’t know,” said Draco. “I don’t think we’ve had Snape or Quirrell’s protections yet, but that doesn’t mean much. If Dumbledore resorted to asking Hagrid, he might have asked every member of staff in the school!”

“Or he knew Hagrid would have something like Fluffy,” Harry pointed out. “If he’d only put the protections in place a few days ago, we’d probably have had Norbert guarding that trapdoor.”

“Good point,” said Draco, feeling immensely grateful they had only had to get past a Cerberus and not a dragon. “So maybe it’s Fluffy, and then the Heads of Department? That Devil’s Snare was obviously a Herbologist, and then the keys might’ve been Charms - or Madam Hooch, I guess.”

“What about the chess set?”

Draco shrugged. “There’s a chess club, but that’s run by students rather than a teacher. Or.. maybe it’s the Transfiguration department… which might mean it’s Heads of House rather than Department. Yes, that makes sense - I bet Dumbledore trusts the Heads of House more than he does someone like Hooch or Booth. And then Quirrell, of course, because this sort of thing is exactly his bag as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

He frowned, realising what that meant.

“What?” asked Harry.

“Well,” he said slowly, “if that’s the case, we’ve only got Snape and Quirrell left.”

“So?”

Draco bit his lip, trying to put his finger on why exactly that felt wrong.

“Don’t you think,” he said carefully, afraid of triggering a jinx, “everything so far’s been a bit - well - easy?”

“That Devil’s Snare almost killed me!” Harry protested. “And anyone but us would have been stuck chasing that key for hours.”

“But Devil’s Snare is in our textbook for Herbology,” Draco pointed out. “If Professor Sprout is trying to protect the Stone, wouldn’t she use something even N.E.W.T students haven’t heard of? Anyway, flying? Chess? Could you think of two protections more perfectly designed for us to break?”

Harry’s brows furrowed in thought. “So… what are you saying?”

“I assumed the protections would get stronger, the closer we got to the Stone,” said Draco. “But if there’s only two left - and I hope I don’t regret saying this - how much stronger can they get? It’s almost like… I don’t know, like we’re supposed to be able to get through.”

“What, like Hogwarts wants us to catch Snape?”

Draco could hear the hope in Harry’s voice, but his own thoughts had been far more sinister. “Or the thief”— he pointedly didn’t say Snape —“wants us to be able to follow them. Harry, what if the Dark Lord isn’t waiting in the Forest any more?” He fought down panic, but he knew he was trembling from head to toe. “What if the thief brought him with them, and he’s already got the Stone and is just waiting for you to reach him?”

Harry looked stricken. Draco practised one of the exercises father had taught him, trying to calm his nerves as he waited for Harry to answer. Harry’s question took him by surprise.

“Do you think Snape is the thief?”

“Of course not! I’ve only told you about a dozen times!”

Harry took a deep breath, then said, “Then I think we should keep going. If Snape is the thief, then maybe he gave me back my Invisibility Cloak to lure me here, like you said. But if it’s not, then the only person with the authority to give me the Cloak back is Dumbledore, right?”

Draco nodded, not quite following Harry’s train of thought.

“Dumbledore knew someone was after the Stone,” said Harry. “And then, the same night I found out they wanted the Stone for Voldemort”— Draco almost collapsed from terror at hearing the name here —“he gave me my Invisibility Cloak ‘just in case’. In case of what? In case Voldemort’s thief tried to steal the Stone the night he decided to leave the castle? I don’t know why, but I think Dumbledore wants me to be here. The must be something only I can do to stop this.”

“Like you did before,” breathed Draco. He was staring at Harry, as he realised for the first time what it meant that Harry was the Boy Who Lived. He was still terrified, but in that moment, he thought Harry might be the very best person in the world to be with right now - better even than his father or Dumbledore, the only one the Dark Lord had ever feared.

Harry nodded.

“Well then,” said Draco, trying to project the same air of confidence that was suddenly coming from his friend, “Let’s go see what Quirrell and Snape have got lined up for us, shall we?”

Chapter Text

Harry Potter

Harry pushed open the door.

A disgusting smell filled his nostrils, making both of them pull their robes up over their noses. For a moment, Harry thought this must be Snape’s room, filled with rotting Potions ingredients, but then he saw, flat on the floor in front of them, an enormous troll. The large bloody lump on its head explained why it appeared to be out cold.

“No wonder Weasley and Longbottom nearly got themselves killed,” whispered Draco. “That thing is huge.”

“Come on,” said Harry, as he stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. “I can’t breathe.”

As relieved as he was that they didn’t have to fight the troll, that fact made him a little nervous that Draco’s suggestion was correct. He found himself nursing the perverse hope that Snape’s protection was incredibly difficult to beat.

The next room, however, contained nothing very frightening. A table stood in the middle of the stone chamber with seven differently sized bottles standing on it in a line.

“Snape’s,” Harry said unnecessarily. “What do we have to do?”

They stepped over the threshold and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn’t ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onwards. They were trapped.

“Look!” Draco seized a roll of parchment lying next to the bottles. Harry read it over his shoulder:

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onwards neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

The sudden confidence that had come with realising Dumbledore meant for him to be here vanished in an instant, but to Harry’s astonishment, Draco let out a laugh.

“Brilliant,” said Draco. “It’s a logic puzzle. Professor Snape always complains that most wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic. You know what - I think I was right. I bet Snape was hoping that the thief would get this far and then be trapped.”

“But we’re trapped, aren’t we?” Harry asked miserably. “And the thief’s managed to figure it out.”

“We’re not trapped,” said Draco, his grey eyes bright with excitement. “And if you’re right that Dumbledore wanted you to come here, then I bet he wanted me to come, too. Just like that chess match, this is my challenge. Snape always brought a new puzzle for me any time he came to see my father.”

Harry’s spirits lifted, even as Draco’s earlier fear echoed in his mind. “You know which bottle we need, then?”

“Not yet,” said Draco. He held up the parchment. “But everything we need is right here.”

Harry tried not to show his impatience as Draco read the puzzle several times, then walked up and down the line of bottles, mutter to himself. At last, Draco punched the air.

“This one!” he said, holding up the smallest bottle. “This will get us through the black fire - and unless there are more protections after all, to the Stone.”

Harry took the tiny bottle and unstoppered it. There wasn’t a lot of liquid inside it.

“There’s only enough there for one of us,” he exaggerated. “Barely two drops. Which one will get you back through the purple flames?”

Draco pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

“You drink that,” said Harry. If Snape or Voldemort was waiting for him in the next room, at least he would die knowing Draco was safe. “No, listen - get back and take one of the brooms to get out of here, and find a teacher - any teacher! Tell them I’ve gone to stop the thief… I doubt I’m any match for them, but I might be able to keep them talking long enough for someone else to get here.”

“But Harry - what if the Dark Lord is with them?”

“Well - I was lucky once, wasn’t I?” said Harry, pointing at his scar. “I might get lucky again.”

Draco’s lip trembled and he suddenly dashed at Harry and threw his arms around him. “Harry - you’re a great wizard, you know!”

“I’m not as good as you are,” said Harry, very embarrassed, as Draco let go of him.

“Me!” said Draco. He shifted his feet, looking as uncomfortable as Harry felt. “I’ve had several years’ head start…but that’s not what I meant. You’re a good person, Harry.”

“You’re sure these are the right potions?” asked Harry, feeling his cheeks burn.

Draco nodded. “I’ll drink this first - if I’m wrong and this is poison, you’ll have one less to worry about when you try to solve the riddle yourself.”

He took a long drink from the round bottle at the end and shuddered.

Harry’s heart skipped a beat, but his panic must have shown on his face, because Draco said quickly, “It’s OK, it just feels like ice.”

“Quick,” Harry urged. “Go, before it wears off.”

“Good luck!” said Draco, and he turned and ran through the purple fire.

Harry took a deep breath and picked up the smallest bottle. He turned to face the black flames.

“Here I come,” he said and he drained the little bottle in one gulp.

It was indeed as though ice was flooding his body. He put the bottle down and walked forward immediately, worried the tiny amount of potion wouldn’t last long; he braced himself, saw the black flames licking his body but couldn’t feel them - for a moment he could see nothing but dark fire - then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.

There was already someone there, but he could not have been more shocked by who it was.

“You!” Harry gasped.

Quirrell smiled. His face wasn’t twitching at all.

