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Chapter Text

"Boy!"

Harry Potter blinked a few times, shaking himself awake, and yawned. "Yes, Uncle Vernon?"

"Get up! I won't have you lazing around with chores to do before school!"

"Yes, Uncle," Harry replied, flexing to get the cricks out, then put his glasses on and turned the handle of his cupboard door. It opened, and he crawled out before curling his tail into a coil to prevent it from bashing into anything.

His wings stayed furled as he made his way into the kitchen, and began making breakfast for the whole Dursley family.

Sometimes, Harry wondered if perhaps his home life was a little bit odd, but it was a little hard to tell. Yes, he hadn't met any other dragons, and he could vaguely remember having not been a dragon at some point, but he'd almost never run into anybody who was the vaguest bit surprised. So perhaps he was a special kind of normal which everyone was used to?

He certainly wasn't like the dragons in the stories in the school library, either. Those dragons were usually big and scary and liked carrying off Princesses and stealing gold, and when they didn't do that and were nice they still grew up very quickly – but Harry was almost eleven, and he was still smaller than his cousin who wasn't even a dragon. He was like those story-book dragons because he liked to live in a lair, perhaps, but it was only the cupboard under the stairs.

As he thought about what they might be doing in school today – it was very nearly the end of their time at primary school, and that meant they might be allowed to do what they wanted – Harry absently ate the eggshells from the fried eggs he'd made, then tipped the eggs onto plates along with rashers of bacon and slices of toast.

Balancing one plate on his back and the other two on his wings, he made his way into the dining room and slid all three onto the table.

"Hm," Aunt Petunia said. "Don't forget to do extra for Dudley, he's a growing boy."

Harry couldn't dispute that – his cousin had certainly been growing for years, mostly outwards. So he nodded, furling his wings in case he knocked anything over. "Yes, Aunt Petunia. Is it all right if I open another packet of bacon?"

"Of course you should open another packet if there's not enough in the open one!" she told him sharply. "Now hurry up!"

Really, Harry summarized – landing in the playground with a thump ten minutes before the school bell – he could have had it a lot worse.

Oh, sure, sometimes his cousin tried to bully him, but Harry had long since learned that there wasn't really anything they could do to him. Dragons were tough enough that other boys couldn't really hurt him, and if Dudley was being annoying Harry could just fly up onto the roof and wait out the lunch hour there. It got him shouted at, but that wasn't really a huge problem either.

He wasn't really all that hungry, or uncomfortable in general, and somewhere his aunt and uncle had got the idea that shutting him in his cupboard without any food was a punishment – but they didn't like doing the chores themselves, so he was never shut in there long enough to actually become hungry.

Besides, flying was cool, and he could do a lot of that.

As Harry had expected, the teacher only spent enough time to take the register before telling them that they could do whatever they wanted for the day.

For a lot of the other children, that meant flooding out into the grounds to play ball games or run around having fun or sit in the sun, but Harry didn't like doing that much. He was pretty good at it, but it felt unfair to play a ball game because nobody else had a tail, and he had his eye on something else anyway.

It was a book from a couple of years ago which had just arrived in the school library, and it had a dragon on it. So Harry took it out and started reading, resting his head on his hands while a wing turned the pages.

It started off talking about someone called 'Carrot', which was a strange name for a person to be called, who had grown up as part of a family of dwarves in the mountains but who had just found out he was actually something else. That sounded sort of familiar to Harry, and he wondered whether there was a big city of dragons somewhere, but before he could go very far down that line of thinking his cousin interrupted him.

"Hey, Harry," Dudley sniggered. "How come you're reading that book?"

"Why not?" Harry replied, putting a talon in the book to mark his place.

"'cause only Nobby No Mates read books when they could be outside having fun," one of Dudley's interchangeable friends contributed.

"There's someone in this book called Nobby," Harry replied, getting up and heading for the door. "He does have a friend, though."

Dudley tried to grab at the book, and Harry blocked his hand with a wing. He pushed the doors open, spread both wings, and took off with a single powerful flap before landing on the school roof.

Sighing, he turned over to get the full benefit of the summer sun on his wings and belly, and continued reading.

It was quite a funny book, really.

Harry was still thinking about the book as he flew home.

There had been at least two kinds of dragons in the book, perhaps three, but Harry was quite sure he wasn't like any of them. He certainly wasn't a swamp dragon, those were all smelly and full of chemicals and they kept exploding, and Harry hadn't exploded even once no matter what he ate.

The second kind of dragon was the noble dragon, and those sounded a bit more like it but Harry was quite sure he wasn't one of those either. They sounded quite nasty, but more importantly they were all very big, and Harry wasn't nearly big enough.

The third kind of dragon was the silliest of all, and Harry was fairly sure he wasn't one of those either. If he was, he'd have blown the house up and achieved orbit some time last Christmas when he ate all the leftover Brussels Sprouts.

Still, those were story book dragons, and he was a real dragon. It wouldn't be surprising if real dragons were a bit different – like how real people were different to people in storybooks. After all, writing about real things was boring.

When Harry arrived back home, Aunt Petunia barely gave him a glance before telling him to sort out the garden. So that was what Harry did, cutting the dead-heads off the flower bushes (and eating them) and trimming the hedge (by eating it).

It was one of his favourite chores, and he sometimes thought it was a bit of a pity that he didn't have that job in winter. The cold had never really bothered him, and nor had the heat, but plants grew more in the summer so there wasn't as much point doing the gardening in the winter.

That done, and with the whole garden looking pristine, Harry moved on to cleaning up the inside of the house. All the things that Dudley had dropped but somehow not broken went up into the smallest bedroom, which currently served as Dudley's overflow for his hoard – or, rather, his possessions, though Harry thought of it as a hoard and had consequently found himself feeling quite empathetic with his larger, less-reptilian cousin.

The things which had actually broken and which weren't repairable, Harry followed a scrupulous pattern with. He took them to his aunt, asked what he should do, and then – when she inevitably told him to throw them away – ate them.

Funny little electronic games were actually quite tasty, with all sorts of flavours, and even a wooden toy could be appetizing. It was probably a valuable supplement to his diet or something, though Harry had never seen a version of the Food Pyramid which applied to dragons so he wasn't quite sure.

Then it was time for dinner to be prepared, and Harry did a lot of that as well – fetching, carrying, stirring for long boring periods, chopping things up with the knife… it only made sense for him to do the chopping, because the knife was sharp and his skin was essentially impervious to damage with a stainless steel knife (Harry had tried an experiment when he was nine, to see if his talons could be trimmed) so he was less in danger than Aunt Petunia would be. He was also learning a lot about cooking, as well, which was nice – even if he didn't use it for himself, being able to eat pretty much anything he'd ever tried, it would be good to be able to provide food for more human friends in future.

That, then, was Harry's general routine. In the holidays there was less school and only the same amount of chores, which usually meant more flying practice; he was quite good at it now, and it was something he was sure other dragons practiced a lot as well so it would be good to stay in shape for it.

Chapter Text

One fine day towards the end of July, the post clattered to the doormat.

"Get the post," Uncle Vernon grumbled.

Harry was already headed that way when his uncle asked, absently snacking on the empty milk carton, and swallowed it down with a gulp before picking up the letters.

There was one for Dudley – probably a late birthday card of some sort – and two or three others, but at the bottom of the pile was one with an address in green ink.

Harry Potter

The Cupboard Under The Stairs

4, Privet Drive

Little Winging

Surrey.

Tilting his head, Harry looked for a long moment at the very first letter he'd ever received.

Then he headed back to the breakfast table, stuffing the letter under the door of his cupboard on the way past, and handed the other letters out to their recipients.

The green-inked letter was the first time he'd ever got something addressed to him, and he was going to savour it.

It was mid-morning by the time the young drake finally managed to retire to his lair and examine the green-inked letter.

Whatever it was written on seemed to be quite thick, and felt different to the more normal paper he was used to. It also smelled a bit more strongly than paper did, but maybe that was just the way it was made – so Harry ignored that, and opened the letter up to see what it said.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

At this point Harry frowned, wondering what most of those words meant. He'd heard of witchcraft and wizardry, or at least of witches and wizards, usually in the same books which had dragons in them. But this sounded like it wasn't a story-book thing but a real thing?

Except that Merlin was definitely a story person, and what was a Sorc? He didn't have a clue what a Mugwump was, either…

On the whole, so far the letter was very confusing. So Harry read on.

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Well, it was certainly a letter that was meant for him, but he didn't remember doing any tests to be accepted into any schools with that sort of name. There had been the Eleven-Plus, which he'd done earlier that year, but Aunt Petunia had insisted that she wasn't going to pay to send him to a Grammar School after Dudley had failed and so had made sure he wasn't going to one of those.

Harry wasn't sure she understood how a Grammar School worked. But maybe this odd Hogwarts school had picked him because of that?

Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

And that was just odd. The list was certainly there, folded up underneath the main letter, but what did the bit about an owl mean?

A quick look at the equipment list did mention an owl, but that was a kind of pet and it was an option. Maybe they had an owl shortage? But if they did, Harry didn't think it would make any kind of sense for them to ask for owl donations from students.

Shrugging his wings, he skipped the signature and read through the list of required equipment.

The uniform seemed simple enough at first, robes and a pointed hat were a bit strange but he'd heard of sillier things in school uniforms, but the gloves made him stop and stare at the paper for a moment.

Dragon hide gloves?

Harry wondered if that meant this was actually a dragon school. It made a lot more sense that they'd be sending him a letter specifically because he was a dragon, but maybe it meant he'd done something wrong?

Last time he'd molted he'd been unsure what to do with it, and after some experimentation and plenty of mistakes the best he'd managed was to make a rain hat that covered his glasses. If he'd been supposed to save the bits that went over his paws, and he hadn't, maybe that would mean he'd be in trouble before even going there?

But that couldn't be right, could it? Molts happened because he needed to have a growth spurt, and all the old bits of molt skin were too small for him now. So maybe it was more complicated than that?

Muttering under his breath about this strange list of what he needed for school, Harry read down the list of course books – memorizing them and making a note of checking the local library later – and then the other equipment sounded even stranger.

Pewter? Well, pewter was sort of nice-tasting, if difficult to get hold of – the only place he'd managed to get any was some old toys Aunt Marge had given Dudley which Aunt Petunia had thrown out once Dudley had managed to break them all. But if this was a real school, especially if it was a real dragon school, then how did they stop the students from eating the cauldrons?

Maybe it was like pencils and pens, where you weren't supposed to eat them until they were no longer useful?

And the last bit of the letter said that students could bring a pet – an owl, or a cat, or a toad.

Harry sat down, thinking about that.

Well, owls were apparently running out anyway, so it wasn't a good idea to catch one of those if there was a shortage. And cats might be a bit better, but that one lady's cats kept freaking out whenever they saw him.

Harry briefly wondered how long it was since he'd actually met her – it felt like years! - but shrugged that off, and pondered briefly whether he should try and find a toad in the garden before deciding against it.

Now he'd finished it, a lot of it didn't really make much sense. Maybe it was some of that junk mail that Uncle Vernon kept talking about, which was always a bit of an odd name for it to Harry because he was fairly sure it was Americans who called letters mail and British people said post. That was why they had postboxes.

The next day, another letter arrived for Harry addressed in the same green ink.

Just as he had the first day, he put it in his cupboard on the way past, and as soon as he got some free time he was lying on his back with his tail halfway up the wall as he compared them.

Much to his surprise – and disappointment – the second letter explained no more than the first. In fact, the second letter explained exactly as much as the first had, being identical in every way.

Harry shrugged, put it with the first, and went about his day.

On the third day, the post arrived when Aunt Petunia was closer to the door. She picked up the letters, gasped, and hurried to show them to Uncle Vernon.

The two adults exchanged worried looks out of all proportion to how important simple junk mail was, in Harry's opinion – then tried to hide them away from him when he craned his neck to look.

"Stop it!" Aunt Petunia ordered. "Vernon, make him stop it!"

"I just want to see if it's another one of those letters," Harry explained politely, as Uncle Vernon completely failed to push Harry away. "I've read two already, they're exactly the same and they seem quite silly."

"You've read one?" Uncle Vernon demanded. "How did you get your hands on one of those… those… freakish letters?"

"I got the post," Harry pointed out, quite reasonably as far as he was concerned. "It's a pity, really, it's the first time there's been a letter addressed to me and it's all total nonsense. Something about a school that's taking donations of owls and wants me to bring pewter along or something, but they didn't give an address or a phone number."

He held out his paw. "If you want I'll put them down in my cupboard? That way they'll be out of the way, at least."

Harry had to demonstrate that he did indeed have two opened letters – and point out the things about them which just seemed ridiculous – but ultimately his case was made, and Aunt Petunia somewhat reluctantly surrendered the three letters that had arrived that day to his care.

