Chapter six: Hogwarts
The morning of September first, Albus woke with a start as if he had been smacked in the face. A smile devolping on his face, he sat up from on the floor and looked over at the sleeping form of Harry on the bed. On the other side of the bed, on the floor, slept Tom. He was snoring softly.
Albus stood and shook Harry. "Wake up!" he said loudly, grinning happily. Harry shifted positions and slapped at the air. "G'way."
Albus shook Harry again, then proceeded to roll him across the bed. "Stop," Harry mumbled, then tumbled off the other side of the bed, right on top of Tom, who let out a loud grunt. "What's--? Hey!!"
Harry opened his eyes and looked at the blurry form of a wide-awake Tom, then looked at Albus, who was chuckling.
"Do you mind?" snapped Tom at Harry. "You're sitting on me."
Harry blinked. "How'd I fall off the bed? I never do that!"
Albus smiled innocently. "Today we're going to school!" he announced happily and childishly, like a five-year-old would say on their first day of school.
"At six o'clock in the morning!?" barked Tom.
"Yes," said Albus, frowning. "There's nothing wrong with getting up at six in the morning."
"I can think of a lot of wrong reasons," growled Tom, throwing his covers off and glaring at a shrugging Albus.
"Keep those to yourself," said Harry, finding his glasses in the floor. "Then tell someone who cares."
"Shut up. I'm not a morning person, okay?"
Harry ignored him.
"Could you get off me?" said Tom, annoyed at Harry's lack of response and realizing Harry felt heavier than he looked.
Harry stood and walked over to his already-packed trunk, making sure it was still locked. Albus and Tom gathered their wizards' robes and their wands, when a flash of flame made Tom jump.
"Stupid bird!!" he said loudly. Fawkes glared at him.
Harry and Albus were used to the phoenix's presence and his appearances by fire, but Tom despised it greatly. "If it were my way, I'd fry that stupid chicken," he'd always say, much to Albus's annoyance. But Harry always wondered how exactly you could fry a phoenix, for they're always associated with fire.
They all three realized that Fawkes had a small object clutched in his claws. Albus bounded forward and took it from him, then sat it on the bed. Exposed, Harry realized it was a small, cracked, drinking glass.
"What's that for?" asked Harry, eyeing it.
"It's a Portkey, you prat," said Tom.
"Thank you very much," snarled Harry.
"Well, you asked," Tom grinned over at him and Harry rolled his eyes. Albus glanced up at them then looked back down at the Portkey. "Everyone get your things," he said. "This portkey sets off in exactly two minutes, starting now. Harry, you might want to hurry and tell your relatives you're leaving."
Harry ran out the door immediately.
Albus looked over at Hedwig. "Hedwig," he said. "Harry will be at Hogwarts. Fly there."
Hedwig tilted her head to the side slightly before bobbing her head and hopping toward the window, where she swiftly fluttered out of it with a soft hoot. Albus picked up Hedwig's cage and held it, picking up the Portkey with his other hand.
"Go ahead and put a finger on it, Tom," said Albus, "he'll be back up here in a second."
Harry did arrive in a matter of seconds, where he looked around quickly, shut his window, and grabbed his trunk, then put a finger on the Portkey. "Exactly thirty seconds," muttered Albus. "Get ready."
It seemed much longer than thirty seconds, as they all stood there in a tight circle, touching the cracked glass and staring at it.
Just as Harry looked up at Albus, he felt a jerk behind his navel and saw the world spinning in many colors before him, Tom and Albus bumping along beside him.
Their feet slammed to the ground hard, and Tom fell upon Harry, who hit something very hard and wooden.
"You're terribly uncoordinated," sighed Harry as he rubbed his head and Tom got off him. He realized they had landed in Albus's office, and he had hit his head on Albus's desk. Upon standing up, he looked behind him to see a wary Professor McGonagall carefully eyeing Tom.
"Hi, Professor," said Harry quietly. The room had suddenly gone very silent.
"Hello, Potter," she whispered back, avoiding Tom's eyes, so looking straight at Albus.
"Albus?" she asked, her brow furrowed. "Is that you?"
"Indeed, Minerva," said Albus. "As you can see, I've turned considerably younger."
"I'll say," she managed to smile. Out of the corner of her eyes, however, she was watching Tom look curiously around the room.