“I was going to say the same thing,” he said calmly. “I was expecting Miss Granger. She had no recollection of me telling her to pick up that painting - or Dumbledore would have fired me - but she does have a habit for sticking her nose in where it’s not wanted.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. “You cursed her?”

“I did,” Quirrell confirmed. “Professor McGonagall told me that a student had overheard Severus and I talking about the Stone, and I feared she’d worked out that I let the troll in at Samhain as a diversion.”

“You let the troll in as well?” Harry asked, wondering how nobody had seen the signs. Nobody except Snape, he realised with a helpless gasp of laughter.

“Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls - you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off, and that three-headed dog failed to bite his leg off properly.”

Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry.

“Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror.”

It was only then that Harry realised what was standing behind Quirrell. It was the Mirror of Erised.

“This mirror is the key to finding the Stone,” Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame. “Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this… but he’s in London… I’ll be far away by the time he gets back…”

All Harry could think of doing was to keep Quirrell talking and stop him concentrating on the Mirror.

“I saw you and Snape in the Forest,” he blurted out.

“Yes,” said Quirrell idly, walking around the Mirror to look at the back. “He was on to me by that time, trying to find out how far I’d got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me - as though he could, when I had the Dark Lord on my side…”

Quirrell came back out from behind the Mirror and stared hungrily into it.

“I see the Stone… I’m presenting it to my master… but where is it?”

Harry struggled against the ropes binding him, but they didn’t give. He had to keep Quirrell from giving his whole attention to the Mirror. He tried to think what Draco would do.

“Voldemort tried to kill me in the Forest,” he said. “That’s twice now he’s tried to kill me, and twice he’s failed. What makes you think he can protect you?”

Needle sharp pain suddenly seared across his scar, blurring his vision. A cold, high voice that sounded nothing like Quirrell came from the direction of the mirror.

“Punish him!”

The next moment, Quirrell hissed an incantation, and with a crack like a whip, something slashed across Harry’s chest. He screamed and fell to his knees; it felt as though a red-hot knife had cut him open from shoulder to hip.

He didn’t know how long it took before the pain dulled enough for him to think clearly, but to his horror, Quirrell had resumed his examination of the Mirror, and was muttering to himself.

“I don’t understand… is the Stone inside the Mirror? Should I break it?”

Harry’s mind was racing. He didn’t dare speak again and draw Quirrell’s attention and ire. But what he wanted more than anything else at that moment was to find the Stone before Quirrell did. If only he could find a way to look into the Mirror, he would see himself finding it, and see where it was hidden.

He gritted his teeth against the throbbing pain across his chest and tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing.

“What does this mirror do?” Quirrell said to himself. “How does it work? Help me, Master!”

And to Harry’s horror, a voice answered, the same voice that had spoken before. Quirrell’s lips weren’t moving.

“Use the boy… Use the boy…”

Quirrell rounded on Harry.

“Yes - Potter - come here.”

He clapped his hands once and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry got stiffly to his feet. His chest was still throbbing horribly, but the slight glimpse of it he caught through his smouldering robes was enough to stop him from inspecting the damage more closely. Only as he pushed himself from the ground with his hands did he notice that his wrists were raw where he’d thrashed against the ropes.

“Come here,” Quirrell repeated. “Look in the Mirror and tell me what you see.”

Harry walked towards him, too afraid to disobey. The only thing for it was to lie, and hope that Quirrell believed him.

Quirrell moved close behind him. Harry breathed in the funny smell that seemed to come from Quirrell’s turban; it was a blessed change from the awful smell of whatever Quirrell had done to him. Harry closed his eyes, stepped in front of the Mirror and opened them again.

He saw his reflection, pale and scared-looking at first. But a moment later, the reflection smiled at him. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket - and as it did so, Harry felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow - incredibly - he’d got the Stone.

“Well?” Quirrell said impatiently. “What do you see?”

Harry screwed up his courage. The deep breath he took to steel himself was agony.

“I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore,” he invented. “I - I’ve won the House Cup for Slytherin.”

“Get out of the way,” snarled Quirrell.

As Harry moved aside, he felt the Philosopher’s Stone against his leg. Dare he make a break for it? Would the flames blocking his exit be enough to destroy the Stone, if he couldn’t pass through them?

But he hadn’t walked five paces before the high voice spoke again.

“He lies… He lies…”

“Potter, come back here!” Quirrell shouted. “Tell me the truth! What did you just see?”

“Let me speak to him,” said the voice. “Face to face.”

“Master, you are not strong enough!”

“I have strength enough… for this…”

Harry felt as if Devil’s Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn’t move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell’s head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot.

Harry would have screamed, but he couldn’t make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell’s head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.

“Harry Potter…” it whispered.

Harry tried to take a step backwards but his legs wouldn’t move.

“See what I have become?” the face said. “Mere shadow and vapour… I have form only when I can share another’s body… but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds… Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past months… you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the Forest… and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own… Now… why don’t you give me that Stone in your pocket?”

So he knew. The feeling suddenly surged back into Harry’s legs. He stumbled backwards.

“Don’t be a fool,” snarled the face. “Better save your own life and join me… or you’ll meet the same end as your parents… They died begging me for mercy…”

“LIAR!” Harry shouted suddenly.

Quirrell was walking backwards at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling.

“How touching…” it hissed. “I always value bravery… Yes, boy, your parents were brave… I killed your father first and he put up a courageous fight… but your mother needn’t have died… she was trying to protect you… Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain.”

“NEVER!”

Harry sprang towards the flame door, but Voldemort screamed, “SEIZE HIM!” and, next second, Harry felt Quirrell’s hand close on his wrist. At once, a needle-sharp pain seared across Harry’s scar; his head felt as thought it was about to split in two; he yelled, struggling with all his might, and to his surprise, Quirrell let go of him. The pain in his head lessened - he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers - they were blistering before his eyes.

“Seize him! SEIZE HIM!” shrieked Voldemort again and Quirrell lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet, landing on top of him. His weight against Harry’s scorched chest was agony, but it was nothing to the pain in his scar as Quirrell closed both hands around his neck. Yet through almost blinding pain he could see - for some reason -Quirrell howling in agony.

“Master, I cannot hold him - my hands - my hands!”

And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms - Harry could see they looked burnt, raw, red and shiny.

Hoping desperately he wasn’t making a mistake that would earn him further burns of his own, Harry reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face—

“AAAARGH!”

Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering too, and then Harry knew for sure: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin,  not without suffering terrible pain - his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him taking the Stone.

Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off - the pain in Harry’s head was building, blackening his vision. He could hear Quirrell’s terrible shrieks and Voldemort’s yells of “KILL HIM! KILL HIM!” and another voice - or was it just in his head - crying, “Harry! Harry!”

He felt Quirrell’s arm wrenched from his grasp, knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down…down…down…

~5 minutes earlier

Severus Snape

Severus sprinted along the corridor, cursing the anti-Apparation spell that kept him from materialising right in front of the trap door. He understood that Albus had not wanted Quirinus to wonder why he alone was unable to Apparate as he pleased within the castle. But there were several flights of stairs and long corridors between Severus’s office and the forbidden Third Floor corridor, and the castle was not forthcoming with a shortcut. Of course, if Albus had thought to tell him he’d given the brat back his Invisibility Cloak, Severus would have checked on his location more frequently, and he wouldn’t have lost precious seconds looking for it.

He blasted open the door to the third floor corridor and hit the Cerberus with a powerful Stunning Spell before the beast had lifted even one of its heads. The trapdoor was already open, of course, but just as he was about to drop through it, a light appeared below him. It zoomed upwards.

“Professor!” exclaimed Draco Malfoy, leaping off a broomstick and looking stunned to see him. “I knew it wasn’t you. Oh, thank—”

“Where’s Potter?” demanded Severus. He didn’t need to feign fury; he’d thought Draco knew better than to let the boy act so foolishly.

“I left him at your puzzle,” said Draco. “He was about to go through the black flames.”

“Of course he was,” snarled Severus. “Idiot child.”

“Sir, someone was here before us,” Draco said urgently. “They must still be here.”

“I’ll deal with them,” said Severus. “Wait in my office.”

He didn’t wait to see whether Draco obeyed. He threw himself through the trap door, wand flaring brilliantly in his hand, rolled over the cringing tendrils of Devil’s Snare and hurtled into the next Chamber. After a cursory glance around, a Blasting Curse took care of the next door - he might have laughed that Quirinus had fallen into Filius’s ridiculous trap if the circumstances were not so dire.