That made a total of five, though about half of them were still in their envelopes, and Harry sighed a little as he looked at his new collection.

They were nice, and they were certainly his, but he did wish they made a bit more sense.

On the fourth day, there were ten letters on the doormat.

They all ended up in Harry's cupboard again, but Harry also spent half an hour helping Uncle Vernon hold up planks while his uncle hammered nails into the door. The planks blocked the letterbox off, which seemed a little bit extreme to the ten-year-old drake, but he had to admit that it was just getting annoying by now.

Surely it had to cost more to send all these letters than anyone could get back? And what did they think he was doing with the letters, exactly?

Harry's tail lashed back and forth as he contemplated exactly what the mysterious letter-sender could be thinking. Maybe they thought the letters were being used for firewood?

Then he nearly tripped his cousin up as Dudley ran up the stairs, and got sent to his cupboard again. Harry passed the time by opening another three envelopes and trying to see if he could do origami with them.

Despite Harry's vague mixture of anticipation and worry about the subject, no letters made their way through the letterbox on the fifth day.

The whole household had been up early enough for it, on tenterhooks to see if the plank plan would work, but by the time Harry began breakfast – an hour later than normal – they had all decided that Uncle Vernon's unorthodox plan had worked.

Humming a tune he'd overheard on the television through his cupboard door, Harry cracked the first egg into the frying pan.

A rolled-up letter came out, instead of a white and a yolk, and fell into the pan with a faint sizzle. Frowning, Harry fetched it out – not fearing the hot oil, because dragons didn't seem to have much truck with being uncomfortable because of being hot – and put it to the side before cracking the second egg.

A letter tumbled out of that one as well, and Harry looked properly at it this time. Sure enough, it was addressed in emerald green ink.

"Aunt Petunia?" he called.

"What is it?" his aunt asked, walking into the kitchen. "I told you, two eggs each for Dudders and Vernon, and..."

She paused, staring at the empty eggshells, the lack of eggs in the frying pan, and the rolled-up letters.

Harry took the opportunity to crack a third egg, from the box of twelve, and a letter came out of that one as well.

"Oh," Aunt Petunia said.

As she watched, Harry cracked egg after egg – going through the entire dozen – and got nothing but rolled-up letters.

"Should I do extra bacon and toast instead?" he asked.

"Yes, of course you should," she told him. "Vernon! Vernon, they did something!"

Harry listened with half an ear to the conversation, most of the rest of his attention on salvaging the already late breakfast. To save time, he ate while he was making it – both the eggshells, and the letters, which tasted really quite good.

He'd actually intended to only have one, but it tasted a lot better than paper usually did, and Harry ate eight of them before catching himself so he would have a few to add to his as-yet-tiny hoard.

Maybe that was why they were able to keep students from nibbling on things like cauldrons or pets? If paper there tasted this much better than normal paper, then it would be the way he'd make sure.

On day six, a few days before Harry's birthday, nothing happened on the letter front all morning.

There still weren't any eggs – Aunt Petunia had refused to get any more – and so breakfast was large slices of toast with bacon and sausages instead. After that Dudley had vanished upstairs to play on his specially imported games console from Japan, and Harry spent most of the morning tidying the living room.

Aunt Petunia had told him to do it without the vacuum cleaner to avoid disturbing Dudley, which was fair enough, and he was nearly finished scrubbing the carpets when a letter flew down the chimney.

And then another.

Harry stepped back a little warily, taking care not to knock over the soap bucket, and a flood of hundreds of letters came cascading out the fireplace – propelled with great force, some of them floating in the air and others crashing into the sofas or armchairs and falling to the ground.

When the deluge finally stopped, Harry rolled his eyes and snorted something he'd heard one of the kids at school call him. Then he began picking up the letters, twenty at a time, and moving them into his cupboard.

He'd feel a lot better about these letters if they didn't keep making life harder for him.

Some hours later, as he bedded down on an inch-high layer of parchment, Harry was feeling a bit more mellow towards the strange letters that had tried to literally flood into the house. Maybe it was the taste, or maybe it was how they did improve the comfort of his sleeping arrangements, but Harry felt like lying on top of all these things that were his was somehow… right.

Maybe this was what dragons actually hoarded? Harry knew that some dragons in the stories hoarded gold, though others didn't hoard anything at all, but the dragons in the stories were all a long time ago and gold wasn't used for money any more. It was all paper now, at least the valuable things were – some money was coins but they weren't worth as much.

And if dragons hoarded gold in the olden days even if it wasn't coins – and Harry definitely remembered there being shiny non-coin things in hoards in books – then maybe dragons these days hoarded paper even if it wasn't banknotes.

The next morning the chimney had been boarded up as well. Harry frowned at the sight, and asked Uncle Vernon whether maybe letters would come around the side of the door instead, and that prompted another half hour of hammering as Uncle Vernon boarded up all the sides of both the front door and the back door as well.

Fortunately Aunt Petunia had gone shopping the day before, so they had quite a lot of food in the fridge and in the cupboards, and for a wonder the day passed relatively normally – which meant that Harry's aunt and uncle relaxed a bit as no letters came through the pipes or out from under the wallpaper, and Dudley even asked Harry to come and play on the Super Nintendo with him.

Well, it was more like demanded, because Dudley wanted to play a two-player game, but Harry would take what he could get. At least it was one where you had to work with the other player.

When he woke up on Tuesday, Harry's tail flicked a little from side to side as he wondered whether he'd get anything for his birthday the next day.

It was sometimes a bit of a matter of chance whether he did at all. In the past Harry had been quite upset about that, but he'd learned to think philosophically, and really when you thought about it a lot of the things Dudley got were things Harry didn't want to get anyway.

Lying on his papery hoard, he wondered whether maybe it would be nice to get some books. Books, or storybooks anyway, were something he enjoyed which he knew Dudley didn't like… and maybe that was because he was a dragon who hoarded paper, like he'd decided the previous day?

As he thought about that and other deep thoughts, there was an almighty crash from upstairs accompanied by a shriek from Aunt Petunia.

"Pet?" Uncle Vernon called, loud enough for everyone in the house to hear. "What happened?"

Another crash and a slithering noise came from overhead, the latter progressing quickly down the stairs, and Harry got up and out of his cupboard to behold a truly massive pile of letters on the landing.

"The loft!" Aunt Petunia said, trying to put the words together. "I was going to go up into the loft and – absolutely filled with letters! They fell out!"

Harry began carting the letters back to his cupboard in big pawsful, wondering how many he could fit in before he'd have to start eating them instead.

Late that night, as the clock crept towards midnight, Harry slept on his new bed.

Lounging atop a pile of possessions, even such strange possessions in such an unusual situation, had made him feel terribly right. Perhaps it was just that he was doing something that dragons traditionally did, but then again he'd never felt the need to use his fire breath – it was awfully dangerous, and while he could do it… it just felt like a tool, something he could do. While his new bed felt entirely different.

Consequently, his slumber was deep and even – his tail curled around under his wing, half-rolled over onto his side, his neck and all his other body parts bent a trifle awkwardly to fit, but he was long used to that by now and it hadn't even made it hard for him to drop off to sleep.

In the sitting room, the clock ticked, and then all three hands lined up – midnight.

And there was a thunderous knock at the door.

Harry shifted slightly, tucking his head under his wing, and continued dreaming a dream about his old Primary schoolteacher running a charity book sale to raise funds for replacement owls.

Chapter Text

The loud knocking gradually penetrated into Harry's dreaming thoughts, and then there was a crash which most mornings would have had him jolting awake.

He had only had a couple of hours of sleep, though, and so he slowly mumbled his way toward wakefulness – the paper he was lying on rustling below him as he shifted.

"…how dare you! Breaking into our house in the middle of the night!"

"Shut up, Dursley, you daft old prune..."

"...what will the neighbours think?"

Still sort of muzzy, Harry yawned quietly.

"...'Arry Potter?"

"No, I'm Dudley Dursley..."

Fumbling around, Harry found the door to his cupboard and opened it. The piles of letters had been destabilized a bit by his movement, and he slid out into the hallway.

"What time is it?" he asked, yawning, then looked at the wall clock. "Five past midnight? Mf, it's too early..."

He turned to look at the cause of the noise, and saw a really quite amazingly tall man hunched in the entryway.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, fetching his glasses with his tail and putting them on his muzzle.

"...Merlin's beard," the very tall man said, his jaw slowly dropping. Harry tilted his head in confusion, and the man pointed at him.

"You're a dragon?" he asked.

"Yes?" Harry replied. "You're the first person to mention that, actually."

"Dragon?" Uncle Vernon said. "What's this about dragon? Is this more freak nonsense?"

"Freak!?" the big man roared. "He's not a freak, he's a cute little talking dragon – just look at 'im! Never seen a talking dragon before, but 'e looks..."

The big man paused, a smile spreading across his big bearded face.

"'e doesn't look like any of the dragons I know," the man added, as Harry padded a little closer and kicked a letter out of the way. "But it all looks beautiful, them wings and everything."

Then he finally seemed to lose whatever internal conflict had been going on, and swept the startled Harry up in a bear-hug.

After the initial shock, Harry was surprised to find he actually quite enjoyed the experience.

Twenty or so minutes later, the Dursleys had more-or-less given up shouting at the giant man – who Harry had learned was named Hagrid, and who had waved a big pink umbrella about to put the door back where it had started. Neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon were really happy about the whole situation, but it seemed to Harry that they couldn't just stand there shouting at Hagrid for all that long in the middle of the night.

When he'd pointed this entirely sensible point out, the two adults had shouted a bit more, but then gone back upstairs with bad grace and locked their bedroom door.

"Still can't believe I found a talking dragon," Hagrid said, shaking his head as he examined Harry's wing shoulder. "And to find one in a Muggle house, too..."

"What's a Muggle?" Harry asked, curious, lowering his wing once Hagrid had finished looking at the joints. "Is that what Aunt Petunia was called before she got married?"

"What's that?" Hagrid asked. "No, no, she was an Evans. Must have been. Like Lily."

He paused, then frowned. "Oh, shouldn't have forgotten that. Came here with a job. Don't suppose you know which bedroom's called the cupboard under the stairs, do you?"

"That's my bedroom," Harry answered. "It's not very big but it feels nice and lair-y. Why's that?"

"Well, I'm after Harry Potter, that's why," Hagrid explained. "It's his birthday, an' I was told by Professor Dumbledore to deliver his Hogwarts letter."

"Oh, are you where all those letters came from?" Harry asked, picking up one of the ones which had spilled out of the cupboard. "I was wondering, but I'm afraid a lot of it didn't make sense."

Hagrid paused, looking from Harry to the door he'd come out of, then his gaze went to Harry's forehead.

Harry wasn't sure why. It was one of the places his otherwise-black scales had a little marking on them, a small thunderbolt-like shape… but was that unusual for a dragon or not?

Maybe it was.

"It can't be," Hagrid said slowly. "You're Harry Potter?"

"Yes?" Harry replied. "Is there a reason I shouldn't be?"

He twisted his head to look back at himself, in case he'd changed colour while he wasn't looking, and Hagrid put a hand on the curve of Harry's neck.

"You might not remember me, 'Arry," he began. "But I helped Professor Dumbledore bring you here nearly ten years ago, so you'd be safe. But you weren't no dragon then."

"I know," Harry replied matter-of-factly. "I was very confused when I changed into one, but that was a long time ago and I sort of assumed it was normal when nobody made any comment on it."

"They haven't?" Hagrid asked, now confused. "But… ah, that might be it. There's all sorts of magic what stops Muggles from seeing things they ain't supposed to see, and I remember my old Creatures professor telling me as how dragons is one of them things."

Harry digested that, then opened the letter he'd picked up earlier.

"So this isn't a letter for a dragon school?" he asked. "Why on earth would we need pewter cauldrons, then?"

This seemed to have stumped the big man.

"Cauldrons?" he repeated. "Well… for potions, o' course. What else?"

"I thought snacks," Harry suggested. "Perhaps as a way to prevent the owl shortage."

Hagrid looked confused by that, then shook his head. "No, Hogwarts ain't a dragon school, Harry… it's a school for wizards, like you."

"I'm a wizard?" Harry repeated. "I thought I was a dragon."

"Well, yer a dragon too, o' course," Hagrid said. "But yer a wizard, or you wouldn't be accepted. Like how I was."

He patted the drake on the back. "Yer mum and dad were a witch and a wizard too. Though neither of 'em ever turned into a dragon…"

"They were?" Harry asked, interested, and not surprised by the bit about neither of his parents turning into a dragon. "Well, my uncle and aunt told me they died in a car crash-"

"A CAR CRASH!?" Hagrid bellowed.