"Hadn't been here in years," he muttered, looking at all of the portraits. One of them, Headmaster Dippet, looked down incredulously at Tom.
"My word," he gasped. "If it isn'tTom Riddle!"
"Errr...yes," he muttered. "I mean, no. Oh, whatever. Albus, where's my room so I can get out of this damned office of yours?"
Albus looked slightly aggrivated. "Well, Minerva, please stay here. I will show Tom to his room and return here to talk to you. Harry, you can follow along."
McGonagall nodded and the three teenagers walked out of the office. Tom looked around all of the halls as they walked up to the third floor. "I had forgotten all about this school," he said. "I've never felt as strange as I do now."
"Would that feeling be..err...recognition?" asked Albus with a raised eyebrow as they stood in front of a bare spot in the wall, with portraits surrounding it.
Tom shrugged. "Why did we stop?"
"Because we are at your room."
Tom stared at him. "What?"
"I guess there's a secret entranceway then," said Harry. "What, do you have to have a password?"
"Precisely," said Albus, facing the wall. "A doorway, please."
The bare spot on the wall glowed gold and as the shimmer disappeared, a wooden door with a golden knob appeared in its place.
Harry looked midly surprised. "Yet another secret inside Hogwarts," he said. "Is that the password? 'A doorway, please'?"
Albus nodded and opened the door, holding it open for the other two. They walked inside and into a large and cozy room. A bed was in a corner, a small table beside it. There was a window, a desk, and two armchairs, with a bigger table in front of them. There was a door on the left wall, and another one beside it.
"That door leads to your bathroom," said Albus, pointing at the first door. "The second door is your closet. That big table in front of the armchairs is where your food will appear. Now, whatever is being served in the Great Hall will also appear here at the same time. If you find yourself hungry or thirsty whenever meals aren't being served, you simply tap the table with your wand and say what you want."
Tom nodded. "No fireplace in here?"
Albus smiled slightly. "No, because you'd Floo away, or Floo someone else here."
"I hate that you're so smart," sighed Tom. "What if I want to get out and stretch my legs a bit?"
"I don't think that would be such a good idea," said Albus. "A few students may recognize you."
Tom rolled his eyes. "No one here knows what Tom Riddle looks like."
"Ginny Weasley does," pointed Harry.
Tom ignored him and sat down on his bed, which happened to be very comfortable. "This bed feels a lot better than yours," he said to Harry.
"Any bed does," Harry said.
"Well, I must be off to talk to Minerva," said Albus. "Harry, you can come up to office and get your things, then go ahead and put them in your dormitory."
And so he and Harry left, leaving Tom by himself, staring at the clock, which read 6:30.
"A perfect time to catch up on sleep," he muttered, taking off his shoes and relaxing lazily on the bed.
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Harry was on his way to Gryffindor Tower, a lot of things on his mind. The quiet castle left him to wonder about everything uninterrupted.
He wondered about whether people would want him to continue D.A. meetings, wondered who the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was, and worried mostly about Tom.
It wasn't Tom's well-being that Harry was afraid of. It was that Tom Riddle was still Lord Voldemort, and one of the two most powerful wizards in the world, and would now be staying at his school with all of his friends and teachers. For some reason, it worried him more than Tom sleeping in his own bedroom.
He reached the portrait to Gryffindor Tower sooner than he had expected, and the Fat Lady looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. "Password?"
"Err...I dunno," said Harry, mentally cursing himself for not asking Albus the password.
"How did you get here so early? And why?" she sighed.
"Must you interrogate me?" asked Harry, annoyed. "Look, Albu--uh--Dumbledore's just--err--I mean--"
He growled. "What I'm trying to say is that I've arrived here early on special circumstances and had no idea that passwords would already be issued this early."
She stared at him hard. "Very well," she finally mumbled. "I'll let you in this one time...but no more without a password!"
Harry nodded and she opened up for him. He smelt the familiar scent of the common room, and inhaled it happily, walking toward the stairs up to the dormitories. He felt a sudden surge of excitement for tonight, when he'd see his friends and the new teacher.
He collapsed on his comfortable bed for a short nap, smiling to himself.
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It was soon evening, and Harry was eagerly wandering the school to try and burn off his excited energy. When he reached the third floor, he paused in the middle of one of the corridors, looking to his right at the bare space of wall between two portraits. With a grin, he approached the wall.
