Chapter four

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry sighed and sat down in his favourite armchair.

The last month had not gone well for him. His former mentor had entrusted him with an object of devastating power, an object that many would kill or torture to procure. The fountain of youth. The Philosophers stone. He had had it placed in a special vault in the most secure bank in the world and it was still stolen.

The very day he was going to have it transferred to an even safer place, one that he himself could watch over, somebody had broken in and achieved the impossible. A successful Gringotts robbery.

Only one person could have the skill and daring to succeed where so many others had failed. Tom Riddle. The dark lord Voldemort.

Albus knew that he was still alive, clinging on somehow, waiting in the shadows for a chance to return. He had hoped for more time. Just that evening, the child of the prophecy had been sorted. There was no way a child of eleven could comprehend the responsibility that had been set on his shoulders. It was up to him to buy Harry all the time he could

What worried him most of all was the blatant lack of warning. There had been no signs to speak of, nothing to indicate that evil was stirring. If anything, in the past few months dark creature attacks had actually decreased. During the rise of both Voldemort and Grindlewald the darkness seemed to stir. Signs had been there if one knew where to look, but now…nothing.

Nicholas had known something though, the fact that he was worried about the safety of the stone had proven that. More than six hundred years of life would give any man the ability to sense when times are changing.

Somehow, without anyone noticing, Voldemort had moved his first piece.

Albus was broken out of his thoughts when a small flame burst into life on his desk. The flame dissipated and a small scrap of parchment was left.

“All may not be lost.”

Albus Dumbledore decided it was time for him to make his own move.

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Quirenius Quirrell sat before the fireplace of his rooms. He stared vacantly into the flames for what seemed like the thousandth time as the parasite he was carrying slowly suppressed his mind and took control.

Lord Voldemort sat before the fireplace of his rooms. He was confident that Dumbledore suspected nothing. It was irksome that he had to bury himself in the mind of this wretched host whenever Dumbledore was near.

He could feel himself growing stronger by the day. The elixir of life was a truly wonderful thing. With it he could now completely possess Quirrell. He smiled as an insane rage washed over him. He had been so sure that it would work. The stone would supposed to restore his body, restore the visage of the greatest dark lord in history. It was flawed. It would indeed grant him a body but not the one he wished. Through trial and error, he had come to the conclusion that the stone regenerated body and soul. His soul was far too fractured for it to work, it would at best deliver him a crippled and deformed body. Nothing more than a wraith.

Suppressing a flare of magic that rode his rage like a wave, he cleared his mind. All was not lost. His magic was stronger now, there were several different ways he could regain a body. All extraordinarily difficult but manageable none the less. And of course the most interesting event of the evening. Potter.

The boy that had caused his downfall could sense him. He was amused when he realised that the boy blamed Severus, he did seem the type. The boy had power, that much was clear. Enough to trouble him? Not yet. There was a darkness in the boy, he could prove to be a valuable ally in the future.

He could afford to bide his time. He would eventually remove the Diadem, looking back, it had been folly to hide it in a school full of curious students. He could not take that chance with a part of his soul.

A whole generation of potential followers were ripe for the picking. This time, he would do it right. This time, he would win.

‘No’ he mused,’ all is not lost.’

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Harry made his way through the winding corridors of Hogwarts, intent on finding his way to the great hall. The other boys in the dorm hadn’t woken yet and Padma was nowhere to be seen. Eager to see more of the castle, he had departed for breakfast.

Twenty minutes and a few wrong turns later, Harry emerged at the top of the staircase leading to the entrance hall. Dodging a sneering old man  in a filthy brown coat who he assumed was the caretaker, he made it into the great hall. It was early on a Sunday morning, most of the students had taken this time to sleep in. With the exception of some of the staff and a few other first and second years from different houses, Harry was alone.

He sat down and helped himself to a bacon sandwich and a glass of ‘pumpkin juice‘. After a few minutes he was distracted from his breakfast when someone sat down opposite him. The ‘someone’ in question was a girl with medium length brown hair and clear blue eyes.

“Hi, I’m Lisa Turpin.” She said brightly.

“Harry Potter, nice to meet you.” he responded.

She leaned forward conspiratorially “So…is it true that you’re Dumbledore’s apprentice?” she whispered?

Harry choked on his pumpkin juice, “What? Where did you hear that? I’ve never even met the man.”