"-but if magic is meant to be secret then I can see why they said that," Harry went on, thinking hard, and absently scraping some letters over with his wing as he did so.

That announcement took the wind out of Hagrid's sails, and he mumbled something about that making sense actually.

"Could you tell me about them?" Harry went on, then yawned. "I, ummm… sorry, it's still very late…"

"'course I'll tell you about James and Lily," Hagrid promised. "Could do it over cake, too, I picked one up for your birthday. 'course, I didn't know you were a dragon then..."

Harry's tail flicked from side to side a little, but then he yawned again.

Thinking about it, he decided that his aunt and uncle probably wouldn't mind if he slept on the sofa so long as he kept his claws out of the seats. So, with Hagrid's bemused and interested help, he put some of the letters on the sofa and bedded down to resume his interrupted slumber.

The second time Harry woke up, it was to a much gentler knocking – the sound of a claw rapping smoothly on the window.

Yawning, he turned over, and thumped unceremoniously to the floor.

"Huh? Wossat?" Hagrid asked, jumping awake from where he'd been lying across most of the length of the room. "You all right, lad?"

Harry nodded, looking around for where he'd left his glasses last night, and spotted them over on the table.

Rolling upright and retrieving them, he inspected the window where the noise was coming from. An owl was perched outside, knocking regularly on the window for attention, and Harry glanced at Hagrid.

"Well, go on then," Hagrid invited him. "Let 'im in, he's probably got the paper."

Harry opened the window, wondering what Hagrid meant, and watched with some surprise as the owl flew neatly in before putting down a small newspaper in front of Hagrid.

The big man rummaged around in his coat, producing all kinds of strange things like a birthday cake and a family of mice. One of the latter nearly got away, but Harry pounced on it before it got under the sofa and returned it to Hagrid.

Finally a small bag came out, and Hagrid counted out some odd-looking coins into a pouch attached to the owl's leg. This seemed to satisfy it, and it flew back out of the window as Hagrid returned most of the things to his pockets.

"Those pictures are moving," Harry noticed. "Is that magic?"

"'course it's magic," Hagrid chuckled. "It's the Daily Prophet, it's always like that."

He read it, and Harry used a chair as support to look over his shoulder. Half the stories were about things which he didn't really get the context of, like a recent election of a Minister for Magic or a story about a badly made pewter cauldron melting, and besides he was distracted by something else.

"Was that owl making a delivery?" he asked. "That's very clever."

"Hm?" Hagrid replied, then remembered who he was talking to. "Oh, that's right. Owl post, best way to send letters if you ask me. A good post owl will find who you sent the letter to no matter what."

"So that's what it meant about awaiting my owl," Harry said, pleased to have the answer. "But does that mean I'll have to send one today?"

"Don't worry, 'Arry, I'll tell Professor Dumbledore personally," Hagrid assured him. He checked the time, then put the paper down and reached for the birthday cake he'd put aside earlier.

"Don't suppose you've got any plates?" he asked. "May as well have a sweet breakfast an' all, it is your birthday."

Harry went to fetch two plates, two forks and a spoon, not knowing whether Hagrid would prefer one option or the other, then went back to get a knife after realizing that they would need to cut the cake.

There was no sign of the Dursleys while they had their meal, and Harry wondered if they were just waiting until they were absolutely certain the big man had left. It was still quite early, but they had to be awake by now – especially after Hagrid had sung Happy Birthday loud enough to rattle the windows – and normally a Harry birthday wasn't much different from any other day in the Dursley household.

"So, what did yeh think?" Hagrid asked, suddenly sounding quite nervous. "Wasn't sure what kind'a cake you'd like."

"Oh, it was very tasty," Harry assured him, licking his muzzle to get the last of the icing off. "I've never got to eat the candles before."

"Well, them candles aren't exactly what most people eat, but – well, who knows with dragons, eh?" Hagrid asked, giving Harry a scratch behind the ear and chuckling at the little dragon's happy reaction. "Still, best be getting into London, got to get yer school things."

"I've only been to London a few times," Harry told him. "I flew there because there's a really good library, but it takes all day and I usually have chores."

"Well, I don't rightly think flying's the answer," Hagrid mused, scooping up most of the things he'd left lying around. "I've got a big flying motorcycle, but Professor Dumbledore told me it weren't a good idea to fly it around in daytime and I think he's right… still, Dumbledore gave me some Muggle money for the train."

"Can wizards fly around?" Harry asked. "I know dragons can, obviously…"

"Well, there's plenty of ways of flyin' for a wizard," Hagrid answered. "There's me motorcycle, or there's brooms, or flyin' carpets… oh, and there's all sorts of animals too, like a thestral or a hippogriff – beautiful creatures, beautiful. But most of 'em are a bit big to fly around in a city and such."

"I think I understand," Harry nodded, to show he was keeping up. "So I'm okay to fly around because people without magic can't tell I'm a dragon, but that's not what happens for something like a hippogriff?"

Hagrid gave him a thumbs-up. "Good lad. Now, er… where's the train station?"

"I think I know where the nearest one is," Harry replied. "Should we tell Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon that we're leaving?"

"Prob'ly best," Hagrid agreed. "Oh, that reminds me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that bit with the door. I'm not really supposed to do magic, but I'm allowed to do a bit when getting your Hogwarts letter to you… not sure if the door counts..."

Harry found it quite funny how much trouble Hagrid had with the money. He didn't laugh, because the big man was so earnest, but it did make him wonder how money worked for magical people – the only magic money he'd seen so far was the little bronze coins, and they didn't look that different from pennies in how they worked.

There was easily enough to get the two of them a train ride from Little Whingeing to Waterloo Station, and from there they made their way across the river to Charing Cross road.

"So, where are we going, Hagrid?" Harry asked, trotting alongside with little half-flaps of his wings for speed – as he'd learned already, Hagrid could move fast when he wanted to.

One of his wingtips nearly knocked someone's hat off, and he winced before furling them. "I didn't know there were any of that kind of shop in London, but I haven't really checked. Are they in the Yellow Pages?"

"The what?" Hagrid said. "Nah, it's the Leaky Cauldron we want. It's special – Muggles go right past it without seein' it. Kind of like you, actually."

Harry nodded, seeing the parallel. "So… that means that anyone in it is going to be a wizard or a witch? Or someone else magic?"

"Thas' right," Hagrid agreed.

"That's going to be strange," Harry observed. "Or… different? I've only just found out most people can't tell I'm a dragon and now I'm going to be in a room full of people who can."

"Don't worry, lad," the big wizard (?) told him. "The barkeep, Tom, he knows me. You'll be fine – ah! Here we are."

Hagrid turned off the street, into an old-looking pub, and Harry followed along a step or two behind.

It took his eyes only a moment to adjust to the lower light, and almost straight away there was a shout of surprise – then a shriek, and someone knocked a table over and spilled what were probably alcoholic drinks across the floor.

Within a few seconds all the strange characters in the Leaky Cauldron were hiding away from Harry and Hagrid, and then the man behind the bar gestured at Hagrid with a beer mug.

"Rubeus!" he called. "How many times do I have to tell you about bringing in your little beasties!"

"But-" Hagrid began, and the man – presumably Tom – kept talking.

"But nothing! Last time it was a manticore! And the time before was that griffin, wasn't it?"

"Hey, now, she wouldn't hurt a-"

"That griffin terrorized half the customers!" Tom declared. "It took me weeks to get rid of all the feathers – and we're still finding manticore spines in the corners of the room after that one panicked!"

Harry tilted his head, wondering if that was going to be the last word, but Tom just kept right on going. "Rubeus, I know you're not a malicious man – no, I do, I've known you long enough for that. But everyone knows your heart's bigger than your head, and you always believe the best of even the most dangerous creature. And maybe you can manage them, but this… why do you have a dragon here?"

"Orders from Dumbledore," Hagrid managed to say in the first gap more than a second long.

"Oh, Dumbledore!" Tom replied, sounding a bit mollified. "Well, I suppose he knows better… all right, but if this dragon of yours causes any trouble then it's you who's paying for it! And your tab!"

"Sorry about that, Harry," Hagrid said, once they were in the little alley at the back of the Leaky Cauldron. "I should'a thought how it'd look when I brought you in… I hope yeh don't feel upset about it."

"Did you bring a griffin through to get their Hogwarts stuff as well?" Harry asked, wanting to make sure this was cleared up. "Or a manticore?"

"No – no, Harry, that weren't about Hogwarts stuff then," Hagrid answered him. "Most all the students who've been to Hogwarts 'ave been human, or mostly human… that's why they don't think of it, I reckon."

He thought about it, then rummaged in his coat and pulled out a yellow tea cosy. "Was knitting this last night," the giant man explained. "Maybe it'd make you look less scary, give them summat to think about?"

Harry accepted the tea cosy, and put it on his head. He'd never really worn anything like it before, not having had a woolly hat back when he was still human, but it didn't feel too bad.

"So… where do we go from here?" Harry asked. "Do we just go over the wall? Or is it magic?"

"Oh, it's magic all right," Hagrid replied, getting out his umbrella and tapping on the bricks. "Three up… and two across..."

As he finished, the bricks all moved aside – sliding away and reforming into an arch, through which Harry could see a street full of all sorts of strange shops.

There was one which sold nothing but owls, another which described itself as a joke shop, and right down the far end of the street there was a big marble building which looked very important. There weren't all that many people in the street yet, but there were a few – a family out shopping, a woman hurrying down the street towards the Leaky Cauldron, and a man wearing a very strange-looking robe festooned with pictures of chess pieces.

"Diagon Alley," Hagrid announced. "Come on, first thing we got to do is to get to Gringotts – that's the bank. Run by goblins."

He set off, and Harry hurried to keep up – using his wings to help out again, taking advantage of the much less crowded streets.

Nobody screamed this time, or shrieked, though the woman who'd been walking quickly down the street saw them and stopped in her tracks.

"Good morning," Harry said, waving at her as they went past, though the only response he got was a wordless stare.

Well, maybe she was tired. It was still quite early in the morning, after all.

When they arrived at Gringotts bank itself, Hagrid's confidence was a far cry from his trouble with the paper money and the ticket office out in the Muggle world. He strode straight up to one of the open counters, and announced that he was there both to make a withdrawal from Mr. Potter's vault and to pick up a 'you know what' from another vault.

Interested to see what was going on, Harry reached up to the counter with a paw and pulled himself into an upright position. The goblin on the other side of the desk seemed quite surprised to see him, and gave Hagrid a quelling glance, but Harry's pleasant greeting and cheerful wave with his free paw seemed to help lighten the situation.

Once Hagrid had finally managed to dig a key out of his pockets – which seemed full of even more outrageous things than he'd produced in Privet Drive – the goblin teller summoned another, by the name of Shardmouth, to take them down to the vaults.

That was when Harry was introduced to the carts of Gringotts.

"These are pretty fun!" he said, one paw on the tea-cosy Hagrid had given him and the other on his glasses to make sure neither would blow away in the racing wind around the rattling cart. "What do you think, Hagrid?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Hagrid replied. "Can't this thing slow down?"

"Not on this route," Shardmouth answered.

Harry turned from wondering what would happen if he opened his wings to full extension, and whether that would slow the cart down. "I know that we're told to look out of a vehicle if we feel carsick."

"Don't think that'd help," Hagrid mumbled.

He was about to say something else, but Harry saw a burst of flame off to the side.

"That was a dragon!" he said, as they passed over a big underground lake. "A really big one, too – do they keep their money down here as well?"

"I can assure you that the only bank used by dragons is Gringotts," Shardmouth told him, with a sly little smile.

Harry absorbed that as they dropped deeper into the caverns, until their cart finally came to a halt by a small door.

Hagrid got out and took several long, deep breaths, while Shardmouth turned the small golden key in the door and opened it.

The door swung open, letting out a cloud of green smoke that made Harry cough, and when it cleared he saw the inside of his vault.

It was… full of money.

More than that, it was full of gold and silver as well as the little bronze coins which Harry had already seen – mounds of it, piled more than a foot high.

"All yours," Hagrid said, as Harry stared. His ears perked up, sending his glasses clattering to the floor.

Then the black dragon bounded forwards, taking two long loping steps before diving into the mass of metal with a crash which sent precious metals everywhere.

Twenty minutes later, Shardmouth and seven other goblins finally managed to extract Harry from his vault.

"You all right, lad?" Hagrid asked, returning Harry's glasses. "Bit of a funny turn, there?"

"Sorry," Harry said, ruffling his wings and looking down at his feet. "I… well, I suppose it's the first time I've really had anything I could think of as mine, let alone a proper hoard..."