In the next room, Minerva’s chessmen stepped aside immediately, allowing him to pass. He made a mental note to thank her if he and the boy survived. They’d come to respect one another more than he’d ever expected when he first took the job. He hoped she never found out on whose orders he’d applied.

He vaulted over an unconscious troll, and pulled a bottle from his pocket. The contents were in his mouth before the fires flared to life in the doorways. He hurried towards the black flames—

Severus stumbled. He wrenched up his sleeve and stared at the horrible brand. It was barely visible in the dancing shadows of the black flames - almost as invisible as it had become that awful night.

A sob tore from his throat. He almost collapsed from relief, but - the boy. The Dark Lord hadn’t found his quarry, but the idiot child might well have thrown his life away making that so. The seconds it would take to consult the parchment in his pocket were seconds he couldn’t spare.

He leapt through the flames, hoping beyond all hope to see life behind Lily’s green eyes…

A body, blistered beyond recognition, lay on the floor before him. The acrid scent of burned flesh filled his nostrils, but it was an adult’s body, too large to be the boy. Severus looked desperately beyond it.

“Ah, Severus,” said Albus. “How fortuitous. I could do with a hand taking Harry up to Poppy.”

He was kneeling over the unmoving boy, in front of a large object shrouded in black cloth. Only the knowledge that the boy was alive gave Severus the clarity of mind to choose his words carefully; it wasn’t safe to assume the Dark Lord couldn’t hear him and express his fury that Albus was here when he’d said he’d be in London.

“Did Quirinus succeed in his endeavour?” Severus asked, and even he was surprised at how calm he sounded.

“He did not,” said Albus. He nodded to the blistered body in front of Severus. “His master abandoned him when Lily’s sacrifice became too painful to bear.”

Albus seemed to be implying that the Dark Lord had accompanied Quirinus in person, but Severus was certain he hadn’t passed anyone on his way in. And surely Albus wouldn’t mention that name if the Dark Lord were still here?

“His master?” he enquired carefully.

“Quirinus had offered Lord Voldemort residence inside his body,” Albus explained, with a hint of distaste. “It was not mere possession, rather - a parasitic arrangement, I suppose you could say. One which proved fatal to Quirinus the moment Voldemort abandoned him.”

Severus stepped around Quirinus’s corpse, but the horrible stench of burned flesh grew stronger. He stared at the boy lying on the ground, his gaze passing over the raw skin at his wrists and landing on the singed robes from which wisps of smoke were rising. He ripped back the fabric to reveal a still-smouldering black line surrounded by blistered yellow and red flesh, typical of the Devil’s Whip Curse.

It had been inexpertly cast and there was plenty of time to perform the counter-curse before any damage became permanent. Besides, unconscious, the boy would not be in pain. But Severus knelt and performed it anyway, to keep himself from doing something he might regret - and to shame Albus for having made no attempt to Heal the boy himself.

Once the burn had faded to something Poppy could Heal fully, Severus asked, “Did you know? That the Dark Lord shared his body?”

Albus studied him. Severus met his gaze unflinchingly, but there was no power behind the blue eyes that examined him.

“Not until tonight,” Albus said eventually. “I had not intended for Harry to face him again for some time.”

“And yet you intended for him to follow Quirinus tonight, didn’t you?” Severus demanded. “You told Lucius what we were protecting here, knowing he would tell his son. Did you tell the boy to come, when you returned his Cloak?”

“Of course not,” said Albus. “The plan would be worthless if I simply told him what to do. I wanted to see what he would choose.”

“You wanted—?” Severus glared into those blue eyes, not allowing, but forcing Albus to see the depth of his fury. “You mean to tell me you risked the boy’s life - risked the Dark Lord’s return - just to see whether he is as meddlesome as his father?”

“Harry was never in any danger,” said Albus, reaching across the boy and pulling something from one of his pockets. “I was here watching him the entire time. And—”

Severus launched himself to his feet and took a step backwards to prevent himself from striking the Headmaster. “Never in any danger?” he asked in an ice cold whisper. “Then what do you call that?”

Albus looked at the boy’s chest. A tear formed behind half-moon spectacles, in already-reddened eyes. “Proof,” he said sombrely, “that Harry has the strength to do what is right and not what is easy.”

He tossed the thing he’d taken from the boy’s pocket at Severus, who caught it. He turned the blood-red stone over in his hands. Sudden realisation almost brought him to his knees again; the boy had risked his life for a fake.

“I had feared Quirinus might not act before our time ran out,” said Albus. “Nicolas is almost out of Elixir and in just a couple of weeks that fact will be obvious to anyone who sees him. Lord Voldemort might have suspected I was distracting him, had Nicolas passed before he’d made another attempt on the Stone.”

“Then the true Stone has already been destroyed,” Severus realised aloud, as he parsed Albus’s words. “The whole thing was a set-up. But from what was it distracting the Dark Lord?”

“From pursuing other means of obtaining a body and restoring his powers. I do not believe he can do it without another’s help,” Albus explained. “You are aware that I suspected Quirinus to be in Lord Voldemort’s thrall for some time?”

Severus nodded. Albus had told him of his suspicions when he announced that Quirinus would be taking a different post on his return to Hogwarts. That had been a few weeks after Albus asked all the Heads of House to conceive of protections that would delay a thief progressing towards the Stone with minimal risk of harm to any student who found themselves in the forbidden chambers. Severus had argued against continuing to bring the Stone into the castle, thinking it too great a risk to keep it under the nose of the Dark Lord’s servant. But as he now knew, that had been the point.

“You knew before he asked for the Defence Against the Dark Arts role, didn’t you?”

Albus gave one of those self-congratulatory twinkling smiles. “Quirinus had written to tell me he was not planning on returning to teach at Hogwarts, that his travels had given him a higher sense of purpose. At first I was unconcerned - Quirinus always was rather aspirational - but then my sources in Epiri told me they had lost track of Voldemort. I made some discreet enquiries and learned that Quirinus had ceased his travels after reaching Epiri. I feared that Voldemort had found the servant he needed to restore him, and was already beginning to plan his return.

“I had identified two methods - perhaps three, depending on the means of his survival - through which Voldemort could obtain the body he needed. The more expedient of these options I could have taken steps to prevent, but in doing so I risked leaving myself blind to any use of the others. I had decided to favour knowledge over action, and to simply watch and wait, able to respond immediately once I knew the ritual had been performed. And then my good friend Nicolas told me that he and his wife had decided they had lived long enough.

“To my chagrin, I realised that I had not seen a fourth option, but I immediately recognised the opportunity it presented. I persuaded Nicolas to delay another year, and we let it be known to a few, select individuals that he would be moving the Stone to Hogwarts. It wasn’t long before Quirinus wrote to tell me his plans had not worked out, and he would like to return to his position. I told him I had already appointed his replacement, but offered him the Defence Against the Dark Arts post, which, as you know, he accepted. I knew then that my suspicions were correct, and Lord Voldemort had taken the bait; Quirinus would never have risked being one of the Curse’s more serious casualties had Voldemort not assured him - unfortunately for him, quite incorrectly - that he would be protected.”

“And now?” Severus asked, refusing to show Albus the admiration he no doubt expected for such a masterful plan.

“And now I return to waiting,” said Albus. “Lord Voldemort will return, Severus, as I have told you. And I still believe that there is more to be gained by knowing precisely when he has done so than attempting to delay - and we can only hope to delay, not prevent entirely - his cultivation of a body. It will be some time before he tries again, I think. He will need to find a new servant, for one thing, and by now I think we can assume he will not approach those who denied him, nor does he have the strength to release a loyal Death Eater from Azkaban. We have until the next gullible, overly ambitious fool crosses his path before we need to plan how you will return to his side.”

Severus raised an eyebrow. “You still think he will welcome me back, after I blocked Quirinus at every turn? How long was the Dark Lord attached to him, witnessing my efforts firsthand?”

Albus met his eyes again. “If you tell him how you have used these years to gain my confidence, to build yourself into a better spy for his eventual return, I believe—”

“He’ll know I’m lying!” Severus scoffed.