"A doorway, please."
The door he had seen this morning appeared, the brass knob twinkling from the light of the torches on the wall. He rapped his knuckles upon it smartly.
"Albus?" came a terribly annoyed voice. "Is that you again, damn it?"
Harry snorted. "Uh, no. It's Harry."
"What do you want?" he snapped.
"What's gotten into you?" he said loudly as he opened the door without Tom's permission. He walked in to see Tom in one of his chairs, looking a bit bloated with his hands on his stomach, and the table covered with food and crumbs that were either wholly or partially eaten.
"Couldn't wait for the feast?" asked Harry, biting his bottom lip to prevent himself from laughing.
"What do you want?" Tom repeated irritably, belching loudly then sighing. "That felt better."
"I'll take it you weren't this constantly hungry back in your Dark Lord days."
Tom sat up. "Spit it out already! I haven't got time to listen to your rambling. You know, I can hex you since we're at Hogwarts."
"I wish you'd quit acting like a--a--nevermind. I just wanted to stop by. Do you have any idea what the Gryffindor password is?" he asked stupidly.
"That's a stupid question--"
"I know, I just realized that right after I asked it," Harry said quickly, turning toward the door. "Anyway, I'll leave you with your...err...obsession, and don't get constipated."
Tom snarled, brandishing a chicken leg at him warningly. "I am not obsessed with food. And I don't get constipated."
"That's what you say now," said Harry, putting a hand on the doorknob. "I won't talk to you later."
"Good," growled Tom.
"Grouchy git," he muttered as he walked out of Tom's room, slamming the door behind him just because he could.
But Tom's sourness did not ruin his fairly good mood, and he pranced (A/N: Okay, no, he didn't prance) down to the Great Hall, where the teachers all sat (minus Albus). No one sat in Dumbledore's usual chair, McGonagall was sitting beside it in her usual seat.
At first, Harry did not notice a new figure sitting beside Hagrid, but then his jaw dropped. Kingsley? Kingsley was teaching here?
He walked up quickly to the staff table, where many of the teachers greeted him (Professor Snape did not, he spent his time ignoring him) and he looked up at Kingsley.
"I heard you spent a whole summer with the Dark Lord," said Kingsley in his very deep voice, winking at him.
"Oh yeah," laughed Harry. "It was certainly something I never want to go through again. What are you doing here, Kingsley?"
"Well, now I'm officially called Professor Shacklebolt," said Kingsley. "If that's a good enough clue."
"So you are the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" he asked, grinning.
"I'd tell you to wait until the feast to find out, but since you're here quite a bit earlier.....yes, I am."
Harry grinned again.
"The carriages should be pulling up," said McGonagall, looking at what looked to Harry like a wristwatch. "I guess I should retreive the first years."
She stood and exited the hall. After telling Kingsley that he'd see him later, he followed her out but instead he went into the Entrance Hall and out toward where the carriages were pulling up to the school. His smile vanished as his eyes clapped upon the animals pulling them.
The thestrals.
A chill went down his spine as he saw them, they reminded him of flying to the Department of Mysteries, and the Department of Mysteries reminded him of...
He turned away and looked the other direction, several emotions plaguing him at the same time. It wasn't until a large rush of students engulfed him did he turn around, determinedly keeping his eyes on the faces of the students.
"Harry!"
Harry turned toward his left, where a tall red-headed boy was waving his hand in the air. "Over here!"
He made his way toward Ron with difficulty. When he reached him, the first thing he noticed was the Prefect badge on his robes. Ron flushed slightly, noticing him looking at it.
"I....errr...dunno how I got it again," he explained, shrugging. "Have you seen--?"
"Hermione? No, I was just about to ask you. I need to talk to you both about something."
Ron looked at him with slight alarm. "What's wrong, mate?"
"Wrong?" repeated Harry. "Well, I suppose it's quite wrong, but no need to panic."
Ron merely stared at him, and a bushy-haired girl came up beside them.
"Hello, Harry!!" she exclaimed, smiling. "I'm so sorry we couldn't send you letters, Pig got in some trouble, we think he was intercepted."
"So I heard," said Harry. "That's alright, I've been kind of...errr...busy with everything this summer."
"Are your relatives working you hard again, Harry?" she said, crossing her arms.