"Don' worry," Hagrid assured him. "Want me to get the money for your school things?"

Harry thought about that question, firstly seeing if it made him come over all possessive again and then about what he actually wanted.

"...I think I'd better help you," he said. "To make sure I don't do that again, and because I'd like to get a bit extra – do they turn gold into pounds here?"

"We offer that service, yes," Shardmouth provided, as the other goblins watched on attentively.

Harry nodded. "Okay, that's good… it's because I'd like to take some books to school to read. Unless the school has a library with stories in it?"

"Hogwarts has got a great library," Hagrid replied. "But I don't remember any Muggle books in there. 'course, it's been a while since I visited..."

"Well, I think I'll get some anyway," Harry decided. "It'd be nice to have some I can read at home, instead of having to go to the library to read."

Harry more-or-less had to guess how much money it would take to buy the books he wanted, and when they got back up to the surface – after another trip even deeper into the earth to get the thing Hagrid had been sent for – it turned out to be about a hundred pounds.

He wasn't quite sure how much it would cost to get the books he was thinking of, but a hundred pounds sounded like enough for quite a lot of them. It wasn't as much as Dudley's presents had cost that year, of course, but that wasn't really much of a concern for Harry.

"Right, that's that done," Hagrid said, as they walked out into the sunlight. "Best to do your books and wand last, you ask me… I'd say the robes might take a while. You come with me, Madam Malkin's who we need to see."

"Does she know how to do robes for dragons?" Harry asked, then looked around with surprise at the sound of crashing glass. Someone coming out of the potions shop had dropped a bubble-shaped glass beaker about when Harry had asked the question, and Harry looked for a moment longer before shrugging his wings and turning back to Hagrid.

"Tell the truth I'm not all that sure, really," Hagrid admitted. "But I'm sure we'll think of something, lad."

"Oh, what would happen if I flew up there?" Harry added, a new question distracting him. "Is this part of London – if it is, could I come back in again by flying down again? Or is it that you can only get in through the Leaky Cauldron?"

Hagrid looked up at the sky, then down at Harry – whose wings were twitching a little as he thought about flying.

"Don't know that either, Harry," the big man said. "But best you find out later, I'd say. Don't want you to get lost or anything."

Harry nodded, seeing the wisdom there.

When the giant pushed the door open to let Harry through, a short witch smiled – then actually caught sight of him, and the smile turned slightly fixed.

"This here's Harry," Hagrid said, introducing the drake. "He's for Hogwarts. Listen, Harry, do you mind if I go and get something to steady me nerves in the Cauldron?"

"That's fine," Harry replied, remembering how Uncle Vernon sometimes needed a bit of a drink of brandy to calm him down. Harry had always wondered what it tasted like, given how it smelled, but that was something he knew he'd have to wait for until he was old enough.

Hearing him speak seemed to comfort the witch slightly, and she crouched down a little to reach Harry's level. "It's nice to meet you, dear – I'm Madam Malkin."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied, as Hagrid left, and Madam Malkin blinked in surprise.

"Goodness," she said, after a moment's thought. "Well, dear, I'm afraid we don't have any standard style robes for you, but I'll get my assistants and see what can be done. If you'll just come through into the fitting room..."

Harry followed her into the back of the shop, where there was a boy standing on a footstool with his back to the door while a second witch fiddled with the robes he was wearing.

"How are you getting on?" Madam Malkin asked the boy, and got a sort of nervous shrug in reply. "We've got a custom job to do, but I'm sure Ermintrude should be able to keep working on you while that's going on. If you'll just pop yourself up – oh, that's going to be a problem, isn't it..."

"Is that you, Draco?" the boy asked, sounding worried.

"Well, sort of," Harry replied. "But my name's Harry Potter."

The boy turned suddenly to look, heedless of the pin-work Ermintrude was doing up until that moment, and got a glimpse of Harry for only a moment before slipping and nearly falling off the stool. The stool actually clattered to the ground, but Madam Malkin had pulled a wand from somewhere and was floating him in mid-air so he didn't actually land.

"Careful now, dear," she advised, as Ermintrude put the stool back and two more witches came in. "You don't want to take a tumble, do you?"

As she spoke, Harry inspected the other footstool to see if he could think of a way to stand on it, then dismissed the idea in favour of something else.

Pushing it to the side, he reared up on his hind legs and let himself almost overbalance – coiling the lower half of his tail into a circle, and resting on that as well as his hind legs as a sort of tripod.

"Does this work?" he asked.

"Oh, good idea," Madam Malkin told him. "You two should just talk amongst yourselves while we work on this, don't worry."

There was a slightly awkward silence, which Harry decided to break. "Who's Draco?"

"Draco Malfoy," the boy clarified. "He's one of the other Pureblood boys this year. He makes me nervous, but – oh, um, I'm Neville Longbottom."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied, then realized he'd already said that. "It's nice to meet you. What does Pureblood mean?"

"It means a wizard or a witch who's got wizard and witch parents and grandparents," Neville explained, sounding confused. "How do you not know that? You're Harry Potter!"

"Well, I didn't actually know I was a wizard until this morning," Harry explained. "I got some letters several days ago, but it wasn't until Hagrid told me about it that I knew."

"But you're famous," Neville protested. "You're the Boy who Lived… though I didn't know you were a dragon."

Harry shifted a little to let the witches measure where his wings were attached. "What does boy who lived mean?"

"Oh, uh..." Neville began, trying to think of how to say it. "There was a really bad wizard, called, um… it d-doesn't matter. And..."

The whole story, with several questions by Harry, took about fifteen minutes for Neville to tell. In that space of time Harry learned that an evil wizard had terrorized the country; that he and his followers thought that pure-blood meant they were better than other wizards; that nobody had been able to stop him; and that, nearly ten years ago, the evil wizard's reign of terror had been abruptly ended when he tried to kill Harry – and vanished.

Harry also found out where his odd lightning-bolt-shaped marking had come from (and he had to admit it made a little bit more sense than the idea it had been from a car crash) and that he and Neville were only one day apart in age.

"Gran said that we shouldn't go out shopping on my birthday, and of course we only got my Hogwarts letter a few days ago," Neville was explaining. "So, um… that's why we're doing it so late, because everything else was about the party."

Harry's tail flicked idly, then he felt a faint jab.

"Oops, sorry," one of the witches said. "Are you all right?"

"I think so?" Harry replied. "I've never hurt myself with a needle or anything before."

Madam Malkin inspected the needle, which was in fact bent at the tip by its encounter with Harry's scales, then waved her wand and fixed it. "Nearly done, dear..."

"My aunt and uncle don't much like throwing parties for me," Harry told Neville. "I don't really mind, but my cousin gets loads of presents and he just throws tantrums and breaks them."

Neville winced. "Wow… it's kind of funny to think about Harry Potter having an, er..."

He flushed. "I was going to say a normal life, but you're a dragon..."

"There you go, dear," Madam Malkin said. "I'm very sorry for the wait."

Harry dropped back onto all fours, and was quite impressed. The material of the robes moved to let him go on all fours without a problem, it let his tail out, and when he experimentally unfurled a wing there was even a slot for that.

"We do robes for Quidditch, and we used the same ideas here," Madam Malkin explained, as Harry walked around in a circle to try them out – keeping his tail clear of Neville's footstool, to save his new friend a second tumble. "I trust you find them satisfactory?"

"Well, I think they're all right so far," Harry replied, spreading both wings this time and bringing them down slowly to check the travel. "What do you think, Neville?"

After a pause, surprised that Harry was asking his opinion, Neville started. "Oh – I think they're all right..."

"That sounds good, then," Harry decided. "How much are they?"

"If you'll just give us a minute, we'll make up the other two sets with the same pattern," Madam Malkin requested, twirling her wand to do just that. "And there's the hat, and – well, a few quick modifications to the winter cloak-"

"Oh, you don't need to bother," Harry tried to say. "I don't know if I'll ever use it, I never really feel cold."

"Perhaps that's so, dear, but I take pride on providing robes for all occasions," Madam Malkin told him. "And there you go!"

Hagrid had been waiting outside for some minutes by the time Harry left, and was duly impressed by the new robes – especially when Harry demonstrated that he could fly even while wearing them, rising to about the level of the second floor and hovering there for a long moment before dropping back down two stories to ground level.

That done, their next stop was a general supply shop with all sorts, and Harry managed to restrain himself from sampling half the potions ingredients on hand while they picked up the cauldron, phials and scales, plus a collapsible brass telescope. Hagrid also asked what kinds of protective gloves were available, which prompted Harry to pull himself up to the counter-top and ask where they got their dragon hide, and the resultant conversation left Harry faintly disturbed but satisfied that almost all dragons didn't speak.

He was still grateful that they had managed to get a pair of Manticore skin gloves instead, though – while Hagrid was fairly sure that Harry's scales would be as resistant to potions as conventional dragon hide, finding out that this was incorrect would be quite inconvenient.

"Three things left on the list," Hagrid said, as they left that shop. "Books and wand, plus me present for you. Thought I'd get you an owl, dead useful."

"You've already given me a big birthday present just by introducing me to all this," Harry protested, but Hagrid waved him off.

"Nah, call it last years' then or something. Besides, an owl'll carry your post and everything, and I'm sure them Dursleys don't have one of them," Hagrid insisted. "How'd you keep in touch with any friends without one?"

The streets were growing a little more crowded, and the sight of Harry drew more and more stares, but Hagrid just forged ahead – leading Harry to Eeylops' Owl Emporium.

It was a dark place, and probably normally a silent one, but as soon as Harry entered the whole shop was full of hoots and barks and flapping wings as just about every bird in the place startled or began trying like mad to escape.

"Excuse me?" the man behind the counter asked loudly, sounding distressed. "This is – goodness!"

"Sorry 'bout this," Hagrid said, spreading his hands and trying to make soothing motions. "It ain't their fault, it ain't 'is fault, he can't help how he is..."

As they talked, both raising their voices to be heard over the din, Harry looked around with a sigh.

Maybe he'd just have to do without a pet, if this was how owls and cats reacted to him. He didn't know he got on so badly with animals, but then again a lot of the animals he'd met before hadn't had a problem – it was just those cats the lady who lived not-too-far away from Number Four Privet Drive.

As he was pondering this, there was a quiet preck from nearby.

Harry turned, and saw the noise had come from one of the owls. Unlike the rest, this one – a beautiful snowy owl – wasn't freaking out at the sight and smell of a dragon, but was just looking out from under its wing with an affronted expression.

"Sorry about the noise," Harry said, and the owl clicked its beak. "I didn't know they were all going to get so loud."

The snowy owl tilted its head and blinked sarcastically, before putting its head under its wing and going back to sleep.

Ten minutes later they left with the snowy owl, who turned out to be a female. Harry hadn't thought of a name for her yet – a male would have been easy and would have ended up as 'Ruth' – but he was sure he'd find something somewhere.

"Books next?" he asked Hagrid.

"Nah, I think yeh might take a while in there," Hagrid replied with a chuckle. "No, best thing is to get yer wand next. Then you can spend a while on the books, mebbe after lunch, an' we can get you on the train back to them Dursleys."

So saying, he led Harry to a particularly old-looking shop, one with a peeling sign over the top that said it had been established in 382 BC. This sounded very strange to Harry, who was fairly sure that London wasn't that old, but he supposed that perhaps the shop had moved here later after being established somewhere else.

When they entered, it was to find a tiny room with a single chair and rows and rows of small boxes lining every wall all the way up the ceiling.

"There must be thousands of these," Harry said, looking around. "How many wizards get wands here?"

"All of them," said a soft voice.

Harry's ears twitched, nearly unseating his glasses again, and he held his wings to his side as he turned around.

The old man who had spoken examined Harry carefully, looking him up and down, then spoke again. "Harry Potter."

"That's me," Harry confirmed, then frowned – tilting his head on one side. "How did you know? Most people just stare."

"I thought I'd be seeing you soon, Mr. Potter," the old man said – Harry assumed he was Mr. Ollivander, after the name of the shop. "And I never forget a wand, you see. Your body is different to what I was expecting, but your eyes… they are very similar to your mother's eyes."

"Really?" Harry asked. "I've never seen a picture, and mine are slightly slit now but they didn't used to be."

"It is the shade, Mr. Potter," Ollivander told him. "Unforgettable. And once you realize, the scar… well, it just confirms what I already knew."

He stepped back a pace. "But to provide a wand for a dragon, now… quite a different experience. Your mother's was ten and a quarter inches, swishy, made of willow. Good for charms. While your father – mahogany, eleven inches, more powerful and pliable as well. That one was a wand for transfiguration."

"What does that mean for my wand?" Harry asked. "Is it like the average?"