“Oh, I heard it on the train yesterday. Some red haired boy was telling everyone that you’re set to be the next Dumbledore so it’s only natural that you are his apprentice. Now that I think of it, he did seem to be rambling. He was telling everyone that he has a signed poster of you.”

“Poster?”, Exclaimed Harry.

“Yeah, I saw one in Diagon Alley a while back, it didn’t look anything like you though. My Aunt says that the ministry were trying to get rid of them.”

Filing away that piece of information, Harry continued the conversation. “So, did you get the house you wanted?”

Lisa lit up, “Yeah, I’ve always wanted to be a Ravenclaw. What about you? I know it must be irritating but it‘s almost surreal to be in the same year and house as the boy who lived.”

Harry grimaced, he was getting used to the whole ‘fame’ business but it still surprised him from time to time. “I really didn’t mind, I’m happy with Ravenclaw, we have a nice head of house and apart from Gryffindor, it’s the only house that has someone I know in it.”

This time it was Lisa’s turn to grimace. “Yeah, about that, we kind of kept Padma up most of last night, we were curious and she was the only person we knew who had actually talked to you. Don‘t expect her to be in a brilliant mood this morning.”

Harry wasn’t too concerned, having dealt with Aunt Petunia in the morning he was pretty sure he could manage.

Harry sat talking to Lisa for a while longer, she was amusing enough and was nice company. He was broken away from his little chat when a tired looking Padma sat down beside him, she was accompanied by the same nervous looking boy that Harry had tried to talk to before the Grey lady interrupted him.

“Morning Padma” said Harry before turning his attention to the boy before him. “I’m Harry Potter nice to meet you.”

The unnamed boy looked up, “Kevin Entwhistle, I got lost looking for the hall, Padma found me”, he said sheepishly.

Harry grinned, “Took me a while too, I was going to take a look around the castle later, any of you interested?”

Lisa and Kevin agreed enthusiastically while Padma muttered her agreement while reaching for a cup tea.

“She”, Padma said while glaring good naturedly  at Lisa, “kept me up most of the night talking about the legend of the great Harry Potter. Tell me Lisa, does he measure up?”

Harry had to give it to her, Padma had the beginnings of a very nasty streak.

Harry awoke groggily on Monday morning. Excited about his first day of classes, he quickly got dressed before crossing the dorm to shake Kevin awake.

“Breakfast mate, we’re getting our timetables this morning.”

Yesterday had been an opportunity for him to get to know Kevin and Lisa a bit better. They spent the better part of the day memorizing the quickest route from the tower to the great hall and lounging around the grounds. Kevin while somewhat shy and quiet had proved to be anything but a starry eyed fan. He had asked a few questions as most people had but for a change, he seemed satisfied  with Harry’s answers, or rather, lack of them.

Lisa was in one word, energetic, she and Padma had fast become friends. They had talked about cloths and giggled as girls that age were prone to, but it didn’t fool Harry. However childish they acted they were Ravenclaws for a reason a point they had proven several times the day before.

The great hall was busier than the day before. Most of the student population were sitting at their respective tables chatting, eating or reading a paper. Harry and Kevin spotted the girls and made their way over to sit down.

“Morning Padma, Lisa.” Harry greeted. Kevin sat down and mumbled another round of ‘morning’.

After some light conversation and breakfast, Professor Flitwick reached them and with a small smile in Harry’s direction and a general hello to the others, gave out their timetables. Finishing of their breakfasts, Harry and his friends left for their first day of Hogwarts education.

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The first week of classes flew by in a haze of homework and magic. The only subject that Harry didn’t look forward to was Potions. After his first class with Snape, it had become clear that the man had some sort of grudge against him. Charms and Transfiguration were easily his best subjects, even the strict Professor McGonagall was impressed with his progress.

Harry proved to have an aptitude at flying, Madam Hooch had already recommended him to Roger Davies for next years  Quidditch team.

Defence was somewhat of a letdown, instead of practising the basic spells that first years were supposed to learn, Quirrell would tell them stories of famous dark wizards and how they met their downfall.  He hadn’t broached the topic of Voldemort yet but with the way he occasionally glanced at him, Harry could tell that he was just as interested as the boys in his dorm that were constantly asking him about it.

Without proper defence lessons, Harry, Padma, Lisa and Kevin had taken to using abandoned classrooms to practise their spell casting. It was more fun to Harry than work, the four would take turns trying to hit each other with various hexes from the defence section of the library. Even though Harry considered it fun, he noticed the more he cast a certain spell, the more efficient it would be.