“He will,” Albus agreed. “He will think you desperate to save yourself and giving the best excuse you can think of in order to escape his wrath. But he will see the value in having a spy at my side, a spy with first-hand knowledge of Harry Potter no less - I’m sure he’ll want to prove himself by doing what he could not eleven years ago, as soon as possible after his return. Once you prove yourself sufficiently useful to him - which I will of course assist you in doing - then I believe you will find yourself privy to any plans he makes regarding Harry.”

Severus looked at the boy on the floor. Eyes closed as they were, there was no trace of his mother in him. The last time Severus had lied to the Dark Lord, he had done so for Lily. He had risked his life for her, had more than once borne punishment for her, but she was gone. He closed his eyes, trying not to see the boy Albus asked him to risk his life for once more, to see her instead. In his mind’s eye, he saw a beautiful young woman turn her back on him forever for a single word uttered thoughtlessly in the heat of the moment.

His eyes flew open, and he glared at Albus for daring - but of course there was no trace of power behind those sorrowful blue eyes. It was many years since Albus had been able to penetrate his mind without his permission.

“I know what I’m asking of you,” said Albus, “but it’s the best way to protect her son.”

“DON’T!” bellowed Severus. His eyes and throat were burning. “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK OF HER, WHEN YOU LET HER DIE! HOW DARE YOU… How dare you…”

A fiery lash slashed through air. Flesh sizzled. A scream tore from his throat.

He let Albus prise his wand from his grip, but covered his blistered chest with his arms, blocking any attempt at Healing it. He didn’t deserve to be freed from the pain yet. Perhaps he never would.

Chapter Text

Azkaban Prison

Bellatrix Lestrange

Bellatrix Lestrange stared in dismay at the brand on her forearm, now almost as faint as it had become that terrible night. A Dementor glided towards the bars of the cell she shared with her husband, come to dine on her disappointment. She hissed at it, and repeated the mantra that had kept her sane in this place.

“He will return.”

“He will,” Rodolphus agreed.

Her husband rolled down her threadbare sleeve to cover the Dark Mark; it was easier for them to pretend it was as black as it had once been if their flesh weren’t visible to show the lie. Both of them had worn rolled sleeves with triumph these past few weeks - or was it only a few minutes? Time was difficult to gauge here, where only on the brightest days did the sun’s rays have the strength to penetrate the damnable fog and kiss the floor of their cell. For… however long it had been… the Dementors had been concerned; they had swarmed around this cell, and others, trying to drain out hope so that they could feast on fouler emotions.

They were fools. It wasn’t disappointment that kept her going, but belief - no, truth! Certainty that the Dark Lord would return, and she and her husband would have places of honour at His side. Rookwood had done great things in the Dark Lord’s service, true enough, and the Mulcibers would be invaluable when He sought to regain influence. But they had been caught red-handed, with neither silver tongue nor golden purse to secure their freedom as the worms like her brother-in-law had done. They had admitted their part because they knew they were damned either way. Alone of those who bore His Mark in this prison, she, Rodolphus and Rabastan had claimed His patronage with pride.

And oh, how she regretted that! There had never been any question of her filling the role Barty had taken. To deny Him, to claim that any part of her had not ardently followed His every command, had been unthinkable. Nor had she thought her love for her husband could have survived him renouncing their Master. But they should have fabricated Rabastan’s innocence instead.

Barty had seemed the perfect choice: he was the youngest, his mother would advocate for him, and his father was well-placed to hear any rumours of the Dark Lord’s whereabouts. They had delayed their approach to the Longbottoms for weeks in order to prepare false memories (and how right they had been to fear their eventual capture!) but it had all been in vain. They had not realised the lengths to which Crouch would go in his pursuit of the top job. The evidence hadn’t mattered to him, nor his wife’s pleas, nor even the desperate screams of his only son. So convincing was Barty’s act that her stomach had twisted with hatred for his denial, yet his father had all but ordered the Council to find him guilty. Crouch’s ambition had destroyed their carefully laid plans.

It was only fitting that he had lost everything as a result. Bellatrix had laughed as he helped his wife past her cell, the reason for her presence plain in every wheezing breath. Barty had passed a few days later - yes, she was sure it was only days, time had not moved so strangly then. The sight of her had driven Barty to the madness he had so successfully kept at bay. The last of the Aragons couldn’t have survived his mother by long and with the destruction of his family Crouch had destroyed his hopes of one day becoming Minister.

Had Bagnold clung to the job she hated to ensure he never took her place? Bellatrix had asked her once - it must have been a long time ago, when she still spoke to anyone other than her husband. A flicker of satisfaction had crossed the witch’s face - appreciation for her sacrifice being recognised for once, no doubt - before she’d ordered all three Lestranges reduced to half rations for a month.

Bagnold had quit in the end, though. Bellatrix remembered the day Gaius Fudge’s son had come to inspect the prison, rather than Bagnold. She had laughed through the bars at him as a pair of Aurors walked him between the cells, their blood-red robes highlighting his terrified pallor. That must have been almost a year ago - the days were growing long again, as they had been when he had come. The days were always long here, but however long they got, the nights were longer.

Crouch may have destroyed their carefully laid plans, but whilst he had lost his family and his future, Bellatrix still had both. The Dark Lord would return.

“He will.”

Bellatrix hadn’t realised she’d spoken again, but she must have; Rodolphus was ever the response to her call, never the initiator of this ritual of theirs. She turned in her husband’s arms and raised her head to kiss him. He pressed his lips willingly to hers. Rodolphus must believe what he’d said; surely nothing but the belief that their Lord would return could have allowed him to survive a decade here and still show her such passion. Ah, if only the Dementors did not render that passion impotent, they would have produced an army of sons and daughters to fight for the Dark Lord’s cause.

“And when He does,” Bellatrix promised, a little breathlessly, “He will honour us above all others for our loyalty.”

She wondered if Rodolphus knew that they had touched the proof, the very vessel, of His eventual return. Had he deduced, as she had, just what they kept for the Dark Lord, buried deep beneath London in their Gringotts vault? They had never spoken of it, had never told even Rabastan what task the Dark Lord had set them in private some… how many years ago was it?

It wasn’t safe to speak of such things, not even here. The Aurors never came this deep into the prison, unless they needed to question an inmate or to accompany whichever grasping fool wore the Minister’s chain, but it was said that the Dementors could communicate with them.

A laugh tore from her throat, as she imagined how the Aurors would react when they heard what had transpired tonight. Would they scratch their heads and ask how the Lestranges still had strength to embrace one another? Would they sigh in relief, when the Dementors reported that her building elation had collapsed? Would they quake in fear of what almost been, what soon would come to be?

“The Dark Lord’s regard - and yours - is the only honour I need,” whispered Rodolphus.

Bellatrix surrendered her mouth to his tongue as he resumed their kiss with renewed vigour.

Crouch End, London

Bartemius Crouch II

Barty felt a little sad, which was strange, because Barty rarely felt sad. He had everything he could want: a warm bed, a well-stocked library and an elf to cater to his every need. He wondered what could possibly have upset him, which was also odd, because he rarely wondered about anything.

“Would master Barty like his cup of tea, sir?” squeaked Winky.

The elf was holding up a tray bearing a cup and saucer, inches from Barty’s outstretched hand.

So that was what was wrong.

It took every ounce of control Barty had not to weep, but to do so would give him away. Instead, he said, “I would like a mirror.”

“Of course, master Barty,” squeaked the elf. The tray vanished, replaced by a small, ovular mirror. “Master Barty is looking most handsome today, sir.”

Barty studied his reflection, trying to judge how much time had passed. To his relief, he saw no discernible difference from the last time he had been in control of himself. It could have been only a momentary loss of control, perhaps weeks or months, but certainly not years - not this time. He didn’t dare ask the elf for a newspaper to check the date. He wasn’t sure whether father had guessed why Winky had started letting him read the newspaper, but the old man had put a stop to it. That had been a long time ago, though of course it felt like only weeks to Barty; father had replaced the Curse soon after the newspapers stopped arriving.

“Would master Barty like Winky to comb his hair?” asked Winky.

“No, thank you,” said Barty. “I’ll have that cup of tea now.”

“Of course, sir!” squeaked the elf, presenting the tray once more.

Barty took the cup, glancing once again at the faded brand on his forearm. He sipped his tea slowly, trying to piece together what had happened.

Some time ago - how long precisely, he wasn’t sure - he had noticed that the Dark Mark had grown stronger. His pleasure at that fact had, it seemed, caused him to succumb to his father’s Curse once more, his true emotion too close to that manufactured happiness to permit him to retain control. But where the Mark darkening had caused him to lose control, its disappearance had caused him to regain it.