"Not at all, Mr. Potter," Ollivander corrected. "Not at all. The wand chooses, and wands are quite individual – each with a core of a powerful magical substance. And there is a third wand which has shaped your life," he added, touching the scar on Harry's forehead. "Thirteen and a half inch yew, and very powerful."

Harry's wings were starting to unfurl despite himself, and he furled them again with a faint clatter of wing membrane. "So… do I have to try all the wands until I find one which fits? Or does one just jump into my paw?"

"Not quite, Mr. Potter, not quite," Ollivander answered. "We shall see what we can do to find you a wand, most certainly..."

As it transpired, the process of selecting a wand had two main phases.

The first phase was that Mr. Ollivander began taking measurements. Length of dominant foreleg, length of non-dominant foreleg, distance between pupils, head diameter, height of shoulders, separation between shoulder girdle and hip girdle… the tape measure took over by itself after the first dozen or so, and after a little obvious hesitation also measured Harry's main wing spar, alar phalanges and tail length.

"How do these measurements help?" Harry asked.

"Bone structure, very important," the wand maker told him, taking boxes down from the high stacks of them all around the room. "Yes, very important..."

Mr. Ollivander waved his hand, and the tape measure clattered to the floor. He then unboxed a wand and handed it to Harry. "Try this one, ebony and phoenix feather, seven inches."

Harry took it, and Ollivander immediately took the wand back. "No, perhaps not… maybe this one, beechwood and unicorn hair..."

That more-or-less set the tone for the second phase of selecting a wand, which was that Mr. Ollivander handed Harry wand after wand to try and then took them back less than a second later.

The whole thing was quite mystifying to Harry, who looked around at Hagrid as he was passed yet another wand. "Is this normal, Hagrid?"

"Eh?" Hagrid replied. "Well, of course it's normal. Got to keep going until you get a wand with a good reaction."

"But there seem to be a lot of them," Harry replied, waving at the big pile building up on the chair.

"Don't worry, Mr. Potter, we have many wands left to try," Ollivander said, retrieving another wand from the set. "Try this one."

Harry immediately felt the difference when he took it, a tingle running up his arm and through his wings. This time he was able to give it a wave, and a shower of orange sparks bounced through the room all at once before slowly fading away.

"Ah, excellent!" the wandmaker said, as Hagrid applauded. "You see, Mr. Potter, there is always a wand for the wizard!"

He began packaging up the wands which hadn't worked, one at a time, then paused. "Though… it is surprising that it is that wand which reacted to you, Mr. Potter. You see, wands are known as brothers when their core comes from the same animal, and that wand's core is a phoenix feather… and the only brother to that wand, why, it gave you that scar."

"You mean it was a wand that belonged to that dark wizard?" Harry asked, moving his wand to between his thumb and foreclaw and touching the scar on his forehead. "Nobody's told me his name yet."

"I am not surprised, Mr. Potter, not surprised," Ollivander said, nodding slightly. "In the past, to say his name was to call down terrible misfortune. But you should not be too worried by the match, Mr. Potter… thirteen-and-a-half inch yew is a very different wand to eleven-inch holly, and of course He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did do great things."

"I don't think it's really right to say they were great things," Harry protested. "I know what you mean, but – oh, I was going to ask..."

He indicated the wand he was holding in a forepaw. "Is there a good way for me to carry this? When I walk it's going to be hitting the ground a lot."

Mr. Ollivander examined Harry up and down with his luminous eyes.

"Perhaps in your pockets, Mr. Potter?"

"Oh, yeah, good point," Harry realized. "I'm not really used to having pockets."

"What kind of wand do you have, Hagrid?" Harry asked, as they left Ollivanders several galleons lighter and one wand richer.

"Well, I used to have a big oak wand," Hagrid replied, sounding embarrassed. "It got snapped in half when I was expelled, though… still got the pieces, mind."

He held on tightly to his umbrella as he said it, and Harry thought about that for a long moment.

"My goodness, is that a dragon?" someone asked. "Rubeus, where on earth did you find robes for a dragon?"

"Madam Malkins?" Harry answered, looking up at the man who'd spoken. "She did really well, they fit great so far – I can even fly in them."

"This here's 'Arry Potter, Dedalus," Hagrid added. "I'm helpin' him get his Hogwarts stuff."

"Oh, goodness – it is?" Dedalus asked. "But – I never thought – goodness!"

He offered his hand, and Harry shook it a little awkwardly. "Daedalus Diggle at your service, Mr. Potter! Such an honour, it really is… and thank you for all you've done."

"I'm afraid I don't really remember any of it," Harry confessed. "It was all quite a long time ago and I was very young."

"Oh – I suppose, yes, but nevertheless – thank you," Mr. Diggle reiterated. "It's a pity my son already has all his Hogwarts things – I'm sure he'd be delighted to meet you!"

Seeing Mr. Diggle talking to him seemed to break the ice, and three or four more witches and wizards approached Harry to shake his paw.

It felt like quite a long time before Harry and Hagrid managed to reach Flourish and Blotts, the bookshop on Diagon Alley, and Harry was bright and alert when they did – looking around with amazement at the books, which were much more impressive-looking than most books he'd seen in the library. It seemed like they were all hardback, and usually quite beautifully made, though most of them didn't have any pictures on the front cover.

The book list from the Hogwarts letter was what got them started, mostly volumes which looked like school textbooks but which were magic school textbooks – and therefore much more interesting – but Harry wasn't willing to leave it at that, and as soon as they had the final book on the list (a book about self-protection) he loped up to the counter and asked the shopkeeper where the fiction books were. That got him pointed to an aisle up against one wall which was full of paperbacks, and when Hagrid caught up with him Harry was already staring at one book in particular.

"Hagrid," he said, confused. "I'm in this one."

Hagrid took a look at the cover and chuckled. "No, lad, that's a Norwegian Ridgeback. Lovely type o' dragon, mind. Lovely beasts."

"No, that's not what I mean," Harry explained, turning the book over to show the back cover and the short blurb on it. "It's a book about human me fighting a dragon."

Hagrid peered closer, his lips moving slightly as he read.

"Ah," he said, wincing. "Yeah, that's a mite odd. Not sure where this whole idea of writin' books about yeh came from, an' I can see how you'd find it all weird..."

Harry put that particular book back on the shelf, and looked at the other ones he'd pulled down. It seemed as though Wizarding fiction books did have cover pictures, and he'd gone through finding just about all the ones he could which featured a dragon somewhere on them.

"Do you read any of these, Hagrid?" he asked, looking at a book called Tooth and Fang which seemed a bit more to his taste.

"No, not much of one for stories like that," Hagrid told him. "Much prefer books about real creatures an' how to take care of them, and suchlike."

That got him a nod from Harry, who understood what Hagrid meant.

"I wonder if I could get all of these," he said. "How many knuts in a galleon is it?"

"Seventeen sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle," Hagrid answered promptly.

"Okay, so these are..." Harry began, adding up in his head. "Well, if I only get four of this big series of them for now, that's about fifteen sickles. So less than a galleon… is that okay?"

"Harry, that money's yours," the big man told him. "I wouldn't tell yeh it wasn't a mistake to spend the whole lot on sweets, but don't be worried about buyin' some books."

Harry nodded, thinking about that, then looked at the rest of the bookstore.

"...what other creatures books are there?" he asked, ears perking up a little. "Maybe I could get some of those as well. And maybe another history book..."

The idea of having a nice big book collection, made up of his books that he owned, was very tempting indeed.

It was at least two in the afternoon when Hagrid finally managed to drag Harry out of the bookshop, pointing out that they had lunch to get, and the twine-tied packages full of books stacked up were higher than his snoozing snowy owl's cage.

As they ate lunch – a hearty meal from the Leaky Cauldron, with Harry lying on the bench on one side of a booth table and Hagrid taking up the entire other side – Harry asked one of the questions that had been bothering him.

"How am I going to get all this stuff home, Hagrid?" he said. "And where am I going to keep it? My cupboard's a nice lair, but..."

"Ah, well now," Hagrid replied, thinking about that. "I'm sure them Dursleys will sort summat out if you tell 'em, and if not then you get that owl of yours to bring me a letter. I'll be right down an' make sure you're all sorted."

Harry nodded. "And… um… if you can help me get it all to the train, I think I'll be okay at the other end."

"Good lad," Hagrid told him. "Might be I could see about making them lighter?"

"That's not really the problem," Harry told him, and ate another bite of steak. "It's just trying to carry them all at once, but… I think I'll be okay."

"Good lad," Hagrid repeated, giving him a scratch under the chin. It might have felt quite surprising, but Harry found out that it felt a lot like a different sort of hug – caring and gentle, and from a man like Hagrid who'd shown him nothing but kindness today it was just a pleasant thing to happen.

"Oh, and here's your train ticket," Hagrid added. "First o' September, Kings Cross. It's all on there."

"Thanks, Hagrid," Harry said, taking the envelope and putting it with the rest of his new things, then picked out some of the big, hearty chips and ate them as well. "This has been a really odd birthday, but it's been really nice as well."

Hagrid's help was invaluable in getting Harry's things down the road, across the river by Underground Train – another new experience for Harry, who nearly caught his tail in the door – and then onto the train from Waterloo Station back in the direction of Surrey.

The young dragon watched from the window until Hagrid was out of sight – which happened quicker than he expected, the big man vanishing from view when he blinked – then stepped back to lie down across two seats and watch the countryside go past.

"Excuse me, young man?"

Harry looked around, surprised, and saw a woman giving him and his packages an odd look.

"Why are you wearing a dress?"

The dragon looked down at his Hogwarts robes, and felt a faint heat in his cheeks – realizing that, while she couldn't see that he was a dragon, she could see his clothes.

"I just got them today," he explained. "They're a school uniform and they had to be fitted, and I was so busy shopping I forgot to change out of them again."

"Oh, I see," the woman said, nodding in understanding.

Harry stretched out his wing in front of his pile of supplies – books, owl and equipment – and much to his relief the woman didn't ask about any of those things and sat back to read a book.

That sounded like a good idea to Harry as well, so he got one of the novels out of his new purchases and began to read it.

It seemed like it wasn't actually the first book in the series, and it was about an Auror – which sounded like a magical policewoman – investigating a murder where the victim had been killed by being set on fire.

The fact that there was a dragon on the front cover made Harry fairly sure he knew how it had been done, but there was always the possibility that that was a fake-out. Besides, it did seem quite well written.

Chapter Text

The Dursleys were quite upset to see Harry turn up on their doorstep again, especially with a collection of weird books and objects and even a live owl, but Harry volunteered to make dinner and that seemed to take the wind out of Uncle Vernon's sails a bit.

Harry's pile of books and other things turned out to not fit in his cupboard, even without Harry in there, and so after putting together a chicken and leek pie Harry brought up the subject of where he was going to sleep.

To his surprise – perhaps prompted by how recently it was that Hagrid had visited – his aunt and uncle were quite receptive to the idea of Harry changing where he slept. Perhaps it was the reminder that he still lived in a cupboard and that Hagrid could quite easily have become very angry about it, or perhaps just the incontrovertible fact that keeping an owl in a cupboard would be functionally impossible, but before the evening was out Harry and all his things were moved up into the bedroom he'd suggested instead. Not Dudley's second bedroom, which was kept as an overflow for his toys, but the loft of the house.

At some point in the past a roof window had been fitted to Number Four, Privet Drive, and Harry had pointed out – politely – that it would let his owl fly out to hunt, it would keep him out of the way, and that they would have the loft completely available for the whole of the rest of the year when he was at his school.

Faced with the prospect of Harry living in the loft – which got very hot in the day and very cold at night, as it was outside the house insulation – or of him taking one of Dudley's bedrooms away from him, Aunt Petunia had decided that the loft was the better option and had cajoled Uncle Vernon into accepting it. So Harry took his things up the ladder into the loft, clearing himself out a space not far from the window, and piled up his books, his school things and the few hundred letters he'd gathered up that Hagrid had provided.

The window was swiftly propped open so his owl could fly out and hunt, and as his birthday drew to a close Harry lay down in starlight on an irregular pile of paper, paperbacks and hardbacks which felt entirely comfortable and right and his.

All in all, it had been a really good birthday.

Harry's new lair had one major advantage over his old one downstairs, and while it was one he would have had in a bedroom as well it was still one he was very happy with.

Namely, the window was large enough and he was small enough to let him sling on a backpack early in the morning, climb out the window, and fly off into the sky. It wasn't something he did every day, because he had a lot of books to read, but with a full month to wait until his first day of school it was a valuable way to vary up his day.

Another way of doing that was to continue to do the chores. Aunt Petunia seemed to be completely baffled by his willingness to still cook and clean, and Uncle Vernon seemed to harbour faint suspicions that Harry was just playing along until he did something awful.

