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Books » Harry Potter Rated: M, English, Adventure & Romance, [Harry P., Fleur D.] Bellatrix L., Hedwig, Words: 198k+, Favs: 8k+, Follows: 10k+, Published: May 26, 2021 Updated: Aug 53,934Chapter 2 - Third-floor Corridor

AN: I want to express my appreciation for the support you've shown me in the reviews after the first chapter. Thank you!

Here is the new chapter, enjoy!

Chapter 2 - Third-floor Corridor

The Stunning Charm was a very useful spell that allowed someone to end a fight in an instant, without any repercussions. It had also become one of Harry Potter's most used methods of 'falling asleep' in the past, during the war. It offered him an instant sleep, devoid of any dreams or nightmares. Unlike the effects of a Dreamless Sleep Potion, however, leaving himself stunned for hours had a rather unpleasant side effect: when the effect of the charm ended and he woke up, he would be nauseous and his head would throb from a headache. He was used to that feeling though. Furthermore, it was very much preferable to hearing the screams and the ruckus caused by the hyper children on the train.

Taking a look at his wristwatch, he saw that it was 6 o'clock in the afternoon.

"I've slept for seven hours. We'll arrive soon; I should get changed."

⁂

"First years! First years over here!"

The half-giant's voice and stature were unmistakable. He smiled at the sight of his old friend. But that smile slowly disappeared when he remembered that this was a world different from his own. While some people could be the same, others could be very different. For example, Sirius Black.

After waking up in this world, finding out Sirius's whereabouts had been one of the first things that had come to his mind. Given that he had been in an orphanage, it had been obvious that his parents were dead but he had still hoped that he could help his godfather.

After a visit to the Records Room of the Ministry of Magic (it had been quite the hassle for a wee 11-year-old boy to arrange for a meeting with one of the Genealogists working there), Harry found out that Sirius Black did not need his help at all. Sirius was very much alive and active, not locked in Azkaban. Sirius had never been friends with James Potter. He was not his godfather. In this world, he was a proper member of the Black family, one that had been sorted in the Slytherin House and all that. Harry had a hard time imagining Sirius as a person that loved the green and silver colours when his room at Grimmauld Place had looked like an explosion of gold and red. It was completely different from the image in his head.

'Maybe it's for the best?'

With the mind of a 40 years old man, he could not help thinking that maybe it was better that Sirius had never been involved with him. It looked like that in the present Sirius Black was a very wealthy and well-respected member of society as opposed to spending 12 years in Azkaban, tortured by Dementors. He did not have a dirty past like the likes of Lucius Malfoy either.

Following Hagrid along with the rest of the first years on the narrow path that led to the Black Lake, gasps of amazement erupted from the children. The sight of Hogwarts at night was as majestic as he remembered it.

"No more than four in a boat!" Hagrid called and the first-year students were quick to group up with the friends they had made during the train trip.

Seeing as almost 30 years passed since Harry had started his first year at Hogwarts in his previous life, his memory was rather blurry. He could not recognize the girl and the other two boys that hopped in the same boat as him. Instead of making small talk with them, he just admired the night view of the castle silently.

⁂

The countless candles floating in the air, the ceiling charmed to look like the sky outside, and the 4 tables filled with hundreds of students belonging to the 4 Houses of Hogwarts... nostalgia washed over him when he entered the Great Hall.

While most of the first years were fidgeting nervously under the older students' gazes, there was a small smile on his face as he listened to the Sorting Hat's song. His memory of his former classmates was refreshed as Professor McGonagall started doing the roll call and the young children stepped forth and sat on the stool to be sorted.

"Abbot Hannah!"

[...]

Soon, Professor McGonagall called:

"Longbottom, Neville!"

The sudden chorus of murmurs and gasps that came from the people in the Great Hall was remarkably similar to how everyone had reacted to his name in his past life too. The pudgy-looking boy walked confidently towards the stool and sat down. Barely a second after the hat was placed on his head, it shouted:

"Gryffindor!"

The House of the lions burst into loud cheers and clapped vigorously.

The rest of the sorting was more or less the same as in his past (as far as he could remember it). At the very least, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were still sorted into the Gryffindor House, Draco Malfoy and his two friends, Crabbe and Goyle into Slytherin, and so on.

If there was something different, it was his own Sorting.

'I'm not the Chosen One in this world.'

Harry Potter was nobody special here. He was no different than other children whose parents had fallen at the hands of the Death Eaters in the war a decade ago. With that said, without a murderous Dark Lord obsessed with killing him, Harry was free to live his life as he pleased. He had absolutely no intention of pretending that he was stupid or to purposely not make use of the knowledge and skills that he had obtained in the past. As he had discovered in his past life, he did not hate being famous if it was due to his own hard work and efforts. He would not mind if people took notice of him for his excellent academic results or Quidditch talent.

When the Sorting Hat was placed on his head, a short mental conversation with the ancient artefact was enough to convince it of where he wanted to be: Ravenclaw. It would not be strange if the most brilliant student of the decade came from Ravenclaw, would it?

⁂

'Merlin, how I missed this!'

He almost moaned as he took a big bite of a baked chicken leg. It was tender and succulent and the lemon juice squeezed on top of it made his mouth water.

'It's worth living again just for this!'

He had not eaten such good food in more than 10 years. Ever since the Weasley clan had been exterminated, he had seldom spent any time going to restaurants or cooking sumptuous feats for himself. He had been too obsessed with vengeance, too deeply immersed in war and the study of martial magic to enjoy life anymore.

He closed his eyes.

'This has to be Nirvana.'

It was as if his very soul was being healed. He was shaken off from his blissful thoughts when he heard the people at his table becoming louder than it was usual for a dinner in the Great Hall:

"Look, there's an owl!"

"What's she doing here?"

"Did someone get mail on the first day of school?"

"Oh! She's so beautiful!"

Influenced by the voices, Harry also looked up. A snowy owl was flying towards him.

"What are you doing here, girl?" he cooed at her, his face involuntarily stretched by a fond smile.

She landed on his shoulder gently, as to not scratch him with her talons. Then, she nipped at his ear affectionately and hooted at him.

"You cheeky little bugger, you came here just for food, didn't you?"

The owl barked at him and bonked him on the head with her beak, throwing him a look as if to say - how dare he disrespect her kind intentions like that?

There were not many things that could still warm up the cold heart of a 40-year-old war veteran but the sight of the clever owl playing coy made him giggle in delight, just like an innocent 11-year-old boy would.

He stabbed his fork into a grilled pork sausage, choosing the biggest one he could see, one that was too big for the owl to comfortably hold in her beak.

Harry grinned at Hedwig teasingly.

Hedwig looked at him mockingly.

Then, with a flutter of wings, both the fork and the sausage were snatched away by the owl with her talons and she flew up, leaving the Great Hall. He had still not gotten over his surprise when his fork landed painfully on top of his head, eliciting laughter from the other Ravenclaws at the table.

"Such a smart and beautiful owl! What is 'er name?" came a voice from a few seats away.

Turning his head towards the speaker, his eyes momentarily widened in surprise. It was a 14-year-old girl with blue eyes and long silvery hair. Though she was still young, she showed signs of becoming a beautiful woman when she grew up. It was someone he had never expected to see at Hogwarts in his first year.

'Fleur? The heck is she doing at Hogwarts now? She wasn't supposed to be here until my 4th year. Is this another anomaly of this world?'

Despite the rush of thoughts and theories in his mind, apart from the initial flash of surprise, he just smiled in genuine pride for his owl.

"Her name is Hedwig. She is brilliant!" he said but then he asked: "How did you know Hedwig was a she?"

The girl replied as if it was a matter of fact: "No way an owl that beautiful was male!"

He snorted at her reasoning but did not continue conversing with her. She was a 14-year-old girl and he was a middle-aged bloke stuck in the body of a prepubescent boy. They had nothing in common.

⁂

Nearly two months had passed since the start of the semester and Halloween was around the corner. Having just finished writing his Transfiguration essay, Harry grabbed his backpack and left the library.