"No, no," said Harry quickly. "It's something else. Look, let's go somewhere, I need to tell you something."
"But the feast's about to start!" shrieked Hermione. The Entrance Hall was now almost empty except for themselves and a few last-minute people.
"This is a bit more important than the feast, I think."
"But I want to see who the new teacher is for Defense Against the Dark Arts!" said Ron.
"It's Kingsley," answered Harry. "We can come back later for food, I need to talk to you two."
Hermione sighed. "If it can't wait, then fine. Ron and I have a Prefects meeting after the feast though."
She gestured at the badge on her chest.
"Alright, come on," said Harry, beginning to walk away, them following along.
He led them into one of the old classrooms and they all sat down.
"Okay, I'll get right to the point," began Harry, sitting on top of a dusty desk.
"Over the summer, Voldemort came to the park near my house and tried to kill me." He held up a hand as Hermione gasped. "Hang on. But Dumbledore Apparated there and the two of them started dueling. But one of Voldemort's curses went off course and headed toward me, so I tried to defend myself."
They were staring at him, listening intently.
"I don't know exactly what I yelled, but the spell hit Voldemort then ricocheted and hit Dumbledore, then the next thing I knew, a whole bunch of mist had came and cleared then Dumbledore and Voldemort had been turned into sixteen year olds."
"What?" Ron practically shouted. "You turned them into teenagers?!"
"Yeah. Accidentally, though!! Anyway, it turns out that the spell I put on them is actually a permanent Aging Spell and is also illegal. But since Voldemort put up temporary and powerful wards around the park, the spell wasn't detected. So...well...Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore had to live with me until this morning, when we came here."
"Oh, no, Harry! They've been turned back, haven't they?" said Hermione, her eyes widening.
"Err...no. Only a potion can turn them back. It's called the Phoenixflower Potion..."
He continued to explain about the spell, the potion, and managed to throw in a few details of his interesting summer in the company of his headmaster and a Dark Lord.
"Well, who's the Headmaster right now?" asked Ron when Harry had finished.
"Headmistress," corrected Harry. "McGonagall."
"Oh yeah...so all the teachers know about this?"
"Apparently," sighed Harry. "I think the feast is about over," he muttered, jumping off his desk.
He looked out of the door.
"Yeah, McGonagall's saying a few words...just the normal routine," he said.
He beckoned for Ron and Hermione to follow him as he quietly opened the door and walked out. They followed him and they soon found themselves in the middle of a crowd of sleepy students ready to go to bed.
"I'm not that hungry," said Harry truthfully. "So you and Hermione can go down to the kitchens if you like, I don't think the house-elves will mind too much about getting you something."
Hermione huffed something and Harry ignored her. He had had a whole summer spent with a very ill Tom Riddle and had learned to ignore anyone who disagreed with him.
But Ron and Hermione did go down to the kitchen, leaving Harry to go by himself up to his dormitory, where Neville, Dean, and Seamus were changing clothes.
"Hey, Harry," said Dean. "How'd the summer go?"
Harry grinned. "Well, it was kind of weird and went by quite fast, but otherwise all right. How about yours?"
"All right," he shrugged. "Seamus got an owl but one of his neighbors shot it before it could deliver a letter."
Seamus nodded. "Me mam went mad, that owl was expensive."
"I can understand," said Harry, changing his own clothes and climbing into bed. "You're awefully quiet, Neville."
Neville looked over at him. "Just tired," he mumbled. "Ready to go to sleep. Why weren't you at the feast?"
Harry racked his brain for excuses. "Didn't feel like it, and I wasn't too hungry. I didn't feel like I could sit through the sorting." This was halfway true, and Neville bought it.
"Yeah, it gets kind of boring sometimes," he agreed. "G'night."
"Night," said Harry.
Dean and Seamus stopped their own chatting and Harry settled down in his bed.
"Where's Ron?" whispered Dean.
"In the kitchens," said Harry quietly. "Nicking some food, he didn't go to the feast either."
"Oh."
And so the room fell silent. It wasn't until about an hour later that Ron finally came in, and everyone was asleep except for Harry, who decided he'd keep quiet unless he was spoken to.
"You awake, Harry?" Ron whispered.
"Yeah," muttered Harry. "What took you two so long?"
"Told you I was hungry," he said.