Perverse as it was, Barty loved these moments, when bitter disappointment loosened his father’s yoke and freed his mind to think. And this time, Barty promised himself, he would not squander the opportunity by stretching his freedom too far. He would let Winky fuss over him, but he would ask for nothing without invitation, and only those small comforts Winky loved to give him. He would ask no questions, but he would not need to; Winky could not bear the long silences his imprisonment induced him to, filling them with her damnable squeaking. She was careful not to mention anything father had forbidden, but tiny details would slip through, and once he had enough of them Barty could begin to plan.

It would be difficult, but that was so much the better. The more difficult it was - the longer it took him - the less hope and happiness he would find. He was afraid that if he tipped father to replace the Curse again, he would never regain control, but fear’s icy grip held father’s influence at bay.

“Master ordered a new broomstick yesterday,” said Winky. “Winky knows Master Barty loves riding his broomstick, sir, and broomsticks is being so much better these days! Master has no need for all the modern fripperies, he says, so he chose a Cleansweep Nine, but Winky kept the brochure. Would Master Barty like to see it?”

“No, thank you,” said Barty, even though there was little he would like more than to see how broom technology had advanced since his trial. A brochure was a far cry from a newspaper, but father likely wouldn’t approve, and Barty would need time to prepare himself for the experience. With sufficient preparation, he could recognise only his resentment of the fact that he had been denied the opportunity to ride the latest broomstick, and ignore any joy he took from seeing the glossy photograph of sleek tails and polished handles. Besides, he was sure the elf would keep the brochure, and the longer he waited before he agreed to look it, the guiltier she would feel at talking him into it and thus the less likely to tell father.

“Very well, sir,” Winky said, wilting before him. “Maybe another time.”

Barty smothered a wave of relief that his plan already seemed to be working out, and forced himself to lament the fact that he would not find anything useful in Which Broomstick. But carrying out this plan, devoting himself to reading that brochure cover to cover enough times that he could recite its contents, without father finding out or Barty losing control… well, it would be a start.

10 June

Daily Prophet

Time for Farewell, says Flamel

Nicolas Flamel today announced his decision to end his life, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. The Most Noble Warlock (b. 1302) and his wife Perenelle (b. 1310) owe their remarkable longevity to Mr Flamel’s creation of the legendary Philosopher’s Stone in 1408. Despite many efforts, Mr Flamel has not repeated the feat since, and claims the only Stone in existence has now been destroyed, rendering any change of mind impotent.

“We have had many great adventures in life,” says Mr Flamel, “and now it is time to experience the most thrilling adventure of all.” Although they declined to speculate on the precise date of their inevitable departure, the Flamels have announced that they will be holding a Living Wake at their Devon residence on 11 July. “We want to say goodbye to our friends and family and be there when they celebrate our very long lives,” says Mdm Flamel.

The Flamels declined to comment on rumours that security concerns may have contributed to their decision. An anonymous source with proven links to Gringotts informed the Prophet that the Philosophers Stone was the item fortuitously removed from a High Security Vault in the London branch hours before the same vault was broken into.

The most likely destination of the Stone after its removal from Gringotts is Hogwarts School of Wicchencraft, due to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore’s historic alchemy partnership with Mr Flamel. Professor Dumbledore confirmed the death of Professor Quirilus Quirrell, who returned from a sabbatical to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts last September, earlier this week, but refused to comment on rumours that Quirrell had been attempting to obtain the Stone. When asked whether Harry Potter had been grievously injured protecting the Stone, Professor Dumbledore said, “It is Hogwarts policy not to comment on the health of students.”

Mr Flamel’s seventeen-times-great grandson, Peter Flamel, who has served as Steward of the Flamel Warlockship for twenty-two years will inherit the position once Mr Flamel passes, along with the family’s vast estate. “I never expected to outlive Old Nick,” says Flamel, using the family’s nickname for the ancient inventor. “He’s buried eighteen heirs before me, and I’d expected him to hold out for a score!” Flamel says he intends to attend his Investiture after the summer recess, and then hand his responsibilities over to his daughter Colette as his Steward. “I’m getting on a bit myself,” he says, gesturing to the few white wisps desperately clinging to his scalp, “and I daresay I’ve left enough of an imprint in the Flamel seat to have earned a quiet retirement.”

Mary Ashmole, the High Artificer, expressing her admiration for Mr Flamel, says, “I hope the loss of such a legendary figure into the history books will spark a new interest in the subject of Alchemy and revitalise efforts to reproduce the Philosopher’s Stone. I wish Nicolas and Perenelle the most peaceful passage into the world that waits.”

Chapter Text

11 June

Harry Potter

Something gold was glinting just above Harry. The Snitch! He tried to catch it, but his arms were too heavy.

He blinked. It wasn’t the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses. How strange.

He blinked again. The smiling face of Albus Dumbledore swam into focus above him.

“Good afternoon, Harry,” said Dumbledore.

Harry stared at him. Then he remembered. “Sir! The Stone! It was Quirrell! He’s got the Stone! Sir, quick—”

“Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times,” said Dumbledore. “Professor Quirrell does not have the Stone.”

“Then who does? Sir, I—”

“Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out.”

Harry swallowed and looked around him. He realised he must be in the Hospital Wing. He was lying in a bed with white linen sheets and next to him was a table piled high with what looked like half the sweet-shop.

“Tokens from your friends and admirers,” said Dumbledore, beaming. “What happened down in the dungeon between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows.”

“How long have I been in here?”

“Three days. Mr Malfoy and Mr Weasley will be most relieved you have come round, they have both been extremely worried.”

“But sir, the Stone—”

“I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to obtain it. Professor Snape arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you.”

“Snape?”

“Professor Snape,” Dumbledore repeated. “He was on his way through the trapdoor to stop Professor Quirrell when he met Mr Malfoy coming in the other direction. He arrived in time to save you, though I am afraid it was rather too late for Professor Quirrell. The effort of keeping him from getting the Stone almost claimed your life as well.”

“Quirrell’s dead? Then, Voldemort—”

“Remains at large,” said Dumbledore gently. “He abandoned Quirrell’s body when the pain Quirrell suffered from touching you became unbearable.”

“Then Vol - sorry, the Dark—”

“Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

“Yes, sir. Well, can’t Voldemort find someone else and try again?”

Dumbledore shook his head. “Not with the Stone. I have destroyed it.”

“Destroyed?” said Harry blankly. “But your friend - Nicolas Flamel—”

“Oh, you know about Nicolas?” said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted. “You did do the thing properly, didn’t you? Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat and agreed it’s all for the best.”

“But - you said not with the Stone,” Harry said slowly. “If he can come back without using the Philosopher’s Stone…”

Professor Dumbledore gave Harry a sad smile. “Nicolas decided that he did not want his creation to be the means by which Lord Voldemort regained a body and his powers, but I am afraid to say there are other ways he could return.”

“Other ways? Like what?”

“Every method I can think of is incredibly difficult, rather horrible, and, I am pleased to say, does not involve any item concealed within the castle,” said Dumbledore solemnly. “Voldemort is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share… not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time - and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power.”

Harry nodded, but stopped quickly, because it made his head hurt. So instead he asked,  “Sir, how did Quirrell die? He couldn’t touch me - his hands were blistered all over… but… it wasn’t…?”

“You did not kill Quirrell,” said Dumbledore, and Harry felt a huge weight lift from his chest. “Lord Voldemort did, through his ignorance and greed. Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realise that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign… to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us protection for ever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”

Dumbledore now became very interested in a bird out on the window-sill, which gave Harry time to dry his eyes on the sheet. When he had found his voice again, Harry said, “Voldemort said he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?”

Dumbledore sighed, more deeply than before. “Alas, I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now.”

Harry opened his mouth to argue.

“You will know, one day,” Dumbledore promised. “Put it from your mind for now, Harry. When you are older… I know you hate to hear this… when you are ready, you will know.”

“But sir,” Harry insisted, “you gave me my Invisibility Cloak, didn’t you? Only you could have convinced Snape - Professor Snape,” he amended hastily, “to give it back to me. If you thought I was old enough to try to stop Voldemort, why aren’t I old enough to know the truth?”