Harry wondered if Uncle Vernon was a bit paranoid, really. It wasn't as if Harry had ever done anything to him.

Well, admittedly Harry was a dragon, but Uncle Vernon didn't know that bit.

"Hmm..." Harry pondered, tail flicking idly from side to side as he lay on his back in the dawn light. "I think we really need to decide on a name for you, girl."

His snowy owl hooted softly, fluttering out from her perch to land on a foreleg, and he smiled and touched her back – pleased by how quickly the intelligent owl had become used to him.

"The first idea I had was Ruth," he went on softly, in deference to how it was still quite early in the morning. "He's a white dragon, but it's more of a boy's name than a girl's name."

The owl clucked disapprovingly.

"Not what you want?" Harry asked, and the owl bobbed her head slightly. "Then what about one of the other names from those books? Ramoth?"

This time she seemed slightly more interested, and Harry clarified that Ramoth was a large golden dragon who was very much in charge. The name was ultimately rejected, though, and so was the similar Wirenth.

"Not interested in gold dragons, then?" Harry checked, and the snowy owl confirmed his guess with a quick nibble on his talon. "Okay, what about Imraith?"

That one took a bit more explaining, and the owl considered it carefully before rejecting it as well – specifically when Harry got to the bit about how she'd fought a dragon.

Smiling at that, Harry moved on – though the snowy owl seemed very picky indeed, rejecting name after name as it came up. Polgara and Sephrenia went by, as did Rhyssa, Esmerelda and Asheth, and as dawn broke over Surrey she rejected every one.

Harry actually ran out of names to suggest and had to ask his owl to take off while he rolled over – letting him dig his schoolbooks out of the pile and search through them, paging back and forth randomly. There was a lot of interesting history that he was skipping past, things like a man born in the fourteenth century with no listed death date or how Merlin apparently was a real, historical person – did that mean King Arthur was as well? - but after several more suggested names like Nimue and Pythia Harry finally stumbled upon one which his choosy owl seemed to like.

"Hedwig of Silesia was a witch born into a Muggle noble house," Harry read out. "Despite her position of great importance in Muggle society, Hedwig was able to use her magic with subtlety to avoid being seen as a witch – something that was not essential in the time before the Statute of Secrecy. Hedwig was also involved in fighting the Mongolian Invasion in twelve forty-one to forty-two, defeating the Mongolian grand shaman in single combat at the end of a large magical battle and forcing his Muggle army to retreat."

He looked up at the owl now perched on the fold of his right wing. "What do you think, girl?"

She paused, then hooted in agreement.

"All right, Hedwig it is," Harry decided.

One of the things Harry had had to move out of the way to pile up his bed was an old luggage trunk. He sort of recognized it from one of the Dursleys' old holidays, back from before he was a dragon he thought, and it was what they'd used to transport Dudley's toy collection at the time.

Dudley's collection of toys was now far too large to actually carry even in such a big trunk, and so it had been up here for years – so Harry duly appropriated it for his own, planning on using it to carry his things to the train. It didn't have wheels, which was a bit of a problem, but Harry was pretty sure he could move it around a bit at least – and most of the journey would be by train anyway.

That prompted Harry to open the envelope Hagrid had given him, to double-check on the details of his train journey, and that made him stop and stare at the ticket.

It said that the train left from Kings' Cross station at eleven o'clock on September the first, but it also said that the train left from platform nine-and-three-quarters.

Harry looked again, and it still said platform nine-and-three-quarters.

Then he put the ticket back in the envelope, set it aside, shifted the heavy trunk so it covered the loft hatch, and climbed out of the window.

Hedwig barked sleepily at him, and he reassured her with a nod before taking flight.

Flying all the way to Kings' Cross was about as far as Harry had ever flown in one go before – normally he went to visit the Barbican Library in London when he was going that far – and when he backwinged down to land outside the station his wings had the kind of pleasant burn you got from long but not-too-long exercise.

Furling them with a clatter of wing membrane, Harry made his way into the main station. There were no signs for platform nine-and-three-quarters, indeed it took a while to even be sure he'd found platforms nine and ten because the platform numbers started at zero instead of one… but after half an hour or so Harry had to pronounce himself stumped. He'd even asked at the desk, and the lady there had been nice enough but totally confused by the question.

After one last count of the train lines coming out of the station from the air, Harry admitted defeat. He turned for home, then remembered just how much flying he'd done so far today, and adjusted course for the familiar Barbican Library instead.

Perhaps he'd find a nice book to read while there, and anyway he needed to rest his wings. Normally he was okay to head back home after perhaps two hours of rest, so that would mean he'd be back by the middle of the afternoon.

When Harry made his approach before landing on the Dursleys roof, he noticed that the greenhouse roof was smashed. He wondered if he was going to get the blame for it, and was a little nervous about what his relatives would think up as punishment, but it turned out that it was actually Dudley's fault – apparently he'd thrown his tortoise through it for some reason or other.

Harry mostly felt sorry for the tortoise, but he had something else to do – a new plan he'd thought of on the way home, to solve the mystery of the train and how to get on it. His school supplies included plenty of paper and rolls of parchment, along with three or four quills and some ink, and after a little practice in using a quill Harry wrote a letter.

Dear Neville,

I hope you're well. I don't think we actually talked about what you got for your birthday – I hope you enjoyed what you got for it. I'm mostly the sort of dragon who likes having books, but I've not had many birthdays where I get presents so far so maybe I'll get bored of them some day.

I was wondering if you could help me out. My Hogwarts ticket says that I need to take the train from Platform 9¾ at eleven o'clock, but I had a look at Kings Cross station and I can't actually find that platform. Do you know how to get onto it?

Thanks for the help. I can't ask my aunt and uncle because they don't really know much of anything about magic.

Yours,

Harry.

Looking it over, Harry thought about whether he'd need to rewrite it before deciding that it said what he wanted it to say.

Waiting a few minutes for the ink to dry, he folded it up and put it into an envelope from the local post office.

"Hedwig?" he asked, and the snowy owl fluttered her wings – bright and alert as the sun set. "Can you get this letter to someone called Neville Longbottom? I don't know where he lives."

Hedwig gave Harry a tolerant look, like a school teacher being asked if she could do the simple maths problem on the board, and stuck her leg out. Smiling at her confidence, Harry tied the letter to her leg before standing aside to let her swoop silently out of the window.

If that was all it really took to send letters in the magical world, he could see why they used owls. It probably made sending parcels a bit more difficult – or did it? Maybe it depended on the owl – but he could never have posted a letter in a normal postbox with just a name and expected it to arrive.

Neville's letter arrived the following evening, carried by a smug-looking Hedwig, and Harry assured her that he'd never doubted her as he untied the envelope and opened it.

There were a few nervous blotches on the parchment, and one or two crossed-out words, but skipping over those Harry read with interest.

It turned out that Neville hadn't known how to get onto the platform, but he'd asked his grandmother and she'd informed him of the trick. It seemed you simply ran at the dividing line between platforms nine and ten, the faster the better, and if you got it right you could run right through the wall and end up in the special magical platform nine and three quarters.

Harry supposed that with how many people needed to get the train – even if Hogwarts was a really small school – he'd probably have run into one of them at some point, but it was nice to be sure.

Neville also mentioned how he'd got several presents for his birthday, but that the one he liked the most was some plants (only some of which Harry had even heard of), and from there the rest of the letter was questions about what it was like growing up in a Muggle house.

Time passed, as it did.

Harry read through Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, first the shorter version and then the unabridged one Hagrid had pointed him at, and also read a good chunk of One Thousand Magical Herbs And Fungi just looking for the plants Neville had mentioned in his letter. From there he moved on to a book about the wizarding perspective on dragons, which vaguely disquieted him when he read about just how many things wizards made from bits of dragon, and dipped in and out of his other textbooks as the fancy took him.

But those weren't the only books Harry owned now, and he read some of the others as well. The detective novel had been quite fun, with the twist focused not on whether the murder weapon had been a dragon but on which dragon had done the deed, and while it looked like the other books didn't involve dragons Harry was interested enough to make a mental note.

The next one along was more of a disappointment than anything. Harry had hoped it was going to be about how dragon tamers handled their charges, but it was actually much more about a love triangle between a young woman from somewhere in the USSR, a dragon tamer, and the magical government employee she was engaged to be married to.

It was all very disappointing, with dragons only showing up once in the entire book despite their prominent place on the cover, and Harry had decided not to chase up any future books from that series – even without the slight surrealism caused by reading a book where the main character was from a country visibly falling apart in the news as he read it.

Then there were four small books, all from the same large series, which were just baffling as far as Harry was concerned. They were all about young witches who learned to ride dragons, and the dragons appeared not so much as actual animals (let alone the complex, brave characters that were the dragons of Pern or the sly, wrathful Smaug) but a little more like motorcycles – there to be ridden about or cooed over, not to do things for themselves. Most of the books covered the friendships and arguments between a dozen or more of the girls at the school, often over quite unimportant-seeming things, and after much puzzling Harry had decided that they were probably not for him.

The same could not be said for Tooth and Fang. Not only was it about dragons, but it was about an entire society of intelligent dragons who had to hide themselves away from wizards in the same way that wizards hid away from Muggles. Complicating this already difficult task was that the entire dragon population appeared to live inside Beauxbatons, a wizarding school in France, and that naturally simply moving out was completely out of the question.

It was both relatable and very entertaining, from a scene where two twenty-foot dragons had to hide inside a single broom cupboard not remotely big enough for one of them to an entire major plot point hinging on how none of the Beauxbatons wizards ever looked up, and Harry had to stifle his giggles to avoid waking the Dursleys too early in the morning.

The small collection of wizarding fiction he'd acquired in Diagon Alley was carefully kept separate from the larger pile of books Harry had picked up from Muggle bookshops – mostly second-hand, though with a few new paperbacks from series he'd read up to that point – and which, along with the rest of his collection and his robes, would just about fill up his newly acquired trunk.

Harry was fairly sure that he'd be working hard once he reached school, and so he did his best to fill the days with memories to take with him up to Hogwarts – sunning himself on the roof of the tallest building in Little Whingeing, flying home through a summer downpour with the rain drumming on his wings and all four legs clutching his rucksack below him, sharing a nighttime flight with Hedwig under the full moon, and reading books which sent him to Eosia and Valdemar and Krynn and a dozen other places.

The black dragon wasn't sure whether knowing that magic was completely real made the books better or not, or whether that was just that he was reading for hours on end in his room rather than in the library, but there was something about it which gave every book an extra spice.

Chapter Text

Not long after dawn on September the First, Harry Potter yawned and rose from his bed.

He stretched, hind legs first then forelegs, and his wings reached out and up far enough to just about touch the eaves of the roof. Then he shook himself, loosening up all his joints, and checked the railway timetables.

Rather than rely on the goodwill of his uncle to make it to Kings Cross, Harry had elected to instead make use of public transport. The railway station wasn't too far, and from there he could head into London and use the underground trains to get to where he needed to go.

It would have been simple to go all the way to Waterloo and then go by tube train, but after looking at the map of the underground line Harry had chosen a different route. By getting off one stop early, at Vauxhall, he could use the Victoria Line and go all the way from there to Kings Cross without having to change trains – while all the underground train lines from Waterloo itself didn't go where he wanted, which would mean more changing trains and more moving his heavy trunk and Hedwig's cage around.

It took perhaps half an hour to make sure he'd piled all his belongings into the trunk, with a set of robes on top – he'd put them on on the train – and his equipment stacked beneath them and held in place with books and a number of Hogwarts letters for padding. (The rest went in a nondescript box to be left in the loft.)

"All ready for the journey?" he asked, and Hedwig hooted softly at him. Taking that as agreement, he shut her cage door, then began the process of moving his things out of the house.

This one had taken him some careful thought. Bumping his trunk down the loft ladder was all too likely to wake the Dursleys, which would just make things more awkward, while flying out the window would mean leaving it unlocked and that would have the same effect. So once everything was packed, Harry pushed his trunk so it was half out the window before crawling out on top of it.

A few awkward minutes resulted, but it was still quite early, and Harry unfurled his wings and tensed before pulling the trunk the rest of the way out the window. He beat his wings as hard as he could, raising a storm of dust from the tiles, and slowly lowered the trunk to the street outside.

Hedwig's cage came next, carried somewhat more easily as it wasn't at the outer limit of what he could fly with even for a few seconds. Then Harry went back inside, shut the window and pulled the handle across, then crept out of his loft and downstairs to the front door.

It shut behind him with a click, and Harry was on his way to school.