'This is so boring!'

He wanted to pull his hair out of frustration. Transfiguring matches into needles, casting the Levitation Charm, listing minor hexes and their wand movements in the DADA class, and learning how to cut ingredients and stir a cauldron... it was similar to a senior high school student returning to primary school to learn the multiplication table. It went without saying that he was breezing through anything the professors threw at him. He was the first to master any spell in class and while he did not raise his hand to answer random questions, whenever a professor asked him something, he always gave the correct answer.

In the eyes of the professors, he was a rarely seen genius, good at everything. Even the Potions professor could not find any faults in him. Severus Snape had tried several times to catch him unprepared with tricky questions in the first three weeks of school but as Harry had answered each one of them perfectly and did not go out of his way to provoke his ire, Snape stopped antagonizing him and just treated him as he treated other students that were not in his House.

Harry did not know the reason why the potion master had suddenly given up on making his life difficult but he would not look at a gift horse in the mouth. In the first place, he did not even know if this world's Snape had the same past and hatred for his father as the one from his previous life.

'I can't make any assumptions.'

Many things were different in this world. He was not the Boy-Who-Lived, Sirius was not his godfather, nor was he in Azkaban, for some reason Fleur Delacour was studying at Hogwarts from the first st year instead of Beauxbatons, and Neville Longbottom was completely different from the timid and accident-prone boy that he used to know - it looked like having supportive parents present in his life had made a completely different person out of him.

He was halfway to the Ravenclaw Tower when the yelling of a group of boys reached his ears.

'Them brats are so full of energy! Fighting and bickering every day.' he thought and chuckled.

If there was one thing he found entertaining in school, it was watching Neville Longbottom and his group fighting against Draco Malfoy and his group. Casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself, he went to spy on their altercation. He was filled with anticipation to see which side would win before the portraits on the walls alerted a prefect or a professor to come and stop them.

"You're going to pay for it, Malfoy! I'm going to teach you a lesson for insulting my friends!" young Neville shouted and drew out his wand angrily.

The boy in question scoffed unimpressed. "Tell me, Longbottom, how has your family not gone extinct yet? What, with how you're picking up all the trash you meet... First a blood traitor and now you've even hooked up with a mudblood!"

Next to Neville, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley became livid.

"Flippendo!" the redhead boy shouted and the blonde Slytherin boy was blasted backwards and made several flips in the air before finally landing painfully on the floor.

Crabbe and Goyle, Draco Malfoy's friends, also aimed their wands at them to hex them.

"Everte Statum!" Crabbe shouted.

Ron was knocked back more than 15 feet and slid on the floor for 10 feet more before his body finally came to a stop.

Goyle was about to cast his own spell too but Neville acted much faster than him:

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Goyle ended up falling on the floor as stiff as a sack of potatoes.

Seeing his partner defeated like that, Crabbe lost his sense of reason and, forgetting that he was a wizard, he rushed like a bulldozer at Neville instead of casting another spell, more intent on beating him up with his punches. But the brown-haired girl's Trip Jinx made the burly first-year boy fall flat on his face.

Harry chuckled under his breath.

'That's 2 to 1 for the Gryffindors.'

The two enemy groups had drawn their wands against each other three times already from the start of the year and they had verbal spats on a daily basis. For him, hearing children screaming dumb insults at each other was top-notch entertainment.

'Was I this silly and dumb-looking in the past too? Now I see why Dumbledore has never taken Draco's threats to his life seriously.'

*meow*

A creepy meow was heard and the still-standing Gryffindor first years stiffened.

"Shite, it's Mrs Norris. Neville, Hermione, run!" Ron said and broke into a sprint.

Neville was quick to catch up to him and the two boys ran as fast as they could.

"Hurry up, Hermione!" Neville yelled over his shoulder.

The girl in question bit her lower lip, an uncertain expression on her face. She did not hesitate for much longer though and came to Goyle who was paralyzed on the ground by Neville's Full-Body Bind Curse.

"Finite Incantatem!" she chanted and the curse on the Slytherin boy was lifted. "Hurry up and run. Filch will be here any moment now!" she said and without waiting for the boy to reply, she also ran after her friends.

⁂

Harry looked in amazement at young Hermione's gesture of kindness. He had not expected her to take the initiative to help the Slytherins out. Nonetheless, he could not afford to waste more time either as his Disillusionment Charm was not perfect invisibility. He would risk being found out if someone looked at him with attention.

While he was climbing a large moving staircase from the 2nd floor directly to the 4th floor, a horrible cry startled him so badly that he lost his footing and stumbled. He almost took a bite out of the granite steps.

The scream had come from the forbidden third-floor corridor! Although nearly 30 years had passed, Harry would never forget for as long as he lived the scare he had gotten when he had seen Fluffy, a huge three-headed dog for the first time.

'Should I go and see what happened? Or just leave and pretend I didn't hear anything?'

He was torn. On one hand, his 'saving people thing' had never really gone away even after decades of war in his previous life. He would always help someone if he could. But on the other hand,

'I swore I won't get involved with Voldemort in this life too.'

He did not want to get mixed up in another war again. Three Wizarding Wars in his previous life had been more than enough.

'I carried my cross once. It's Neville's turn to carry his - he's the Chosen One now.'

In this new life, he wanted to be just Harry.

In spite of his conflicting thoughts, his body automatically went through the motions as if it had a mind of its own. He cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself once again and he left the staircase when he reached the third floor.

Only a few seconds after he stepped foot on the third floor, he heard a rapid series of footsteps and someone rushed past him so closely that they almost brushed against his shoulder. He turned around abruptly but he could not see anything.

'An invisibility cloak!'

Though he did not know who was the one that had run past him under their invisibility cloak, a fresh and elegant scent reached his nose. It was faint, but he became sure of it:

'It's a girl!'

The unexpected variable convinced him against trying to be a hero and he decided to scurry away instead of checking the situation with his own eyes.

'That scream! Holy shit, did she murder someone?!'

Harry made up his mind. He ran towards the Ravenclaw Tower without looking back.

⁂

The next day at breakfast, Harry was still thinking about what happened the previous day, about the scream that he heard from the third-floor corridor.

'If someone really died, Dumbledore won't be able to cover it up.'

It was when most of the seats at the tables were filled up that the Headmaster stood up and clinked a teaspoon against a glass.

The Great Hall quickly quieted down, all looking at Dumbledore and wondering what was the serious and grave face for.

"It is with my deepest regrets that I have to inform you that our Potions Professor has suddenly resigned from his post due to a very lucrative business opportunity that had come his way. As it stands, the Potions class will be cancelled until I find a replacement for him."

Harry studied the old Headmaster's face intently. A highly accomplished Legilimens such as himself did not necessarily need to invade someone's mind to understand what they were thinking.

'He's lying.'

He could tell just from looking at Dumbledore's facial expression that he was lying. When three quarters of the student body present in the Great Hall unreservedly burst into thunderous cheers, celebrating Severus Snape's sudden retirement, the old wizard looked like he had just taken a bite out of a lemon.

"Bloody hell!" a cuss word came out of his mouth when he noticed that Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick looked distraught as well.

'Someone really killed Snape! Bloody hell!' he repeated himself 'That girl was definitely involved in it somehow!'

He almost started laughing out loud. He had been complaining about his first two months of school being terribly boring. It looked like some higher power above had listened to him and given him a pet project to work on. Harry did not even try to pretend that he was not interested. He was dying of curiosity to find out the truth, to see who was the one that killed Severus Snape.

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Chapter 3 - Halloween (I)

"Accio Marauders' map!"

"Accio James Potter's map!"

"Accio Prongs' map!"

Harry had cast the Summoning Charm several times around the Weasley twins over the past few days and now he was casting it near the entrance to the Gryffindor common room too but to no avail.

'Looks like the map doesn't exist in this world.'

He was not that surprised. Ever since he had learned that he was not the Chosen One and that Sirius Black had ended up in the Slytherin House and that he was not his godfather, Harry had resolved himself to never assume without checking to be sure that someone or something would be like in his previous life.