Professor Dumbledore studied Harry for a long moment. Then he said, “The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” He sighed, and continued, “Yes, Harry, it was I who gave you your Cloak, both times in fact. Your father happened to leave it in my possession and I thought you might like it. As for why I gave it back to you, I feared that you might watch the Third Floor once you knew Voldemort was looking for the Stone, to try to identify his servant, and I thought it rather safer for you to be invisible whilst you did so, so that Quirrell did not see you as another obstacle to be removed.”

“But why did you leave, if you knew Quirrell was working for Voldemort?” asked Harry. “Er - I don’t mean—”

“I am not offended by the question,” said Dumbledore, offering Harry another smile. “I didn’t yet know it was Quirrell who was trying to steal the Stone, and though I knew somebody was after it, I believed it was well enough protected.”

Remembering how easily he and Draco had made it through the protections, Harry had to wonder if Dumbledore was quite sane.

“You see,” said Dumbledore, as though he’d read Harry’s mind, “the protections were there to slow any would-be thief down. Fear stayed Quirrell’s hand on the many occasions I left the school before this week, but fear of the unknown - or failure - not death. Quirrell braved an attempt when he did because he knew it might be his last chance before the end of term. He made it to the Mirror, yes, but I can assure you there was no way he would have been able to retrieve the Stone from there.”

“But I got it,” Harry protested.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore, and to Harry’s surprise he was smiling again. “You did. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, that’s saying something. You see, only one who wanted to find the Stone - find it, but not use it - would be able to get it, otherwise they’d just see themselves making gold or drinking Elixir of Life. My brain surprises even me sometimes… Now, enough questions.”

“But…”

“Very well,” said Dumbledore. “One more, Harry.”

Harry tried to form just one question from the mass of thoughts that were still swirling around inside his head. Eventually, he decided on, “How much does everyone know of what happened down there?”

“Ah, I’m glad you asked me that. Everyone knows that you and Mr Malfoy succeeded in stopping Professor Quirrell from taking the Philosopher’s Stone, which they were all quite shocked to hear had been hidden in the school. Only you and I, however, know that Quirrell wanted the Stone for Voldemort, and I think we should keep it that way.”

“Draco knows,” said Harry. “He heard Firenze tell me it was Voldemort who attacked me in the Forest. That’s why he agreed to come with me to stop Quirrell.”

“I have informed Mr Malfoy that Firenze was mistaken,” said Dumbledore, “and I must ask you to do the same.”

Harry frowned. “Why?”

“Your young friend has rather a showy temperament,” said Dumbledore. “I do not think he would be able to resist telling people that he had helped you beat Lord Voldemort for a second time, if he knew the truth.”

Harry thought of how Draco had told him about the Philosopher’s Stone as soon as he got back from the holidays, and blurted out their suspicions to the very person he suspected. He supposed Professor Dumbledore was right that Draco couldn’t keep a secret, but he didn’t see why everyone knowing about Voldemort was such a bad idea.

“But shouldn’t they know?” asked Harry. “I mean, shouldn’t we warn people he’s out there?”

“I will of course tell the Minister for Magic and Head Auror who Quirrell was working for,” said Dumbledore. “But I am afraid to say that there are more than a few people who would actively seek to take Quirrell’s place, if they knew Lord Voldemort was out there somewhere, seeking a way to regain his powers. No, Harry, if we are to delay Lord Voldemort’s return - or, even better, to prevent it entirely - we must ensure that his continued existence remains the merest speculation to those who might support him rather than stand against him.”

Harry nodded. “I won’t tell anyone, then, sir. I promise.”

“Well, Harry, if that is all, I suggest you make a start on these sweets,” said Dumbledore cheerfully. “Ah! Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavoured one, and since then I’ve rather lost my liking for them - but I think I’ll be safe with a nice toffee, don’t you?”

He smiled and popped the golden-brown bean into his mouth. Then he choked and said, “Alas! Earwax!”

Ron Weasley

Ron had never expected to be on the same side of an argument as Draco Malfoy before he had tried to persuade Hagrid to give up Norbert. He certainly hadn’t expected it to happen again so soon.

“Just five minutes,” he pleaded.

“Absolutely not,” said Madam Pomfrey, blocking the entrance to the Hospital Wing so that they couldn’t even see Harry.

“My father wants to know that Harry’s safe,” Malfoy said self-importantly.

“Professor Dumbledore has already informed the governors that Mr Potter’s made a full recovery,” said Madam Pomfrey.

“Great,” said Ron. “Then he’s well enough to have visitors, isn’t he?”

“Oh, very well,” Madam Pomfrey relented. “But five minutes only.”

And she let the two of them past. A couple of the other beds were occupied, butt was easy to work out which was Harry’s; the table beside it was piled high with more sweets than Ron thought he’d ever seen in one place.

“How are you?” Ron asked hurriedly, before Malfoy could make it all about him.

“Bored,” said Harry. “I keep telling Madam Pomfrey I’m fine, but she wants me to stay here until tomorrow.”

“Don’t complain, mate,” said Ron. “You’ll get out of another day of exams if you stay here tonight, won’t you?”

Harry grinned. “I suppose so. But I’ve had nothing to do for the last couple of hours except revise.”

“What about all these?” asked Ron, nodding to the mountain of sweets. “I’d do nothing but eat if I’d been asleep for three days.”

“He wasn’t sleeping,” drawled Malfoy. “And I’m not surprised you’d do nothing but eat. You probably need to fatten up before you go back to one meal a week over the holidays.”

“Who’re you calling fat?” demanded Ron, trying to think of a decent comeback.

“Please don’t fight,” said Harry. “Madam Pomfrey will kick you both out again and probably ban me from having any more visitors.”

“Sorry,” said Ron.

Malfoy, of course, didn’t bother apologising.

“What happened?” he asked instead. “Was it really Quirrell in there?”

Harry nodded.

“And is he really dead?” asked Malfoy, in an awed whisper.

“That’s what Dumbledore said,” replied Harry. “I didn’t see it, though. I passed out just before Snape arrived.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Snape all along?” asked Ron, voicing a theory he and Hermione had discussed at length over the past three days. He ignored Malfoy’s snort of laughter, and explained, “I mean, maybe he cursed Quirrell to go and get the Stone for him, when he couldn’t persuade Quirrell to give up his enchantment. And then when Quirrell couldn’t get the Stone after all, he killed him so he could pretend to be the hero.”

“Yes, because that makes so much more sense than him actually being a hero,” Malfoy said sarcastically.

“It wasn’t Snape,” said Harry. “You remember when Granger got cursed by that painting? That was Quirrell - he thought she was onto him. Anyway, I got the Stone, before I passed out. Snape could’ve just taken it from my pocket.”

Ron’s jaw dropped. “You actually touched the Philosopher’s Stone?”

He listened eagerly as Harry related the whole story, starting with him and Malfoy sneaking to the Third Floor corridor and finding that someone had already gone down the trapdoor ahead of them. He’d already heard lots of the story, of course; Malfoy had told anyone who had listen. He’d assumed that by the time it reached the Gryffindors, it had been embellished beyond all recognition, but the story Harry told him was astonishingly close to the version he’d heard already.

Malfoy interjected at every opportunity, pointing out that he had been the one to free Harry from the Devil’s Snare, he had herded the key they needed right into Harry’s grasp, and he had directed their chessmen to victory.

“Then how come Harry’s the one who got the Stone, not you?” Ron shot back at him after this last comment.

“I told him to go back for a teacher,” said Harry. “But I wouldn’t have made it to the last chamber without Draco. The Devil’s Snare probably would’ve crushed me right away, and if by some miracle I’d escaped it, I’d never have won that chess game.”

“I would’ve done, if you’d asked me to go with you,” said Ron. “I would,” he insisted, as Malfoy snorted again.

“Prove it,” challenged Malfoy, his grey eyes bright with amusement. “Play me on Saturday.”

“Fine,” Ron agreed readily. He couldn’t wait to wipe that smug look off the git’s face. “So what was after the chess room?”

“A troll,” said Harry. “Already knocked out, thankfully.”

Ron looked pointedly at Malfoy, whose cheeks turned pink. Obviously, the claim that he and Harry had fought the troll was entirely fabricated.

Apparently, Harry sensed another spat brewing, because he said quickly, “After the way you and Longbottom took out that one at Samhain, I bet you’d have been able to handle it. And then the next room was full of potions, and we had to figure out which one would take us through to the final chamber. There wasn’t enough for us to both go forwards, so I told Draco to go back for help, and I went on.”