Overall, things were going well until their first Charms class. The Levitation charm was ridiculously simple, Harry had mastered the feather on his first go. Professor Flitwick had shot him an approving smile and passed him a small book to practise with. Padma and Lisa had both successfully cast the spell and were tickling each other with stray feathers. Kevin was a different story, while he excelled in Transfiguration, Charms was becoming a big problem for him.

Harry watched him from the corner of his eye. Finally Kevin grew agitated and shouted ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ while waving his wand wildly. The feather shuddered and slowly lifted off the desk…before bursting into flames and rocketing into Su Li’s hair. The usually polite girl screamed and started beating at her hair while the class looked on torn between shock and laughter.

Flitwick hurried over to her and doused her head with a quick ‘Aguamenti’ . Soaking and furious, Su slowly turned her gaze towards Kevin who swallowed nervously.

“Su, I’m s…”

Before Kevin could even finish his sentence, Su whipped out her wand, “Rictusempra” she roared. The dull blue light of the tickling charm hit Kevin square in the face knocking him from his chair.

Su, looking somewhat satisfied, turned around and stalked back to her desk leaving Kevin roaring in laughter on the floor as he tried to escape the invisible hands that were tickling him. Harry struggled to hold back in laughter and frowned as he noticed Michael Corner give Kevin a disgusted look before muttering something apparently amusing to Terry Boot.

He cast a quick ‘finite’ on Kevin while Flitwick was busy collecting points from Su and helped the boy up.

“Are you ok?” He asked.

“I’m fine, I deserved it, Morgana Harry I set her hair on fire” Kevin muttered dejectedly.

“Well, yeah, but in fairness she was a bit hot headed.”

Kevin looked at Harry with a raised eyebrow, “That was possibly the worst pun I have ever heard, seriously Harry…that was terrible.”

“It worked didn’t it?” Harry managed to get out before they both collapsed in laughter.

Harry turned the corner that led to the Ravenclaw common room, muttering the password he ascended the stairs. After dinner he had taken a trip to the library. He had been recommended a book called “Voyages with Vampires”, as a work of fiction it was terrible, as an autobiography…it was worse. Never again would he read a book recommended to him by Padma Patil, he had a sneaking suspicion that she had set him up.

He entered the dormitory to find Kevin backed up against his bed with Michael Corner, Terry Boot and Stephen Cornfoot in a semicircle around him. Harry rolled his eyes.

“What are you idiots doing?” he asked.

Michael turned and eyed him warily, “Potter, we were just having a little chat with Kevin.”

“May I ask what about?”

“Come off it Harry, you were in Charms today, you saw it. He’s an embarrassment to Ravenclaw. We were just enquiring as to how he wasn’t put in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.”

“Hold on, what? Michael you were the one who couldn’t turn his match into a needle in Transfiguration. Who are you to decide who is or isn’t an embarrassment? And what are you two fools doing surrounding him? Going to cripple him with tickling charms?” Harry asked with his eyebrow raised.

“Shut up Harry, you aren’t that great yourself. You’re good enough but not what everyone was expecting. I bet it was Dumbledore who killed ‘you-know who’. He probably didn’t want any more fame, my dad says that’s why he wouldn’t be minister.” Michael replied smugly.

“You shut up Corner”, surprisingly it was Kevin who spoke up. “You’re just jealous because your dad couldn’t do it. ‘Master Auror Corner’ couldn’t do a thing.”

Michael turned red and aimed his wand at Kevin but Harry was too quick for him, “Furnunculus”, he growled. The pale orange light erupted from Harry’s wand and hit Michael in the chest causing him to curse and drop his wand. Terry and Stephen just looked on quietly.

He calmly walked up to Michael who was on his knees groping his chest as boils erupted and moved outwards from the source of impact. “I don’t like bullies Michael, apologise to Kevin and I won’t hex you again, deal?”

Michael looked up pleadingly but seeing only an impassive face he turned to Kevin, “Sorry, won’t happen again.” He said before running out of the dorm, presumably to find someone who could lift the hex.

Terry and Stephen muttered their apologies looking vaguely embarrassed, before heading to their four-posters and drawing the curtains.

“You okay Kevin?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, thanks for the help there mate.”

“No problem, see you in the morning, we’ve got a flying lesson and I’ve got a Padma to kill.”

Harry went to bed, not noticing Kevin’s confused and slightly awed look.