'My knowledge of the future means very little. In fact, it could be dangerous. Bad information is worse than no information at all.'

In spite of that thought, Harry smiled as he headed back towards the Ravenclaw Tower. In a way, knowing a future that may or may not come to be could be more challenging than not knowing anything at all.

'Interesting.'

About one month and three weeks passed since he started the new year and things have been very dull for him. Nothing in class required any effort from him, he was too young to be playing Quidditch, and the rest of the students were simply too young for him to become friends with them. He was extremely bored. However, it looked like things were picking up as of late. The unexpected murder of Severus Snape had certainly spiced things up a bit - further confirming for Harry just how different this world was compared to his.

'There's a killer on the loose too.'

He was walking with a spring in his step as he thought of that. It was the most exciting thing that happened ever since he had been reincarnated.

'How am I going to find her though? All I know is that she's a girl and that she wore a perfume that smelled like spring, fresh. But there are over 500 students in the school currently and about half of those are girls. I can't go around sniffing little girls like a deranged pervert now, can I?'

In the first place, that is what had spurned him into trying to get the Marauders' Map: to regularly check it and see what students were acting strange by going to places they were not supposed to or wandering the corridors after the curfew. But that plan went out the window.

⁂

Thinking about the Potions Professor's killer, Harry arrived at the Ravenclaw Tower without noticing the passing of time. When he arrived there he saw three first year boys standing in front of the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. They were cussing something fierce. Not the words one would expect to hear from an 11-year-old child's mouth.

"This bloody eagle beak, fucking hell! Let me go, Michael, I'll bash this nasty door to bits, believe you me!" one of the boys, a blonde-haired one, shouted incensed.

"Merlin, calm down, it's just a door!" the black-haired boy that was holding him back tried to reason with him.

"Shut your mouths for fuck's sake! I'm trying to think!" the third boy yelled at the other two irritated as well.

"Some thinking is that! We've been here for 40 minutes! How the hell has nobody come in or out of the Common Room for so long?!" the blond-haired boy shouted again.

The first year Ravenclaw trio were Anthony Goldstein (the blonde one), Michael Corner (the black-haired one), and Terry Boot (the one that was trying to think). Ravenclaw first-year students angrily threatening to blow up the door after being forced to wait by the entrance for 30-40 minutes - that was not an unusual sight at all. Unlike the other three houses of the school, the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room did not require a password. Instead, one had to guess the answer to a riddle. For young and untrained minds some riddles could be very difficult to solve.

"What's with Anthony, who twisted his nuts?" Harry said and chuckled.

But the three boys looked like they were about to cry from happiness at the sight of him.

"Harry!" they yelled and rushed at him to give him a group a hug.

"Our saviour!"

"Merlin the third!"

"Who's Merlin the second?" Harry asked while struggling to keep the three boys away.

"Dumbledore, of course. And you're the third. Have I told you how much I love you?"

"Ew, why are you being disgusting? Goddamnit, stop hugging me!" he yelled while pushing Terry's head with both of his hands.

They all ended up laughing.

"You're all stuck by the riddle again?" he said in derision, making them look at him resentfully.

"The riddle this time is really hard!" Michael said in a whiny voice.

"Who the hell thought this was a good idea? We wasted almost an hour!" Anthony also complained, exaggerating a bit the amount of time they have been standing in front of the entrance for.

"Rowena Ravenclaw did. And it's your fault for choosing the House of the Wise." Harry said.

Before the other three started complaining again, he went to the door and knocked the eagle-shaped bronze knocker. The beak of the eagle opened and a melodious voice sounded:

Only one colour, but not one size,

Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies.

Present in sun, but not in rain,

Doing no harm, and feeling no pain.

What is it?

"You weren't lying. This is a bit hard." Harry muttered when he heard the riddle.

He thought for a while about several possible answers. It was the first and the third verses of the riddle that helped him guess the answer.

"A shadow." he said and the voice coming from the bronze eagle replied: "Correct."

After entering the common room, Anthony slammed the door with a vengeance and let out another string of cuss words.

"Pipe down you little runts." an older student chastised them.

It was almost the curfew and the Ravenclaw common room was filled with students. It was a large circular room with wide and arched windows and a tall and domed ceiling painted like a deep blue night sky with countless golden stars. The carpet on the floor, the sofas, the chairs, and even the tables were of various shades of blue too. The bookcases littering the walls of the circular room made it look like a mini-library.

Despite that it was not any less crowded than the Gryffindor's common room, the Ravenclaw common room was mostly silent. There were no people playing Exploding Snap, no Weasley twins pranking first and second years, and no Percy Weasley to scream at other students for breaking the rules. Everyone was either reading a book, playing chess, doing their homework or other activities that did not disturb the others around them. It was not that the Ravenclaw House did not have wilder and more rambunctious people too but those people kept their antics to their own dormitory or to outside the Ravenclaw Tower.

He passed by Rowena Ravenclaw's statue and climbed up the stairs to his dormitory. The first year boys' dorm was rather spacious, indicating that it had been built originally with more occupants in mind. Hogwarts' student body was at an all-time low, culminating with Harry's year when there were less than 50 new students. It was all due to the war from a decade ago. But Harry did not think about that. When he fell asleep, his mind was still full of thoughts about how to uncover the identity of the killer.

⁂

It was Halloween. A feeling of nostalgia came over him when he exited the Ravenclaw common room and a delicious smell of baking pumpkin filled the corridors. For better or worse, his first Halloween at Hogwarts had been the most memorable. It had marked the start of a long string of adventures and life-threatening situations, it was the day when Harry made his most loyal friend in the previous life, Hermione Granger.

'She's not the Hermione I know.' he reminded himself. And even if she was the same Hermione, what friendship could someone of his age entertain with a girl 30 years younger than him?

'It's unlikely she'll be in danger this year though. Neville is a good friend for her...probably better than I was.' he admitted it to himself. 'She won't have any reason to go and cry alone in a toilet.'

Nevertheless, even if she was a different person, Harry did not want to see her get hurt or worse, die. He kept an eye on Hermione and paid close attention to her interactions with her friends during the Charms class that day. Ron and her still did not get along, like in his memories, but this time she partnered up Neville Longbottom who, unlike in Harry's past life, was a rather decent student, above the average. Together with Hermione, they got their feather to float around in the classroom in no time.

In contrast, Ron Weasley had partnered up with another boy from his house, Seamus Finnigan. When he saw the two boys teaming up, Harry let out a not-so-quiet guffaw.

'That's a recipe for destruction.'

True to his prediction, a few seconds later, an explosion startled everyone in the classroom. Ron and Seamus's feather had been turned into cinders, their faces became black and their eyebrows were scorched.

⁂

"How are you always the first in every class, mate, I never ever see you study!" Anthony Goldstein whined as he plopped himself across the table on the seat in front of Harry, in the Great Hall.

"Shh, don't disturb our resident genius, his thoughts are far beyond our understanding," Terry said, making Anthony and Michael snigger.

Harry finally stopped staring at the Gryffindor table (he had been looking at Hermione to make sure that she was in the Great Hall) and glared in annoyance at them.

The three boys seemed to have taken a liking to him. Harry knew that nobody liked a know-it-all that always corrected someone when they made a mistake (he had learned that from Hermione's negative example in the past) so he had kept his thoughts to himself when people did not ask for his help. However, he had quickly become known as the best student in their year and his housemates began to ask for his help in various matters. He did not shoo them away. When children came to ask for his help, Harry felt (and acted) almost like a teacher rather than a classmate. His kindness quickly made him became very popular among the first year Ravenclaws.

Nowadays, even if he tried to sit and eat alone in the corner of the table, the three boys would often come to sit next to him, actively trying to get him involved in their conversations.

"Have you seen Finnigan? He blew up his feather again!" Michael said and laughed.

"Weasley too, he looks like a bald rooster now!" Terry added, making many of the students that were sitting close to them start giggling.