Most of his remaining pounds sterling went on a train ticket from Little Whingeing to Vauxhall, with just enough left over to get lunch and the underground. Harry was quite proud of his careful budgeting, not least because it meant he'd been able to buy as many books as possible, and wrestled his trunk onto a half-empty near-dawn train – it was a Sunday, which meant there were no commuters – and settled down to enjoy the trip.

If he could have reduced the weight of his trunk, and there was almost certainly some kind of magic for that, he could have flown straight to Kings Cross. But this way he could read a book, the work of carrying his trunk was mostly done by the trains instead, and he'd still be well ahead of schedule.

Harry had not factored in one of the most important facts about British railways – not to rely on them.

After more than an hour of delay outside a station called Queenstown Road – which had had Harry seriously considering the idea of pushing the train into London himself – they finally reached Vauxhall, and Harry dragonhandled his trunk off the train with Hedwig's cage handle held gently in his teeth.

Reminding himself every few seconds not to bite down, Harry navigated his way down to the Victoria line with one eye on the time. The ticket across London cost exactly as much as he'd planned, and after several awkward minutes he was on the second leg of his journey.

Five stations went past in fifteen minutes, and by half past nine Harry was in the maze of tunnels underneath King's Cross station. Vauxhall had been simple enough, but this was immensely confusing – with five underground lines and three conventional rail lines all sharing the same station – and Harry was uncomfortably aware that the combination of his heavy old-fashioned trunk and his live owl was attracting more than a bit of attention, even if none of the people down here could see that he was a dragon.

"Is that a dragon?" someone asked.

Harry turned, startled – sending his glasses bouncing across the floor – and saw a young boy about his age with a roller trunk staring at him.

"Stop staring, Dean!" a woman told him. "And of course it's not, it's an owl."

"Not the owl, mum," Dean replied. "There, carrying the trunk and the owl cage – can't you see, er, him? Her?"

"You mean me?" Harry asked, hooking a paw through Hedwig's cage to lower it.

"No, I mean the other bloody dragon!" Dean countered, and his mum waved her hand at him.

"Dean Thomas! I didn't raise you like that!"

"Sorry, Mum," Dean winced. "But… you seriously can't tell he's a dragon?"

"Hold on," Harry said, retrieving his glasses. "You can tell I'm a dragon?"

He tilted his head. "Hogwarts, right?"

"Yeah, that's me," Dean agreed. "I should have guessed I run into some random dragon in the middle of London, it's going to be magic."

"What are you talking about, Dean?" Mrs. Thomas (?) asked him.

"It's magic," Harry explained helpfully. "I think, anyway."

"Yeah, you think," Dean snorted. "Could be any other reason."

"I did only find out about magic about a month ago," Harry volunteered. "Until then I thought this just happened to growing boys sometimes – or girls, I suppose."

"Yeah, because that's normal," Dean said, smiling. "So you're another muggleborn?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm not, but I grew up with my aunt and uncle, and they're not magical," Harry said. "Do you have any idea how to get up to where the railway platforms are? I'm completely lost here."

"This is so freaky," Dean said softly, glancing around at the various people going in all directions through Kings Cross. "I mean, we're getting some odd looks, but that's because of your owl. Not because you're a dragon."

"Yeah, but I'm kind of used to it," Harry replied. "Actually being noticed to be a dragon is the stranger thing."

The black boy shook his head. "No, the stranger thing is that you haven't told me what your team is yet."

"I don't have a team," Harry told him – truthfully. He'd never had much time for football after discovering that the ball striking his wings was apparently considered 'handball', and hadn't had either the inclination or the opportunity to listen to the radio or watch TV at the Dursleys – certainly not enough to actually follow a team.

"Well, you're from Surrey, so… Crystal Palace?" Dean guessed. "That sounds like a thing a dragon would like."

"It sounds like a place a dragon would live," Harry told him. "And no, I'm not a fan of Crystal Palace."

Dean almost stopped, struck by a horrible thought.

"...it's not Millwall, is it?"

"Who?"

"Phew," Dean said, hurrying back alongside the cart Harry's trunk was on top of. "Well, as long as it's not Millwall and it's not Hotspur, it's fine by me."

They rounded the corner to the point they could see platforms nine and ten.

"You've got your lunch, right Dean?" Mrs. Thomas asked.

"Of course I have, mum," Dean replied. "It went in my trunk with everything else, remember?"

"You'd still better check," she advised, and Harry slid his cart to a halt while Dean opened up his roller trunk to check.

"...Mum, did you give me egg and cress?" he asked. "Thanks!"

"Well, you're going to be going away for months," she said. "Don't forget to eat well when you're there, I don't know what wizard food is like..."

"Do you know?" Dean asked, glancing up at Harry. "I know you said you got brought up by people who weren't magic, but I thought you might have an idea."

"Sorry, no," Harry replied, shaking his head. "Most things are tasty to me. I have had a snack on the way, though, my train was delayed so I got one from the catering carriage."

"...blimey," Dean blinked. "You're not kidding about most things being tasty to you if you could eat one of those."

Harry shrugged, not mentioning that he'd actually eaten the packaging as well. (It had been a toss-up as to which had tasted better.)

Mrs. Thomas gave Dean a sudden hug, clutching him tightly and giving him a kiss. Harry looked away, feeling a bit awkward about the whole thing, and waited until she let go and told him to enjoy himself.

Then the two of them headed for the space between platforms nine and ten.

"Apparently it helps if you close your eyes?" Harry volunteered. "I wrote to someone about it and he told me that."

"Worth a try," Dean admitted. "But, anyway, since you say you don't support a football team… ever considered West Ham?"

Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, it turned out, was a lot like Diagon Alley in some ways.

It was another place that confused Harry slightly about where it actually was. He could clearly see the end of the platform, and the old-fashioned steam train sitting on the rails, but if he decided to fly in that direction… what would happen?

Would he just appear on the railway line just outside Kings Cross? Would turning around mean he could get back into Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters?

Was West Ham actually any good as a football club?

These and other questions preoccupied Harry as he and Dean made their way through the crowd. He sort-of-noticed all the witches and wizards who'd been standing by the entrance, but he didn't have a very good angle to see them down on the far side of his cart and the trunk it carried, and Dean had been talking about Trevor Morley and Julian Dicks and Frank McAvennie and other names which Harry had no context for whatsoever.

"…hope this is going to be a good season, though I don't know if Hogwarts has a TV or anything," Dean went on, slowing a bit as they got close to the train. "Any idea what would be a good place to go? This looks like a pretty old train."

"I'm not sure," Harry replied. "There should be a boy called Neville somewhere, he might not have arrived yet-"

"Merlin's teeth!" someone said. "That's a dragon!"

"It's a talking dragon!" a witch added.

"That's the Dragon Who Lived!" another wizard gasped. "Mr. Potter, it's such a pleasure to-"

"-is he here?"

"-let me through!"

"Don't most dragons tend to live?" someone asked, which Harry thought was probably a good question, but everyone else ignored him, and the crowd began to surge around him.

Dean shot Harry an amazed look, and Harry sighed.

"Maybe you should just get on the train," he suggested.

It took Harry about half an hour to make it the last twenty feet to the train.

He'd heard of journalists and reporters before, and occasionally seen them on television, but this was the first time he'd actually met any – and they were wizards and witches as well, which was stranger. One of them had a big old-fashioned flash camera, and Harry did his best to smile the way he'd practiced once in the mirror – without teeth.

There were plenty of other people who wanted to meet him as well, shaking his hand and telling him how astonished they were to get a chance to do so or just wanting to get a look at him.

After the first few minutes of shock, Harry adjusted a bit. He didn't really enjoy it, but he had to admit that if he hadn't been a dragon and one had turned up outside he'd have been interested enough to at least say hello.

About all the reporters seemed to want to know was simple information, at least. Why he was a dragon (he wasn't entirely sure), where he'd been for ten years (living with relatives), how much magic he knew (he didn't but he was interested in learning), and what Quidditch team he supported.

Perhaps his snort of laughter about hearing basically the same question again had involved a little too much flame, because after that the reporter had looked nervous and moved on to a different topic.

Finally, about twenty minutes before eleven, Harry was able to get his trunk to the train and load it on – along with Hedwig – before hunting for somewhere to sit.

It turned out that the train had compartments, not the seats Harry had experienced on his two journeys to and from Little Whingeing, and furthermore that the first few he found were occupied. One was full of half-a-dozen older girls all talking about exams, the next contained three very big looking boys who Harry thought reminded him of Dudley if Dudley exercised, and then there was one where the first reaction he got was a shriek.

Shutting that door with a quick apology, he was saved by the sight of Dean – leaning out into the corridor to look for the source of the scream, then waving Harry down.

"This is kind of like a museum train or something, isn't it?" Dean asked, as Harry got his trunk to the door of the carriage. The human boy helped him take some of the weight, hefting it through into the compartment, and then Harry unbuckled it to get a few things out – one of the sets of his robes and a book, mostly – before hefting it up onto the rack.

"I don't really know," the dragon admitted, as he helped stow Dean's trunk as well. "I've not seen many trains."

"We mostly take the underground, but Mum takes us out on a trip somewhere special once or twice a year," Dean told him. "There's nothing like this, though."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, my aunt and uncle wouldn't do that kind of thing, not for me. Though come to think of it they wouldn't really take the train, either."

He shrugged his wings. "So what was it like when you got your Hogwarts letter?"

"Oh, wow," Dean chuckled, grinning. "It was the craziest thing. This woman called Professor McGonagall came to visit to show us what's what, and she showed us magic was real by turning one of the chairs into a camel. I bet you didn't have to have that, even if you did grow up with people who can't use magic."

"Actually, I don't think they liked magic very much," Harry replied, musing. "I mean, if they knew about it at all. I don't think I'm sure about that."

"Right, right, they didn't know you were a dragon," Dean realized. "But-"

The compartment door opened, and half-a-dozen students of different ages all stared in.

"Wow," one of them said. "Are you really Harry Potter?"

"I think so," Harry replied. "That's certainly my name."

"Hey, we were talking," Dean protested.

After that group of gawpers went away, apparently satisfied, Harry mentioned how he'd been led around Diagon Alley by Hagrid.

The big man's style seemed much more entertaining to Dean than McGonagall had been. He found the trouble Hagrid had had with pounds sterling as amusing as Harry had (especially now that he had the context of how bizarre Wizarding money was, at least in how it didn't use nice round numbers) and Harry was halfway through telling the story of how he'd reacted down in Gringotts when he paused and held up a talon.

Opening the door, he waved. "Neville, thanks for the help with the platform."

"Oh, um… it was nothing, really," Neville replied, going a bit pink.

"Have you got a compartment yet? This one's got plenty of room," Harry added, and after another nervous glance Neville brought his luggage and his pet toad through to join them. A girl came through as well, glad of somewhere to sit, but when she saw Harry her jaw dropped and she went quiet for a bit.

Dean Thomas introduced himself, Harry introduced Neville to Dean, and the girl said her name was Hermione Granger. She was a muggle-born, like Dean, and when she heard Harry's name she began rummaging through her own trunk before taking out a book.

"You're the Harry Potter in here?" she asked. "The one who defeated the Dark Lord?"

"I don't really remember it," Harry replied, not for the first time.

"Why don't they say you're a dragon?" she went on. "I'd think they'd say something about that, and if something that important is missing from Modern Magical History then I'm not sure if I can trust the rest of it, though the textbooks themselves all seem quite solid. I've read through them all by now, of course, though come to think of it none of them mention dragons attending Hogwarts either."

"I think I'm the first," Harry told her. "And I don't think anyone except me knew I was a dragon until about a month ago."

Hermione had a few more questions, after that, about how that could work, then about what the limits of the magic were (Harry had to admit he'd never actually tried to test it, not having known it existed for most of his draconic life) and finally about how being a dragon would make his magic different. But when she saw what Harry had got out of his bag to read, she did a double-take.

"You read fantasy books?" she asked. "I've read a few, but – well – you're a dragon? I know I'm a witch, but I haven't read any since I found out because I was too busy."

"That's why I read them," Harry replied. "I kind of wanted to find out what dragons were meant to be like. The dragons in this series aren't very, er… intelligent? But I like the way they're written."

"You seriously read all the textbooks?" Dean asked, blinking. "Wow. I didn't know we had to do that."

"I didn't either," Neville said, sounding worried. "I hope that doesn't mean the Sorting goes wrong for me?"

"If it does, I'm stuffed too," Dean told him, clapping the magically-raised boy on the shoulder.

The train rocked at that point as it got moving, leaving the magically-hidden platform, and by an unspoken agreement the four of them stopped their conversation to watch.

They'd barely left the station when another group of visitors came along, wanting to see the rumoured dragon-on-the-train for themselves, and this time Harry's tail twitched slightly as he went through pretty much the same set of questions.