Harry yawned. "Got a pretty long day tomorrow, Ron," he said. "Guess we should go to sleep."
"Right."
And soon, they all had fallen into a peaceful sleep, luckily nightmareless for Harry.
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The following day, the trio sat in the Great Hall for breakfast, discussing O.W.L.'s.
"What did you get?" asked Ron to Harry eagerly.
"Err..let me see," he screwed his eyes up, trying to think, "A, O, E, O, D, E, O,O."
"Bloody hell," muttered Ron as Hermione congratulated Harry. "How did you get such good grades?"
Harry shrugged. "But I got an O in Potions--"
"YOU WHAT?"
"Keep your voice down!" snapped Hermione. "People are staring at you!"
Ron flushed slightly. "You got an O in Potions? I got an Acceptable!"
"I got an O as well," said Hermione proudly. "As well as in every class. Except Astronomy. Got an Exceeds Expectations in that."
"Big surprise, eh?" muttered Ron, snickering.
Harry grinned. "Yeah. Ron, what all did you get?"
"I got an A in Potions, as you know. An O in Defense Against the Dark Arts, an E in Charms and Transfiguration, and well, I also got a D in Divination. And a P in History of Magic, an A in Astronomy, an O in Care of Magical Creatures, and an E in Herbology. I don't know how I got that. Anyway, not that good."
"Nah, you got seven out of nine," said Harry. "I only got one more than you."
"When are Quidditch tryouts?" asked Ron, wanting to change the subject.
"This next weekend," said Harry, looking carefully at Ron. "You're still on the team, you know."
"Err...I am?" he said timidly.
"That's right, you're still the Keeper, I'm the returning Seeker, and hopefully Ginny will try out for Chaser like she wanted to. I just have to find one more chaser and the beaters. I'm getting rid of Kirke and Sloper."
"I forgot you were Quidditch Captain," he admitted, slightly embarrassed, for Harry had on the Quidditch Captain badge.
"Well, ready for N.E.W.T. classes?" asked Harry.
Ron opened his mouth to answer when the doors opened and there stood Tom Riddle, a small grin on his face.
"I just had to stretch my legs," he said loudly, but not everyone noticed him.
However, Ginny jumped up and screamed, and Harry jumped up as well, swearing.
"Ginny!" he said sharply. "Listen, sit down, he's--"
But she screamed again. "Sit down!" yelled Ron.
He and Hermione went to calm her down, and by that time, everyone was staring at them. Tom grinned even wider.
"My, my," he said, chuckling with amusement.
Harry rolled his eyes and slammed his spoon on the table, stomping toward Tom angrily.
'Stupid idiot,' he thought savagely. 'Trying to get himself in a whole lot of trouble, isn't he?'
Harry grabbed Tom's arm and spun him around roughly, marching him out of the Great Hall, where he slammed the doors behind him and started dragging Tom toward his room.
"Are you bloody stupid?" said Harry in a hushed voice. "What do you think you're doing? Risking a little jaunt? Do you want to get killed, huh?"
Tom raised an eyebrow at him. "You're making a really big deal out of this."
"Actually, no, I'm not," he snapped. "You're making stupid decisions. If Albus found out that you marched into the Great Hall, he'll be angrier than--"
"Pssshh," he said, waving an indifferent hand in front of him. "Albus wouldn't touch me."
Harry laughed. "Yeah, we'll see about that. Now that Ginny Weasley knows you're in this school, there's a one hundred percent chance that Albus is going to find out about it, because she's gonna want an explanation, and I don't feel like describing it again."
"Then don't!" he said irritably, jerking his arm away from Harry. "Let her live with it!"
"Git," he growled quietly. "Get in your room, you dumb prat...A doorway, please."
The door appeared and Harry opened it, thrusting Tom inside the room.
"Get it through your head now," said Harry, sighing and calming down slightly. "You're not supposed to come out of your room. Later."
He slammed the door in Tom's snarling face and put a Colloportus on the door, even though he knew perfectly well Lord Voldemort could get past the door even with the charm.
So Ginny Weasley was now scared to death that her nightmare had walked through the Great Hall, and Albus Dumbledore was overwhelmed with her gibbering and shouts as she sat upstairs in his office, staring at the sixteen year old former Headmaster with Ron and Hermione beside her.
So the first day started out really wonderful. Yeah, right.