Harry had been so preoccupied with pretending that he was paying attention to the boys and secretly watching Hermione at the Gryffindor table that he had not noticed that a few very eye-catching students were missing from the Ravenclaw and the Slytherin tables. If it was another day, it would be nothing worth thinking twice about but today was the Halloween feast. Nobody would miss out on such a special occasion without a good reason.

"Oi, what's with you, you're eating as if you haven't seen any food in days!" Anthony laughed but Harry kept digging in with a speed that one would think he was at an eating contest.

'If this Quirrell is anything like the one from my past, he's bound to do something.' he thought.

Harry had just finished eating the first course when the large wooden doors of the Great Hall were opened with a bang and Quirinus Quirrell rushed in, his face pale white from panic.

"Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know!"

Yelling those words, the Professor of Defense Against Dark Arts fainted dramatically in front of the professors' table.

⁂

Guided by a ghost, Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick ran as fast as they could through the corridor leading to the dungeons. When the terrified scream of a boy and an angry roar reached their ears, the tiny Charms Master looked as if he had gotten a second wind because he started running so fast that his short legs appeared like a blur. Professor Flitwick burst through the door, into the bathroom, his wand drawn and ready to fire a spell at any moment.

However, he was just a little too late.

Fresh blood flowed and pooled on the bathroom floor. It was coming from the lifeless body of a first-year boy. Half of his skull had been smashed open by the troll's gigantic club. He was almost unrecognizable but there were not many first-year students that year. The boy's green and silver tie and his platinum blonde hair gave away his identity. It was Draco Malfoy.

Rage filled Professor McGonagall's eyes. A 20 feet long iron spear as thick as a man's forearm was conjured out of thin air and with a flick of her wrist, the large spear stabbed the troll's head and went through its thick skull bone as if it was paper, impaling it into the wall.

The troll had been dealt with easily but they had not been fast enough to save the Slytherin boy. Killing the creature would not bring him back. Draco Malfoy was dead.

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Chapter 4 - Halloween (II)

It was 2004. Or better said, it was the last night of 2004. In a few minutes, it would be a new year, 2005.

"Happy New Year!"

"Cheers!"

Nearly fifty people raised their glasses in the air and toasted. It was the New Year party and most of the partygoers were players from Puddlemore United and other members of the club. Everyone was in very high spirits as they indulged in alcohol to their heart's content and the dancing floor was crowded. They were having a blast.

"Easy there with the Firewhisky, Potter, you won't get to see to the New Year fireworks at this rate!" came a loud shout from the stage in front of the dancing floor.

A tall and well-built brown-haired man in his early 30s had come up on the stage and shooed away the singers that the team had hired for that occasion. He was none other than Oliver Wood, the Keeper on the starting team of Puddlemore United. It was Oliver Wood that introduced Harry Potter to the world of Quidditch, in the Gryffindor team, and then to his first professional team too.

With the music stopping, the dancing couples also stopped and turned to look at the person in question: a 24-year-old Harry Potter was sitting at a table and nursing a glass of Firewhisky all alone. He was of an average height and a bit thin - which worked well for his position as a seeker - but nobody would dare underestimate him, the Vanquisher of Voldemort. In fact, he was the centre of attention wherever he went.

"Before we all get piss drunk I want to say a few words: Puddlemore United rocks!"

A chorus of cheers and whistles came from the crowd.

"We have won the championship for five years in a row! Let's do it again next year!"

Another roaring cheer came from the people below.

"We are a great team... ...but none of this would have been possible without Harry Potter, the Undefeated Seeker! Therefore, let's give a round of applause for Harry!"

Everyone clapped and cheered loudly but he seemed not happy enough with their enthusiasm.

"Come on, people, a little more appreciation here! Make some noise!" he yelled and moved his hands animatedly.

The crowd erupted into even louder cheers and many started laughing. Oliver Wood was rather infamous for his fanaticism when it came to Quidditch. To him, Harry Potter was a hero more because of the role he had in Puddelmore United winning five championships and England winning the World Cup rather than his feat of killing the Dark Lord.

But when Oliver Wood tried to speak some more, he was thrown off the stage courtesy to a kick in the butt.

"Aye, aye, we all know Puddlemore is the best. We all know that Potter is great and all that too. But we're here to drink not listen to your drunken speeches, Wood!" the captain of the team's voice rang loudly after he kicked the Keeper off the stage, eliciting laughter from the other people.

The band members resumed their positions on the stage and started to perform again, much to Harry's relief. It was not that he was a big fan of the loud music blasting in his ears but he would rather not interact too much with other people that night. He was there just to get himself drunk.

'Maybe I shouldn't have come to this party.' he thought with a grimace. 'Everyone is at the Burrow now, celebrating... they've all settled down, married, and even made some children. I'm the only one still living like a vagabond.'

That thought made him sigh. His relationship with Ginny had not worked. Soon after the war, the two of them were hired by two opposing Quidditch teams. Now, Harry was playing for Puddlemore United while Ginny was playing for Holyhead Harpies. They lived in different parts of the country with their respective teams. The distance and the lack of quality time spent together as a couple had been a big factor that led to them breaking up but Harry could also not deny that besides their passion for Quidditch, the two of them had very different personalities. There was no bad blood between the two of them, it was a decision that they had made together.

'Ron and Hermione are married, Ginny is now engaged to Dean, Bill and Fleur have a child... heck, George got married, and even that ponce, Percy, has found someone too.'

This time around, all the Weasleys had gathered together for the New Year at the Burrow. Even Charlie had taken some time off and returned from Romania. Naturally, Harry had been invited as well but he knew better than to take them up for it.

'Feeling lonely among friends would be even worse than feeling lonely among strangers.' he thought with a mental chuckle.

After he and Ginny broke up, Harry and the Weasleys slowly started to drift apart. It was just not pleasant for him to go at the Burrow and have dinner with them while his ex-lover sat at the table, right next to him. The looks that the rest of the family were throwing at them were not comfortable either. As years passed by, his visits to the Weasleys became rarer, until Ginny and Dean announced their engagement - a moment from which his visits came to a full stop.

"Cheer up, mate, what's with you? It's the New Year!" one of his teammates said and patted him on the shoulder. But he did not wait for an answer. He quickly left, making a beeline toward a girl that was throwing suggestive looks at Harry's table. Harry chuckled at his teammate's eagerness to hook up with someone.

Out of habit, he looked at his wristwatch. The limb indicating the minutes coincidentally moved at that moment on 12. It was a new year.

At 12 o'clock exactly, out of nowhere, an intense pain almost made him black out. It was as if someone had suddenly split his forehead open with an axe.

He stood up on wobbly feet, both due to his drunkenness and because of the terrible headache. The loud music, the semi-darkness, and the flickering disco lights made it so nobody noticed his strange behaviour.

The moment he exited the main hall, he collapsed on the corridor outside, on his knees, with both of his hands pressing hard on his forehead. He did not understand why did his scar suddenly start to hurt that badly. He had not felt any pain from it ever since Voldemort died at Hogwarts, 6 years before.

His sight blurred and a vision appeared in his mind.

A large group of people dressed in black robes and wearing skull masks surrounded an oddly-shaped house. It was the Burrow.

"Kill them all!" a cold voice ordered.

At that command, the over 40 skull-masked people raised their wands and aimed at the house. As one, over 40 fire bolts burst forth.

With all the mental strength and willpower he could muster, Harry shook himself out of the vision. His head was pounding and his heart was beating as if to burst out of his chest.

"This can't be!" he said in disbelief and fear.

Momentarily, he could not understand how was it possible that he had seen that vision. The only reasonable explanation was that Voldemort was no longer dead. That the Dark Lord had returned.

'But Dumbledore said he was supposed to be dead for good!' he thought in despair.

The similarity between this vision and what happened in his fifth year was not lost to him. Voldemort had once lured him to the Ministry of Magic by showing him images of Sirius, captured and suffering at his hands. He knew that it could be a trap but there was also a chance that it was legitimate, like when he had saved Mr Weasley's life after Nagini's attack.