“We thought the thief was working for the Dark Lord,” Malfoy said defensively. “I would have insisted on drinking the other potion myself, but if it was the Dark Lord in the next room, Harry was the only one who could hope to face him.”

Ron suspected that if Malfoy had ever actually thought the thief was working for You-Know-Who, he’d have wet himself the moment Harry asked him to go down the trapdoor. He knew it would only irritate Harry if he said so, however, so instead he asked, “Why did you think that?”

“Because Quirrell attacked Harry in the Forbidden Forest,” said Malfoy. “Professor Dumbledore said he had an accident during his Sabbatical, before he started teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. He must have survived by drinking unicorn blood.”

Ron suddenly felt very ill. He listened with horror as Malfoy continued, “That’s why he wanted the Philosopher’s Stone. The unicorn blood was rotting him from the inside out, and eventually he wouldn’t have been able to hide it any more. That’s why he always smelled so weird - his body was literally decaying piece by piece. The back of his head had completely disintegrated.”

“That’s horrible,” said Ron.

“Agreed,” said Malfoy, looking amused by the idea of agreeing with Ron yet again. “Anyway, the centaurs assumed that there was only person willing to do something so terrible, and they told Harry it was the Dark Lord who was killing unicorns in the Forbidden Forest. They thought they’d read it in the stars or some nonsense - you know what centaurs are like.”

“But You-Know-Who’s dead,” said Ron.

“So the Ministry say,” Malfoy said darkly.

Ron didn’t like the idea that You-Know-Who could still be out there somewhere any more than he liked the idea that one of his teachers had killed unicorns and drank their blood. He shivered.

“Well, it was just Quirrell in the final room,” said Harry. “No Voldemort.”

Ron flinched, but he was pleased to see that Malfoy did too.

“What happened?” asked Malfoy. “You must have been there with Quirrell for several minutes before Snape arrived.”

“The Stone was in the Mirror or Erised,” said Harry. “Dumbledore had—”

“The what?” asked Ron.

“It’s a mirror that drives you mad,” said Malfoy. “We found it over the Christmas holidays.”

“It shows you what you want most in the world,” said Harry. “Normally, anyway. Dumbledore had put the Stone inside it somehow, so Quirrell could see it, but he couldn’t actually get it. And then when he thought to make me try, it just appeared in my pocket. Quirrell knew I was lying about what I saw, and he tried to take the Stone from me, and - and I guess that must be when Snape arrived, but I don’t remember seeing it. I think I’d passed out.”

“What—” Ron began, but he stopped himself. For all his insistence that he was fine, Harry had looked quite uncomfortable ever since Malfoy mentioned You-Know-Who. He wasn’t sure it was fair to keep asking for more details.

“Yeah?” Harry prompted him.

“What happened that took you three days to recover?” he asked quietly.

For a long moment, Ron thought Harry wasn’t going to answer. He looked deep in thought, as though considering whether to answer the question or not. Then he unbuttoned the top of his pyjamas, and pulled the fabric aside to reveal a thin, pink line across his chest.

“Madam Pomfrey thinks the scar will fade with time,” said Harry.

“Bloody hell,” said Ron.

“Was it the Killing Curse?” asked Malfoy, in another awed whisper.

Harry shook his head. “No, just powerful Dark Magic.” He grinned, and added, “Just as well, or everyone would start calling me the Boy Who Lived Twice.”

At that moment, Madam Pomfrey bustled over.

“You’ve had nearly fifteen minutes, now OUT,” she said firmly.

Harry was allowed out of the Hospital Wing the next evening. The Great Hall erupted into applause when he walked in, surrounded by Slytherins with their noses in the air as though they’d had anything to do with protecting the Stone. Still, Ron clapped as hard as anyone else, pleased to see his friend up and about again. Professor Dumbledore stood up; the applause faded.

“Please, continue eating,” he said. Ron seized his fork and took another mouthful of his lasagne. “I only wished to acknowledge some particularly notable achievements, now that Mr Potter is back with us.”

Everyone turned to look at the Slytherin table, where Harry had turned quite red.

“To Mr Draco Malfoy, for true loyalty and remarkable logic, I award Slytherin House twenty-five points.”

Ron watched sullenly as Malfoy preened, smirking around at his Slytherin neighbours as though he’d never doubted Dumbledore would recognise his talents. Ron wasn’t the only one at his table not clapping; Slytherin’s win in the Junior Quidditch Cup had put them only forty House Points behind Gryffindor. They were now close enough behind that if they won the Senior Quidditch Cup tomorrow, they would win the House Cup as well.

“And to Mr Harry Potter, for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Slytherin House thirty points.”

Ron clapped reluctantly, as the Slytherin tables let out whoops of delight.

“I can’t believe two first-years stopped a teacher from getting the Stone,” said Parvati in an awed voice, as Dumbledore sat back down. “I know Potter defeated You-Know-Who and everything, but you’d think someone would’ve realised what Quirrell was up to.”

“He was a very good actor,” Neville pointed out. “If Dumbledore couldn’t figure it out, how were any of us supposed to?”

“I wish they’d got fewer points,” said Hermione.

Ron and Neville stared at her. She had been very quiet ever since Ron had told her that Quirrell had thought she was onto him, and used the cursed painting to get her out of the way. When Ron had been to see Harry at lunchtime, Hermione had gone with him and broken in down in tears apologising to Harry for not figuring out that it was Quirrell who was after the Stone. Harry, who looked quite bewildered by this reaction, had said something very similar to what Neville had just said, but it didn’t seem to have made Hermione feel any better. In fact, she looked almost as upset now as she had done at Harry’s bedside.

“Why, because they were out after curfew?” asked Lavender, sounding affronted.

“No,” said Hermione. “Because now I’ve got to root for Gryffindor in the final tomorrow. I’d been hoping they’d lose, so I could revise without being disturbed by celebrations, but I want us to get the House Cup.”

There was stunned silence around their section of the table. Everyone stared at her. The corner of Hermione’s mouth twitched.

“Your faces!” she giggled. “Of course I want us to win! I can revise in the library if I have to.”

Everyone laughed, but Ron laughed hardest of all, pleased to see that Hermione had cheered up.

A moment later, his laughter died. Percy had appeared, and his expression was thunderous.

“Ron, what’s this about you and Malfoy holding a duel tomorrow morning?”

Ron gaped at his brother. “What? We’re not holding a duel. We’re playing chess.”

Relief spread across Percy’s face. “Oh, thank goodness. I really didn’t want to have to report my own brother to Professor McGonagall. You do realise people are placing bets on it, though? Malfoy’s the favourite.”

“Of course he is,” muttered Ron. “I’ll show him.”

At ten o’clock the next morning, he met Draco Malfoy in the North Courtyard, joined by what felt like half the Lower School. Despite still having half their exams to go, it seemed most people wanted a distraction from revision. All the first-year Gryffindors and Slytherins had turned out to watch, along with several Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. There were so many Slytherins from the other years that Ron assumed Malfoy had bribed them to come in the hope of intimidating him. He was glad Fred and George had roped Lee Jordan and a few of their other friends into coming along to support him.

It turned out a lot of the spectators had heard the same rumour as Percy, but there were still plenty of them left by the time Harry tossed a coin to determine who would play as white. Malfoy won the toss, and Ron tried to block out everyone else as he focused on the most important game of his life.

An hour and a half later, the crowd had diminished significantly. Half the pieces had been removed from the board. Ron had placed Malfoy in check twice, and had to defend his own King twice as well, but neither of them had sustained an advantage.

“You’re not seriously going to keep playing, are you?” asked Harry. “All the good seats will be gone by the time one of you wins.”

“Weasley’s welcome to surrender,” said Malfoy.

“You’re the one who’s losing,” snapped Ron, claiming one of Malfoy’s fools.

A moment later, he cursed himself, as he realised his mistake. Malfoy clearly realised, too. The blond boy smirked at him as he picked up his tower.

“Am I?”

Ron glared at him, then studied the board, trying to figure out how to avoid the mate Malfoy was clearly working towards.

Twenty minutes later, there were only six of them left in the courtyard. Hermione still had her head buried in a book, but Ron could tell Neville wanted to get down to watch the Quidditch match. So did Malfoy’s cronies.

“Just give up, Weasley,” growled Crabbe, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

“This is boring,” muttered Goyle.