He climbed up to his feet with difficulty by supporting himself against the wall. Grabbing his wand, he closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to Apparate to the Burrow. But all he managed to do was to twirl in place, lose his balance, and fall on the floor. He was too drunk to Apparate, he could not concentrate.

He did not give up. He tried again and this time he succeeded.

With a loud pop, he Apparated at the edge of the lake close to the Burrow. It was midnight and there were no lamposts anywhere around. But it was not dark... ...the demolished Burrow was in flames. Above the ruined house, a green skull with a snake coming out of its mouth was shining brightly. It was the Dark Mark.

Six years after his defeat, Voldemort came back to life and Harry had been too late to save the Weasleys from his wrath. Ron and Hermione, Arthur and Molly, Ginny and Dean, George and Angelina, Charlie, Percy and his wife, and Bill, Fleur, and their child - they were all dead.

⁂ Back to the present ⁂

Harry woke up with a start.

"Bugger."

He sat up and wiped his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his pyjama top. He had not had a nightmare for more than a decade. After the Weasleys' deaths in 2005, he had seriously studied Occlumency to learn how to protect his mind from Voldemort. Furthermore, after more than 15 years, he had come to terms with what happened. He had stopped blaming himself and moved on.

'Bloody puberty.'

Although his mind was that of a grown-up, his body was still that of an 11-year-old boy. His previously fool-proof Occlumency did not work quite as well as it used to before due to his body's hormones. The substances secreted by one's body would influence their brain, their thought process, their dreams, and so on. Adding to that the fact that he had been paying close attention to Hermione the entire day to make sure she would not get killed by the troll, it had led to his mental defence slipping up.

Standing up, he took off his sweaty pyjamas and put on some day clothes, his jacket, a hat, and a pair of leather gloves. He went to his trunk and tapped with the tip of his wand two times on one lock and four times on the other one before casting a mental Unlocking Charm. Then, he grabbed his Nimbus 2000 from inside.

A Silencing Charm made sure that the hinges of the window would not squeak. After throwing one last look at his dormmates and seeing that they were all asleep, he mounted his broom and flew out through the window. Once he was out, one simple swish of his wand made the window close after him.

⁂

It was the night of Halloween, past midnight. The air was chilly and humid, not exactly the best conditions for flight. But he did not mind the cold because it reinvigorated him and cleared up his muddled head.

He breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly, in bliss, as he circled slowly around the grand castle. He absolutely loved flying. Not even three Wizarding Wars had managed to curb his passion for flying.

'Can't wait for the next year. Can't wait to grow up.'

He chuckled at that thought because it sounded exactly like what an 11-year-old boy would say. But he truly wanted to be just a bit older, to be allowed to play Quidditch again. To not have to sneak out in the middle of the night to fly on his broom.

First-year students were not allowed to own a broom at Hogwarts and they could only fly during the classes taught by Madam Hooch. It was a reasonable rule, set to prevent any accidents from happening because many first years still had difficulties with controlling their magic. Nonetheless, Harry had bought a Nimbus 2000 and smuggled it into the school secretly. Not even his dormmates were aware of it.

As he flew above the Hogwarts grounds, he noticed a group of seven people walking towards the castle. Four of them were having their wands raised above their heads, illuminating the way with the Lumos Charm active on the tips of their wands.

Protected by the darkness of the night and due to the height at which he was flying, Harry was not worried about them noticing him but he still cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, just in case.

When he flew closer, he recognized the identity of the seven people. The four that were leading the way with their wands were wearing trench coats and had an air of vigilance about them.

'Aurors? What are they doing here in the middle of the night...are they here for the troll?'

When his eyes moved towards the other 3 people, he was surprised. Even in the pale light of the wands, Lucius Malfoy's long platinum blond hair was unmistakable. The middle-aged woman walking next to him was easy to recognize too: it was his wife, Narcissa Malfoy. As for the last one, it was a short and plump man, wearing a bright green bowler hat. Despite that more than 20 years had passed since Harry had last seen Cornelius Fudge, he had not forgotten him and how much damage and death his cowardice and hunger for political power had caused in Great Britain back in his fifth year of school.

'Why are they all here?' he could not help asking himself again. 'There's no way that the Minister of Magic himself and the haughty Malfoys would come to Hogwarts with a team of Aurors in tow, in the middle of the night, for no reason... Did someone actually die?'

Given the situation - a troll was on the loose in a school of children - it was not a far fetched thought, especially since he knew that in his past life Hermione would have been killed by the troll if it had not been for him and Ron.

But when he asked himself who died this time around, his eyes fell on the blonde woman next to Lucius Malfoy.

'If it had been a random student, Narcissa would have had no reason to tag along in her high heels, through the mud, in the middle of the night. Blimey! Did Draco die?'

He almost burst into laughter, out of sheer surprise at the unexpected situations that kept popping up.

'First, it was Snape. Now, it's probably Draco.'

When the seven people arrived in front of the gates of Hogwarts, a chill went down Harry's back. It was his sixth sense, an aptitude for sensing magic, a skill that he had acquired and honed over the course of three wizarding wars in his past life. His instincts had been refined to the point that they were as sharp as those of a wild beast.

'Someone just cast a spell. Dark magic.'

Although he had not seen any flashes of light, he was sure of it. Not all spells created visual effects when cast; furthermore, as Dumbledore had once told him, magic always left traces. Especially Dark Magic. After spending his life fighting against an immortal Dark Lord, it had become a requirement for him to understand and sense Dark Magic just as well as his enemies, if only to know how to combat against it if nothing else.

It was when one of the Aurors knocked with his fist loudly against the gates that Lucius Malfoy raised his wand at the back of Minister Fudge, for no reason.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Hearing the chant, the four Aurors instantly turned around in a panic... ...only to watch in horror how Cornelius Fudge collapsed on the ground lifelessly, with a flash of green light. If the Aurors had been calm enough to look at Lucius Malfoy, they would have seen that there was a small smile on his face - something completely unnatural given that he had been furious until then, due to the death of his son.

However, after witnessing the leader of the government being killed under their eyes, who could blame them? When Lucius started chanting again, the Aurors had come back to their senses.

"Avada Ke-"

A disturbing sound of bones being crushed to bits was heard and blood and pieces of flesh splattered everywhere as an Auror's Reductor Curse blasted Lucius Malfoy's head into a gory paste. Then, Narcissa Malfoy's shriek of terror shattered the silence of the night.

⁂

Sensing the spike of Dark Magic from behind the group of seven people and then seeing Lucius Malfoy casting the Killing Curse on the unsuspecting Minister, Harry was shocked. Regardless, he quickly got a hold of himself and zoomed away on his broomstick, back to the Ravenclaw Tower. Dumbledore was undoubtedly going to be there in a matter of minutes. He did not want to risk being found anywhere close to the crime scene.

Even 20 minutes after he returned to his dorm and lied in his bed, Harry could not fall asleep.

'What reason did Malfoy have to kill Fudge? Weren't they best friends? And why do it in the open, and in front of four Aurors no less? That's completely unlike him!'

Lucius Malfoy was not like his immature son, brash and impulsive, nor was he wearing his heart on his sleeve. Lucius Malfoy was a very slippery and cunning man, he had proved it through his actions. He had managed to crawl his way up from almost being thrown for life in Azkaban to becoming the Minister's most trusted advisor and one of the Governors of Hogwarts too. A man of his intelligence would never assassinate the Minister of Magic with so many witnesses around.

'That spike of Dark Magic that I sensed just a few moments before Malfoy cast Avada Kedavra - Merlin, it was the Imperius Curse! It had to be! It's the only way Malfoy's actions make any sense.'

Reaching that conclusion, Harry could not reign in a guffaw.

'How ironic.' he thought and giggled.

Ten years ago, Lucius Malfoy had avoided Azkaban by claiming that he had been Imperiused. Tonight, he was actually put under the Imperius Curse for real and forced to kill the Minister of Magic. He also got his head blown up by the Aurors. Harry giggled some more at that thought.

After a while, his face scrunched up in a small frown.

'First, it was Snape. Tonight, it was Draco, Fudge, and Lucius. If I didn't know any better I'd say someone is cleaning up the trash... ...it's certainly something I would do if this was my world and I travelled back in time.' he thought carelessly.

But this was not his world. It was an alternate world, another dimension. Too many things were different and Harry did not know which parts of his knowledge of the future still applied and which were false. People that had been Death Eaters in his past could very well be innocent in this life. That was the case for Peter Pettigrew of this world: over here, he had never betrayed the Potters. He was just an average guy with an honest job. He was working in the Diagon Alley, in the Magical Menagerie shop, selling pets.

Because of all these differences and the fact that he was not the Chosen One that the prophecy spoke of, Harry had vowed to himself that he would not get involved with Voldemort or anything related to him in this life. It was his chance to live a regular life, without killing, without being in the middle of the war. Now that he had gotten a second chance at life, with no burdens to carry, he was going make full use of it. He was going to enjoy his life.

'Am I, perhaps, not the only one?'

He snorted at his own question.

'Yeah, no way! Haha! As if that could be possible. Me being here is a miracle in itself, what are the chances that there's another one like me?'

But his derision immediately stopped when the face of a 14 year-old-girl came at the front of his mind. It was an abnormally good-looking French girl that should have had no business studying at Hogwarts, in Great Britain, a country that was not very welcoming towards her kind. A girl who, in his memory, disliked Hogwarts and often complained about the cold, the weather, the food, and basically everything that was not Beauxbatons.

His eyes widened.

'Bloody hell.'

AN: The timeline of Harry Potter's past life:

1995: Triwizard Tournament. Voldemort's first resurrection.

1998: Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort dies by his own Killing Curse. (canon up until this moment)

2002: Harry wins the Quidditch World Cup with England.

2004: Voldemort's second resurrection. The Weasleys are assassinated. (the start of the second war Harry participated in)

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Back? Not Really by grumpywolf

AN: Enjoy!

Chapter 5 - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Everything seemed normal when Harry went to the Great Hall to have breakfast the next morning. The hall was half-empty when he arrived and the Headmaster and the Deputy were not at the professors' table yet either. His eyes looked over his own house's table, searching for a particular silvery-blonde girl but he could not find her.

In his excitement, Harry had woken up earlier than usual that morning. He could barely wait to see what was going to happen next. The Minister had been assassinated and a politically powerful family like the Malfoys had been ruined too, all in one night. He could only imagine the shock of the British Wizarding World once they learnt about it.

'How is Dumbledore going to deal with this?' he thought.

He was giddy with anticipation. It was as if he was just a spectator that was watching a play at a theatre: no matter what happened on the 'stage', it would not affect the people in the stands in any way. 'In this life, Neville is the main actor on the stage. I'm a nobody. I'm just Harry.'

He piled his plate with fried eggs and crispy bacon and delved into it as if he had not eaten in days. A regular person would have not had an appetite after witnessing the violent deaths of two people only a few hours before. But death had become a constant in the latter half of his past life; if he had lost his appetite every time he had seen someone die he would have not made it even halfway through the second war, he would have starved.

As he was happily eating his food, the Great Hall gradually started to fill up with students. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall had taken their seats at the professors' table as well.

'Did Quirrell kick the bucket too?' he wondered after seeing that Professor Quirrell's seat was left empty.

"Morning, Harry." Michael Corner said and sat next to him.

"Morning." Terry and Anthony also greeted him as they sat across the table, in front of Harry and Michael.

"You think they caught the troll last night?" Terry asked while helping himself to some ham and cheese sandwiches.

"Blimey, a troll! How did it even get into the school? My mum won't be happy." Anthony said bummed out. "Wouldn't be surprised if she pulled me out from Hogwarts after something like this."

"What? Just because of a troll?" Harry asked.

The three boys threw him strange looks.

"We've only learned the Levitation Charm from Flitwick and a Tickling Hex from Quirrell so far. What good would these be against a troll? Or maybe we could beat a troll with matches and needles? We'd get killed easily," Anthony said. "Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in Great Britain but a troll snuck in just like that?"

"His mum wanted to send him to Ilvermorny, in America," Michael said and sniggered, making Anthony throw him a scathing look.

As the two boys started bickering, Harry looked at his food lost in thought. Facing deadly situations from the age of 11 up until the day of his death had messed up with his sense of danger. While for him a troll was no more dangerous than a stray dog, for regular children and even some inexperienced adults an encounter with a troll could very well be fatal.

'I guess no parent would want to send their children to a place that puts them in mortal danger. But if his mother is that worried, how did he stay at Hogwarts in my past life until the end? Our second year was horrible with people being petrified left and right and Dementors swarmed the grounds the entire third year...'

While Anthony and Michael were still exchanging barbs, Harry asked Terry:

"What can you tell me about that girl over there?" he said and gestured with his head in a particular direction.

"Which one?" the brown-haired boy asked in return, curious to see what girl had caught his fancy.

"The blonde one, close to the end of the table."

Michael stopped arguing with Anthony for a while and looked at him with an incredulous face: "Mate, are you serious? Everyone knows who she is, you're telling me you don't?"

Harry's 'confused' face only worked to exasperate the black-haired boy. "I wouldn't ask you if I knew, would I?" he lied easily.

"Terry, Anthony, you talk to him. He's hopeless." Michael said, making his two friends chuckle.

"He's right. Everyone knows her. She's French, a fourth year. So that's the type of girl you fancy, huh?" Terry said with a grin.

"He liiiikes her." Anthony sing-sang.

Terry leaned over the table and said in a whisper, conspiratorily: "I heard some girls saying that she might be part Veela or something because she's too beautiful to be normal. I also saw Davies asking her to go out with him on the first Hogsmeade trip two weeks from now but she refused him."

"I saw a seventh-year Puff ask her out yesterday too. Don't waste your time, mate, she's out of our league. Someone like her would never look at first years when she has seventh years asking her out. Look at Padma in our year tho. Or that second-year Asian girl. They're cute as hell." Michael said and pointed with his finger at each girl at the Ravenclaw table.

Harry made an annoyed face at Anthony; he had forgotten how childish 11-year-old boys could be. But on the other hand, he was even more annoyed at Michael who was already thinking about girls that way despite his fage. He remembered vaguely that in his past life, Michael had been quite the player, going out with both Ginny and Cho who were considered two of the prettiest girls during their time at Hogwarts. It looked like this world's Michael Corner was rather precocious too.

"Actually, now that I think about it, she's quite similar to you," Terry said.

"How so?" Harry asked, now curious.

"Well, she's a sad loner for starters," Terry said, making even Harry start laughing together with Michael and Anthony. "She's also the top student in her year. She's so ahead of everyone else that Flitwick offered her an apprenticeship at the end of last year. See what I mean? Sad and lonely nerds, both of you. Yeah, laugh it out, you're lucky we adopted you or you'd be mopping alone in a corner too, just like her."

A piece of sausage suddenly flew up from the plate, straight into Terry's left nostril. The boy cried out and recoiled in surprise and disgust at the oil and grease smearing the inside of his nose.

"W-What the hell?!" Terry sputtered amidst Anthony and Michael's roaring laughter. "How did you do that?"

"Yeah, Harry, how did you do that?" the other two also asked in amazement through their giggles. They had not seen Harry use his wand or say an incantation.

"Do what? You saw me, I was eating." He made a show out of getting his wand out from the pocket of his robes. "Look: my wand was here the whole time."

The three Ravenclaw boys shared a knowing look, not buying his innocent act in the least.

"Oh, so that piece of sausage magically flew up by itself and dug into my nose?" Terry said sarcastically as he cleaned his nose with a napkin.

"If you ask me, it looks like a spell those Weasley twins from Gryffindor would come up with it," Harry said with a straight face.

At the Gryffindor table, two third-year redhead boys sneezed at the same time.

Cries of owls came from above their heads, momentarily stopping the boys from asking any further questions. A snowy owl also flew towards Harry with a rolled newspaper tied up to one of her legs. It was Hedwig. The beautiful owl landed gently on his extended forearm and raised one of her legs for him to untie the string.