Ron wondered how badly Malfoy would taunt him if proposed a draw. He looked up from the board to study his opponent, and found the boy scrutinising him. He glared at the Slytherin, and looked back to the board. No, he couldn’t ask now, not when Malfoy had the advantage.

“Shall we agree to a draw?”

Ron stared at Malfoy.

“What’s the point in carrying on when nobody’s still around to appreciate my victory?” drawled Malfoy.

“Didn’t you just offer a draw?” asked Hermione, snapping her textbook closed.

“Yes,” said Malfoy. “Are you finally paying attention?”

“It’s not very sporting to continue claiming the lead after offering a draw,” Hermione said bossily. “Cuffe’s Chess Companion says so.”

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Granger,” Harry retorted rudely. “Come on, Ron, I want to watch the match!”

“Fine,” said Ron. “It’s a draw. Enjoy watching Gryffindor crush Slytherin.”

15 June

Harry Potter

Harry found the second week of exams surprisingly easy, after facing Quirrell and Voldemort. His teachers assured him they would be taking his work across the year into account when determining his marks, since most of his subjects had both a written paper and a practical element, one or the other of which he’d missed whilst in the Hospital Wing. To Harry’s disappointment, Professor Snape said this with a characteristic sneer that suggested every potion Longbottom had ruined would count against him. Apparently, saving Harry’s life hadn’t made Snape hate him any less.

It helped that Harry hardly had time to think about the exams except when he was sitting them. Everywhere he went in the school, people wanted to ask him about what had happened with the Philosopher’s Stone.

“Did you really fight Professor Quirrell?” Terry Boot asked eagerly on the way into the greenhouse where their practical Herbology exam was to take place.

“Did you kill him?” chorused Vince and Greg together.

“What happened, Harry?” That was a Ravenclaw girl whose name Harry didn’t even know.

“Leave the poor boy alone!” said Professor Sprout, bustling into the greenhouse. She shot him a warm smile. “Nice job with the Devil’s Snare, Potter, Malfoy. Ten points to Slytherin!”

After the exams, they had one week of term left before the summer holidays. Their Monday morning lessons were cancelled, to allow those who wanted to celebrate the summer solstice. Harry was surprised, but not disappointed, when Draco told him he wasn’t going to bother getting up for the event. The solstice was to take place around dawn, and although Harry was curious to see how this one differed from its opposite, he would much rather enjoy a couple of extra hours in bed.

“My father says the summer solstice isn’t worth bothering with until we’re older,” Draco explained. “I’ve never really felt much during it before.”

Their last week of lessons were very laid back. Professor Sinistra had brought in foods from around the world for Geography, and Professor Goshawk let them spend Material Studies lying on the sunny lawns to ‘familiarise themselves with the sun’. Harry spent an afternoon down at Hagrid’s, where the gamekeeper repeatedly apologised for telling Quirrell how to get past Fluffy, and sent Harry back up to the castle with his pockets overflowing with rock cakes. Harry left these on a table near the common room entrance, where he and his friends burst out laughing any time someone picked one up and tried to eat it. Hagrid had also given Harry an album filled with photographs of his parents, after which Harry had borrowed a corner of Hagrid’s spotted handkerchief to dry his eyes.

Finally, their exam results came out, and Harry was surprised to discover that nobody had failed the year. Even Longbottom had scraped a pass, his good Herbology mark making up for his abysmal Potions one. Their individual marks for each exam had been pinned to the Lower School noticeboard on Thursday night. By lunchtime the next day, someone had compiled everyone’s marks and ranked the entire year. Harry’s Potions mark had dragged his overall position in the year down to nineteenth, but since he was still in the top half, he didn’t mind, especially when he saw that he was three places ahead of Ron. Granger had come in top, of course, followed by Terry Boot and then Draco, whilst Teddy Nott languished at exactly halfway.

That evening, Professor Dumbledore presented various awards before the end-of-year feast. Harry clapped absentmindedly as the Head Girl and Head Boy for the following year were announced, then the Junior and Senior Chess Champions and then the Senior Duelling Champion. A great roar from the Slytherin tables and an elbow in the ribs made him realise Dumbledore was handing a beaming Marcus Flint the Junior Quidditch Cup. Harry hurried to follow the rest of the team in getting to his feet, his cheeks turning red. The applause at his table was much less enthusiastic when Dumbledore presented the Senior Quidditch Cup to an elated Oliver Wood.

The Great Hall had been decked out in Gryffindor’s red and gold and a huge banner showing the Gryffindor lion covered the wall behind the High Table, so it was no surprise when Dumbledore announced their victory. Professor McGonagall looked giddy as she raised the House Cup over her head, before passing it to the Senior Gryffindor Prefects.

“I can’t believe we lost by five points,” muttered Draco. “That’s one correct answer in class.”

“Or one of Longbottom’s mistakes,” said Harry, glaring up at Professor Snape, who was clapping lazily, wearing an expression of complete indifference.

Finally, the presentations were over. Dumbledore clapped his hands, and mountains of food appeared on the tables. Harry loaded his plate eagerly, knowing it would be a long time before he ate this well again.

The next morning, Harry sorted through his belongings. Some things, like his scales and phials, they were permitted to leave at school. Harry left everything he could, hoping the Dursleys would appreciate him looking more ‘normal’ when they came to collect him from Kings Cross. Everything else went into his trunk. It was quite a squeeze. In the end, Blaise had to join Draco in sitting on the trunk to close it enough for Harry to fasten it. They left their trunks in their rooms to be taken down to the train, then headed to their final breakfast as first-year students. Professor McGonagall had reminded everyone in Wicchen Studies of the Statute of Secrecy, but the Prefects still walked down the House tables handing everyone notes telling them that they weren’t allowed to magic at home.

Harry still had some of the sweets left from his hospital stay, which Vince and Greg helped themselves to during the long train journey. Harry listened to them making plans to see Draco over the summer, whilst he watched the countryside turn less and less wild. He tried not to feel jealous that his friends would all be able to see each other, whilst he was stuck at the Dursleys, unable to communicate except through Hedwig.

“Harry, I’ll ask my father if you can come visit,” Draco promised.

“Thanks,” said Harry, hoping his aunt and uncle’s dislike for having him around would outweigh their fear of him staying with another wizard. He wondered what a wizard house looked like. He imagined something like Professor Snape’s office, only much larger, filled with all sorts of strange items.

Finally, Harry pulled off his upper robe top and white shirt and replaced them with a t-shirt and jacket. None of the other boys changed; their parents were going to take them from the Platform by magical means, so they didn’t need to blend in with the Muggles at the various train stations beyond the barrier. They all stared out of the window and watched the train pull in to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

Vince and Greg helped Harry load his trunk onto a trolley, then walked off to meet their parents.

“Stay in touch,” said Draco, giving Harry’s shoulders a squeeze. “Hedwig knows where to find me.”

“You too,” said Harry.

A tall man with long, blonde hair stood nearby, waiting for them to finish talking. Harry, recognising Mr Malfoy from Draco’s mirror, gave the man a tentative smile.

“Mr Potter!” Mr Malfoy bowed, then held out his hand to shake, resting his other hand on Draco’s shoulder. “It’s an honour to finally meet you in person. Draco has told me so much about you. I do hope you won’t get him into too much trouble next year.”

Harry blushed. “I’ll try not to, sir.”

“Very good,” said Mr Malfoy. “I can’t claim that I never got into trouble at school, myself, of course, but you don’t want to draw too much attention to yourselves.” He looked around. “But is nobody meeting you here?”

“No, sir,” said Harry. “I’m meeting them on the other side of the barrier.”

Mr Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “Well, I had best let you get off the platform, I’m sure you have lots to do. Come along, Draco.”

Harry watched Mr Malfoy and Draco step back a couple of paces. Each of them carried one of Draco’s cases, and Draco grasped his father’s free hand tightly. Then - CRACK! - they disappeared. Harry grinned at the place where they had been. Professor McGonagall had explained Apparation in Wicchen Studies, but this was the first time Harry had actually seen it. He couldn’t wait to learn to do it himself; it looked much more enjoyable than the hot, smelly journey he was about to undertake with Aunt Petunia.

Harry looked up at the iron archway labelled Kings Cross and waited for the conductor beside it to nod to him that it was clear for him to go through. He took a deep breath, and stepped back into the Muggle world where his aunt was waiting for him.

THE END