"Working so diligently from early morning, who's a good girl? You're a good girl, the prettiest, goodest girl" Harry cooed in a baby voice at her and Hedwig hooted happily and preened her feathers proudly at his praise.

He giggled at the beautiful owl and gently petted her on the head with his other hand.

"Go on, take whatever you like. You've earned it," he said and the snowy owl hopped from his forearm onto the table. But when she grabbed a kipper with her beak from Terry's plate, the boy yelled indignantly: "Hey, I was eating that!"

Hedwig barked at him and threw him a smug look as if to say - 'what are you going to do about it?'. Then, without sparing him another glance, she tore into the dried herring and ate it up in a few bites. With one last joyful hoot at Harry, she unfurled her wings and flew away.

"That owl of yours scares me sometimes with how smart she is," Terry muttered.

"She's the best owl in the world," Harry said fondly, following Hedwig with his eyes as she flew out of the Great Hall.

A few moments later, shocked cries came from everywhere around them. Having expected their reaction, Harry quickly unfurled the new edition of Daily Prophet that Hedwig had just delivered to him. Written in huge, bold letters a title occupied nearly a fifth of the first page:

MINISTER FUDGE MURDERED AT HOGWARTS LAST NIGHT

Still on the first page, but written in a slightly smaller font, there were two more titles:

TROLL KILLS HOGWARTS STUDENT

and

THE ANCIENT AND NOBLE HOUSE OF MALFOY EXTINCT

Everyone in the Great Hall craned their necks to look at the Slytherin Table to see if Draco Malfoy was truly dead as the article claimed. In contrast, Harry was peeking at Fleur Delacour from behind his newspaper, secretly studying her facial expression.

'She looks like she's surprised. Oh, she's faking it.' He was sure of it, he could see it in her eyes.

He sent a tiny Legilimency probe to gather some of her surface thoughts but he immediately dropped his attempt and looked away when she snapped her head in his general direction. She had no way of knowing who had tried to invade her thoughts but she had certainly detected the attempt. That was possible only if-

'She knows Occlumency! How many 14-year-old girls know Occlumency?' He became even surer of his assumptions that she was related to the series of killings that had happened over the past few weeks.

It was at that moment, while the Great Hall was in an uproar from the news that they had just read, that Dumbledore stood up from his seat. The man had such a commanding and authoritative presence that the several hundred students immediately quieted down without him needing to say a word.

"I am afraid that the things you have read in the Daily Prophet are true. Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy died at the hands of the troll yesterday. Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were the ones to find his body... ...we were too late to save him."

Saying those words, Dumbledore looked like he had suddenly become ten years older. The Great Hall was dead silent. After a few moments passed, the Headmaster spoke again:

"I have strong reasons to believe that the one responsible for bringing the troll inside the school was Professor Quirrell. My suspicions were confirmed when I went to his quarters and saw that he had left the school. I do not know why he had done something like that but I assure you that I will not rest until he is brought to justice for his crime."

Anticipating the students' next question, he said:

"In regards to Minister Fudge's unfortunate end, I only know what the Daily Prophet described: that Lucius Malfoy had cast the Killing Curse on the Minister with no prior signs of hostility and that he also fell at the wands of the Aurors. The investigation is still ongoing. Until the investigation ended, the Board of Governors and the Ministry of Magic have decided for the school year to be temporarily stopped."

A loud chorus of murmurs and questions followed as everyone started to talk amongst themselves.

"As of now, it is unknown whether classes will start again in January or if Hogwarts will stay closed until next September. We will keep you informed. I do hope that classes will resume as soon as possible but that will not happen until all the concerns regarding your safety at Hogwarts have been addressed. Furthermore, I will have to find two new teachers for Potions and Defense Against Dark Arts. As it stands, until further notice, this is your last day at Hogwarts this year. Please make sure that you have packed your belongings and that you will be ready to take the Hogwarts Express from Hogsmeade, at 3 o'clock sharp. Your parents have already been informed, they will be waiting for you at King's Cross, in London."

'Bollocks. I didn't expect the school to be closed but in retrospect, I should have seen it coming.' Harry thought.

A deep sigh came out of his chest. He stood up with everyone else from his house, intent on returning to his dorm and pack up his things. But when he was about to leave the table, a fifth year Ravenclaw prefect came to him and handed him a folded note.

"Professor Dumbledore wants to speak to you in his office in 15 minutes. The password to his office is inside," he said and gestured towards the piece of paper that he had handed to him.

"Ok," Harry said calmly.

⁂

As he followed the fifth year prefect towards the Headmaster's office (a first year student was not supposed to know where it was), Harry was wondering what did Dumbledore want from him? In this life, he was just a normal child - albeit a gifted one - but still a child nonetheless. He had not been caught snooping around forbidden places nor had any prefect or teacher ever caught him on the corridors after the curfew. He was a model student.

'Did he catch wind of my Nimbus? But how? I made sure nobody saw me.'

He woke up from his thoughts only when he found himself in front of the gargoyle staircase.

"Alright, you go ahead." said the older boy. "Tell the password to the gargoyle, I won't be tagging along." Then, he left to perform his other duties as a prefect.

"Sherbet lemon," Harry said and the circular staircase started rotating and carried him up like an elevator.

Knocking on the office's door politely, it opened silently for him.

"Please come in, Mr Potter."

The Headmaster's office was as eccentric as he remembered it. Walls covered by portraits of the former headmasters, several bookcases filled with ancient-looking tomes and two cupboards and a few tables were displaying all kinds of strange contraptions and instruments which Harry had no idea what their purposes were even despite the knowledge he had accumulated in his past life. The only difference compared to his memories was that Fawkes, the phoenix, was not on his perch at that moment.

He had not seen Dumbledore's office in more than two decades; a wave of nostalgia washed over him.

And there he was, towards the back of the circular room, sitting on the plush chair behind his desk: Albus Dumbledore, as strange and as old as he had always known him to be but far less jovial than usual.

"Hello. You wanted to see me, headmaster?"

Dumbledore did not reply right away, his eyes peering at him intently over his half-moon spectacles.

"Yes, I did. Take a seat please."

Harry did not know it but the old headmaster was inwardly weirded out by his unnatural calmness. Even most adult wizards were either excited or nervous when they met him face-to-face for the first time, to say nothing about an eleven-year-old boy.

"It has been brought to my attention that you have broken a rather important rule. First-year students are not allowed to have their own broomstick at Hogwarts. Even more, you've been flying alone, unsupervised, at night."

Whatever reaction Dumbledore had expected from the boy, it was certainly not a sigh, nor a 'good grief!' kind of look on his face.

"How did you find out, professor? Who snitched on me?"

Dumbledore revealed a small smile.

"It was not a student, you need not worry about that. To put your mind to rest and not sow discord between you and your housemates, I will tell you that it was a ghost."

'Funny how he caught me flying because of a ghost but he couldn't find the Chamber of Secrets all these years despite that Moaning Myrtle was inside the castle all along...' he thought but he did not let his thoughts be seen on his face. He remained silent, waiting for the older wizard to say what he wanted from him.

"Were you flying on your broom yesterday night, Mr Potter?" Dumbledore asked while looking him in the eye.

'Legimency probe, huh? Can't say I'm surprised.' Harry inwardly thought when he felt the headmaster's magic reach out to him.

But he pretended he had not noticed anything - he did not want to act like Fleur had done and tip Dumbledore off that he knew how to protect his mind. There were more ways to hide one's thoughts other than to simply bash out any intrusions. Instead, he started thinking about how great his Nimbus 2000 was and focused on the feelings of genuine happiness he experienced every time he flew and felt the chilly breeze of the night against his face. That was all that Dumbledore could see in his mind.

"Yes, I went flying for an hour or two," Harry said, not seeing any point in lying now that the cat was out of the bag. Even if Dumbledore wanted to punish him or even expel him, Harry was not concerned in the least. Hogwarts was closing today anyway. He would not give him detentions nor would he confiscate his Nimbus 2000 either.

"Did you happen to see what happened to the Minister?"

"No, professor," Harry said and shook his head.

Dumbledore stood up from his seat and walked back and forth for a few moments.

"Would you be so kind as to let me take a look at your wand?" the old wizard asked but it was not a question. Harry recognized a demand when he heard one.

"Um, sure," he said and handed his wand over to Dumbledore as if he was not aware at all of what the old wizard was going to do. He played the part of a naive 11-year-old boy.

Gently picking the wand from Harry's hand, the headmaster studied it with great attention.

"Supple, eleven inches, fir wood and... ...dragon heartstring as the core, did I get it right?" At Harry's nod of acknowledgement, he muttered to himself: "Hm, interesting, very interesting."

As someone who had once sought the Deathly Hallows and as the possessor of the Elder Wand, Dumbledore was well-versed in wand lore. He could understand many things about someone's personality simply by taking a look at their wand.

Fir wands were called 'the survivor's wand'. They were very suited to powerful wizards that excelled in Transfiguration but not only. It favoured strong-minded and often intimidating people. Its elasticity also let him know that Harry had a flexible personality, that he could easily adapt to new environments and situations. As for its core being the heartstring of a dragon - wands with this core favoured magically powerful wizards. Dragon heartstring wands produced the most powerful spells.

'Calm, adaptable, magically gifted, and if his grades are anything to go by, very clever as well. A very promising young wizard...'

Without warning, Dumbledore brandished Harry's wand and said:

"Priori Incantato!"

Several images depicting various spells appeared one after another. First, it was a Household Charm (Harry had used it to make his bed that morning when he woke up), then it was a Locking Charm (used by Harry to lock his trunk when he returned from his flying session) and then-

"A Disillusionment Charm?!" Dumbledore asked, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline due to his surprise.

New images of spells being cast appeared after that but they were mostly mundane spells used for homework or during classes by regular first-year students.

"I had to learn it so I could sneak out with my broom." Harry lied and did his best to sound sheepish. He looked down as if he was nervous after being caught breaking the rules.

"Could you demonstrate it for me, please?" Dumbledore asked and gave Harry his wand back, handle first.

Harry grabbed his wand and twirled it above his head while speaking the incantation out loud:

"Indespectus!"

Dumbledore could not hide his astonishment when he saw the effects of Harry's Disillusionment Charm. It was not true invisibility and it was not quite as good as the charm he was capable of casting himself either, but it would be enough to impress the Charms examiner during the OWLs in the fifth year.

"Most impressive!" Dumbledore whispered in awe and looked at Harry as if he had just discovered a rare treasure. A first year student performing and OWL-level charm was formdibale to say the least.

Inwardly, Harry was starting to become nervous.

'Maybe I revealed too much of my talent?' he thought. He could not remember Dumbledore ever showing that much surprise on his face in his past life.

But the headmaster quickly schooled his expression and returned to normal. He sat back on his seat at the desk and then he asked a question completely unrelated to what they had been talking about until then:

"What will you do once the school closes?"

"I will return to the orphanage," Harry said. "I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Do you like it over there?" Dumbledore asked and Harry got the feeling that whatever answer he gave next was going to have a great influence on the nature of his future interactions with the headmaster.

Harry made an uncomfortable expression.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I had a nasty accident a month before I got my Hogwarts letter. I-, I don't remember much from the time before that. But I think it's not bad, the caretakers treat us well if we don't cause trouble. But the food at Hogwarts is so much better than at the orphanage! I am going to miss it!" he said sincerely.

Dumbledore smiled a little at the last part but then he asked seriously: "You don't remember anything from before?"

Harry could tell that the old wizard was listening to his words with rapt attention.

"The caretakers at the orphanage told me that I fell off from the second floor and cracked my head open. I still got the scar from it," he said almost proudly (as if he was boasting) and parted his messy locks of black hair to show Dumbledore a thin scar on the side of his head, a sign of his previous injury. "The doctors at the hospital said that I am lucky I didn't die."

The headmaster momentarily closed his eyes, seemingly deep in thought. A few long seconds passed, almost half a minute, without him saying a word.

'Did he fall asleep?' Harry said to himself incredulously. "Professor?" he called out timidly.

"I apologize. At my age, people tend to get lost in thought sometimes and forget the world around them." Dumbledore joked lightly. "I was wondering, Mr Potter, would you be interested in spending your summers with a wizarding family instead of going back to the orphanage?"

Harry made a very strange face. The headmaster's unexpected interest in him was starting to worry him. Even in his past life, when he had been the Chosen One, Dumbledore had not shown that much interest in him. He had not even stepped into his office in his first year at all. Furthermore, in his past life, Harry had been the one to beg to not be sent back to the Dursleys yet now Dumbledore was asking him if he wanted to live with a wizarding family instead of going back to the orphanage... it was as if the world has been turned upside down.

"I don't know what to say, professor," Harry said awkwardly. He did not even have to fake that emotion. "Why would anyone want to take me in? I'm just a stranger."

"Be that as it may, you will find out in time that in the Wizarding World, children are very important, more important than for non-magical people. I assure you that many families would be willing to open their arms for a young child, especially one as gifted as yourself."

Whatever Harry expected when he heard that Dumbledore wanted to talk with him was certainly not that the old wizard was going to put him up for adoption.

'If everyone had been that eager to adopt orphans, Voldemort wouldn't have grown in an orphanage.' Harry thought sarcastically.

However, his expression visibly changed as he recalled his very first meeting with a Horcrux, in the Chamber of Secrets, nearly 30 years ago, in his past life. He still remembered the words that the 16-year-old Tom Riddle had told him back then as if it was yesterday:

'There are strange likenesses between us, after all. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike...'

Once he remembered that memory, Harry glanced at Dumbledore again. The calculative and intense look in his twinkling blue eyes seemed much more obvious now than before. He did not need to be a Legilimens to understand what was going through his mind at that moment:

'He's comparing me to Voldemort.'

In this life, Harry was even more similar to Voldemort than in his past life. He even grew up in an orphanage and he was much more brilliant than he had ever been as a child in the past too.

'As the saying goes - once bitten, twice shy. He's probably thinking of ways to make me get attached to a family and discover the joys of being loved. He doesn't want a repeat of what happened before.'

Reaching that conclusion, Harry realized that giving him an outright refusal would not stop Dumbledore from doing what he thought was right. For better or worse, one way or another, the old wizard always got what he wanted.

Besides, Harry had no reason to be at odds with him. It would certainly open up more opportunities for him in the future if he were to be part of a regular family instead of being just a muggle-raised orphan boy. After all, the fact that in his past life Puddlemore United had accepted him so eagerly in the starting team had been at first because of his feat of killing Voldemort. It had been a massive boon for their publicity to have the Vanquisher of Voldemort in their team. His application would not be so easily accepted in this world where he was just a regular boy and he would definitely be nothing more than a substitute player for the first year or two.

"You don't have to give me an answer right away," Dumbledore said kindly. "I don't want to force you into it. Whatever choice you make, it's entirely up to you. I will give you one week to think about it. In one week, I will come personally to your orphanage and talk to you again about it."

Harry fidgeted with his hands, pretending that he was nervous as he asked: "Do you have any people in mind that would want to take me in?"

"I was thinking about two families that would most likely be more than willing to take you in: the first would be the Weasley family-"

"The Weasleys?" Harry interrupted him in surprise. "Why would they want another child?! They have seven already, don't they? I heard they have money problems too. I'd be a big burden for them."

Dumbledore had the decency to at least look sheepish. He faked a cough in his fist once and said:

"The other family, well, you are actually distantly related to them through your father. I believe that the Blacks - Bellatrix Black - would be willing to take you in."

Even with his mastery over Occlumency and control over his emotions Harry almost choked on his spit.

AN: I misspelt "goodest" on purpose. We all know how we talk when we interact with our lovely pets haha. If you found other typos and mistakes, well, those were not intended.

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Chapter 1260 - vg

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