He wouldn't have minded if they were a bit more original.

Probably.

By the time they were out of London, there had been four more sets of visitors (Harry had counted). Hedwig had also woken up, given Trevor the Toad a considering look and begun preening her feathers, and Neville and Hermione had begun giving Dean a somewhat muddled account of what sounded like a very confusing sport that was played a lot by Wizards.

Apparently the game was sometimes weeks long, but that depended how good two of the players were. It wasn't made any easier to follow by the fact that Hermione's knowledge was all out of a book she'd got (which she had open on her lap as they talked) while Neville had seen several games before but hadn't memorized the rules.

Harry had also started trying to read his book-for-the-train, which was meant to finish off the whole plot of the Malloreon. He was quite anxious to find out what happened, but all the interruptions meant he'd barely got to the bit where Garion and Zakath were talking to one another after the recap.

"...oh, no!" Neville said suddenly, after the latest group had left. "Where's Trevor gone?"

Harry put his book down again, slipping a bookmark into it, and sniffed.

"...he's not in here," he declared, able to smell toad but not nearby toad. "The window's closed, so he didn't get out that way."

"It must have been when those boys asking if Harry could breathe fire and stuff had the door open," Dean realized. "Great…"

After some discussion, it had been concluded that there were two of them who could actually identify the toad in question. Harry was able to smell well enough to identify Trevor if need be (and that had prompted a four minute digression on how humans could not, in fact, tell animals apart by scent – something which came as a surprise to Harry, though on reflection it made sense) while Neville could naturally do so as it was his toad.

Unfortunately Harry's sense of smell wasn't good enough to tell if Trevor had gone towards the front or the back of the train, so the four of them had to split up. Neville and Hermione went one way, while Dean and Harry went the other – albeit after a delay caused by Harry being asked what he'd started to mentally describe as 'the obvious five questions'.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" (Yes.)

"Why are you a dragon?" (Don't know, sorry, it was a while ago.)

"How did you stop You-Know-Who?" (I was a baby, I don't know that either.)

"Can we see the scar?" (It isn't as if I'm wearing anything in the way)

"What magic can you do?" (None yet, that's why I'm going to school.)

Nobody seemed to be very creative about it all. Some of them came up with extra things to ask, but it seemed to him as though at least a few of them should have started with something different.

Harry's mental running tally of the number of times he'd been asked was up to at least a dozen by the time they reached one compartment, and Dean knocked before pulling the door open.

There were two girls and a boy inside, all of them clearly first- or second-years, though they were wearing Wizard-looking clothes so they were also almost certainly magical.

"Yes?" the boy asked.

"Wait, is that-" one of the girls began, and the boy shook his head.

"No, clearly not," he told her. "After all, if he was Harry Potter, then we'd be able to see his scar. But he's obviously not, because there isn't a scar. Can you see one?"

"Blaise, this isn't you being funny again, is it?" the other girl asked. "I can see the scar. And how many dragons do you think are on the train?"

"Dragon?" Blaise asked. "I thought you were talking about the other one."

Dean snickered.

"Have any of you seen a toad?" he asked. "Someone we met lost one, so we're looking."

"That's a much more sensible explanation than I was expecting," Blaise said, interrupting one of the girls again. "My first thought was that if either of you was Harry Potter going door-to-door on the train to introduce yourself, that would be quite odd. But since neither of you is Harry Potter, I suppose I should have expected there to be another reason."

"Stop playing around, Blaise," the first girl sighed. "There's a toad right here, I was talking to you about it less than five minutes ago."

"It's my home life," Blaise shrugged. "It leaves me starved for meaningful attention."

The toad was duly produced, and Harry pronounced him to be Trevor. The girls introduced themselves, as well, as "Daphne" and "Tracey" respectively, and Harry left satisfied both with a rescued toad and with the memory of an unusually interesting conversation.

The train was going through fields by noon, and Harry had finally had a chance to get properly started on his book. He'd just reached the bit with the Dals when there was a hesitant knock on the door, and with a sigh he put it down again as Dean told the new person to come in.

Harry kept an eye on Trevor, to make sure he didn't make a new bid for freedom while the door was open, and a boy with brilliant red hair stuck his head around the door.

"Hey, is there a space here?" he asked. "My older brothers have invited their friend Lee Jordan in, and he's got a pet tarantula and-"

The boy shivered. "No thanks."

"What do you think?" Dean asked, looking over at Harry – who was taking up more space than any of the others, lying as he was across two seats.

"Bloody hell," the new boy breathed, catching sight of Harry.

"I did have an idea, actually," Harry replied. He lifted his book up to the luggage rack, crouched a bit, then leapt up there with a hiss of effort. His wings half-opened for stability, Harry resisting the urge to beat them because of how much it would mess up the small compartment, and then he was lying down on top of the luggage trunks.

"I thought so," the drake said, pleased with himself. "There you go."

"Isn't that, um… uncomfortable?" asked the newcomer, looking a bit baffled.

Harry shrugged his wings. "I slept in a cupboard for a few years, this isn't bad."

Besides, most of his body was on top of just about everything he owned in the world, and that felt very dragon-like.

At about half past twelve a cart full of food and other things came past, and Neville offered to get them all something. Harry seconded that, jumping down to see what was on the cart, and ended up getting about a Galleon's worth of all the odd things on display to sample and share.

The pumpkin pasty was comparatively normal, except for the use of pumpkin, and Harry was quick to swap a few around for sandwiches – especially those of Ron, the boy who didn't like spiders, and who seemed very grateful that Harry was willing to eat the corned beef sandwiches he'd been given.

The fact that Harry had swallowed the wrapping as well drew more than a few stares.

"Wait, hold on," Dean began, blinking. "Did you just eat that greasepaper?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. It's kind of like the pasty, it's the wrapping around the tastier bits. I've never really found something I can't eat."

"Never?" Neville asked. "You mean, like… you could eat wood, or a plant pot?"

"Both of those," Harry agreed.

"Your digestion must be amazing," Hermione mused. "I don't think it said anything in the textbook about dragons eating anything other than meat."

"Just don't eat the chocolate frogs whole, they've got trading cards in," Ron warned. "Oh, hold on a minute… yeah, there's some Every Flavour Beans here."

He showed a packet to the rest of the compartment, most of whom had never seen one before. "Fred and George said there were some really awful flavours in these – it says every flavour and it really means it, there's stuff like spinach and liver and toast."

Curious, Harry picked out a jet-black one on the end of one of his talons.

"Watch out, mate, I've never seen one that colour before."

"Black," Dean said, thinking about it. "So is that going to be… what, burned toast?"

"Loam?" Neville suggested.

"Maybe it's just liquorice," Hermione said. "It doesn't have to be disgusting."

Harry shrugged his wings, and ate the bean.

"...hmm," he said. "I think that might be motor oil."

For some reason, Harry had the Every Flavour Beans to himself.

"Let's see if I manage to get this one," Dean said, holding the packaging of one of the Chocolate Frogs.

Harry watched his hands, crouching slightly, and his tail flicked from side to side a bit.

"You could at least try not to look like you're waiting for me to drop it, mate," the boy muttered. "Okay, um… here goes!"

He tore the packaging, and the enchanted chocolate immediately made a break for it. It hopped out of Dean's hands, and Harry pounced – though he flubbed it slightly, bouncing it off his nose, and Hermione yelped as she found herself catching the recently dragon-bounced chocolate with both hands.

Harry ended up piled in a heap under the window, then untwisted himself again, and since Hermione was occupied with the chocolate it was Neville who looked at the card that had been in the packet.

"Celsus?" he asked, confused. "I thought he was called Paracelsus."

"Paracelsus means 'Above Celsus'," Hermione told him. "Paracelsus named himself that way because he thought he was better than Celsus."

"Huh," Neville said.

"Mind if I have the next one?" Ron asked. "Let's see if I can keep a hold of this one."

As he caught the frog, however, the door opened – admitting a couple of boys who looked tough and a lot older than any of them.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" one asked.

Harry rolled his eyes, and was about to respond when Ron spoke up.

"Yes," the red-head answered.

"You're Harry Potter?" the other snorted. "No, you're obviously a Weasley."

"Doesn't mean I can't answer the question," Ron pointed out.

The upperclassmen shook their heads, and the one who'd first spoken looked directly at Harry this time. "Why are you a dragon?"

"He doesn't know," Dean volunteered this time. "It was a while ago."

"How did you stop You-Know-Who?" the second one asked.

"He was a baby," Hermione huffed. "He doesn't know that either. Honestly."

"Are we asking him or you guys?" the first upperclassman asked. "Seriously, what is this?"

"You're not exactly being original, mate," Dean said. "We know the answers to these because everyone's asked them."

"Shut it, you," the second one grumbled. "Can we see the scar, at least?"

"Why do people always think you're wearing a hat or something, Harry?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged, having been quite confused about that himself.

"Come on, Adrian," one of the boys said. "Let's go. That Weasley at least is probably going to end up in Gryffindor anyway."

Ron seemed quite pleased by the comment, though Adrian did stick his head back around the corner as his friend left.

"Er… you don't know any magic yet, do you?"

"I thought that was why we were going to Hogwarts," Neville said, sounding honestly confused.

When the older boys had left, Harry slid the door shut with a paw. "Thanks, guys… I never thought I'd hear the same questions so many times in a row."

He jumped back up on the luggage rack after snagging the last packet of Every Flavour Beans, and opened his book again.

The train was moving through a hilly region an hour or so later, and Harry had just got to the bit where Zandramas revealed herself to be able to turn into a dragon (though not exactly a very nice one, because of what Zandramas was like) when the door slid open to admit three boys already wearing their school robes.

"They're saying all up and down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment," said a boy with a pale, pointed face. "And that he's a dragon. Where is he?"

"Oh, um… hello, Draco," Neville said quietly.

Harry put his bookmark in place, noticing the two very large boys behind Draco, and said nothing.

"Well?" Draco asked. "Where's Harry Potter?"

Dean Thomas tried not to laugh, and Draco turned to him.

"Think something's funny, do you, Muggleborn?" he asked, making the word sound much nastier than Ron and Neville had.

"Well, yeah," Dean replied. "I mean, your name?"

"What's wrong with it?" Draco demanded.

"It means dragon," Hermione told him, looking up from a book she'd borrowed from Harry. "And you said you were looking for a dragon."

"Well, given who you're associating with, I don't see why I should expect you to know anything," Draco snorted. "Weasleys are practically Muggleborn anyway; my father said they've all got red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

"Hey!" Ron said, half-standing up, and one of the two big boys cracked his knuckles. Ron trembled slightly, but sat down again.

Harry had already decided he didn't like Draco very much, but that made him decide he didn't like Draco at all.

"Well, if he's not here, where is he?" Draco demanded.

Harry coughed.

It was quite satisfying to see all three of the boys jump a bit as they realized the shadows up on top of the luggage rack were actually a black dragon in repose.

"Wait – Trevor!" Neville yelped, spotting his toad making another break for it, and snagged him just before he hopped over the threshold. Draco looked down for a moment, then back up at Harry.

"You're not making a good stab at your first impression with the Wizarding World, you know," he said. "It's important to get to know the right sort, and of those you're associating with already only Longbottom's remotely worthwhile."

Hermione and Dean both reacted to that, one with a huff and the other with another repressed snort of laughter.

"What are you, a gangster or something?" the Muggle-born boy asked. "And how many wizards can there be if we all go to the same school? It took Harry half an hour to get to the train, I think he's made a pretty good impression already."

Draco went slightly pink.

"Potter, I'd be careful if I were you," he said. "If you make the same mistakes as your parents you'll go the same way they did. Better to make the right decisions now, don't you think?"

"What my parents did meant they died," Harry replied. "But it meant that I stopped He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, as well. I think they'd think it was worth it."

Draco seemed about to reply, but held his tongue.

"Something the matter?" asked an older girl with a shiny badge on her blue-trimmed robes, looking around the edge of the door.

"No, we were just leaving," Draco replied, and walked off with his friends (?) following him.

"That's good," the girl said, then gave the five first-years a considering glance. "Just so you know, it's about two hours until we get to Hogwarts – you might want to get changed fairly soon."

"Oh – thanks," Harry said, speaking for all of them.

The size of the compartment meant that they had to get changed in three sets – there was no way Harry and the other three boys could all get into their robes at once – and Neville and Dean went first.

Harry gathered that the girl who'd showed up earlier was a Prefect (like one of Ron's brothers was, it seemed), and that they were probably checking in on all the compartments to let them know they were most of the way to Hogwarts. It seemed a bit odd that what was turning out to be a nine hour journey didn't have more than perhaps one or two adults on the train, but perhaps there was some logic to it he hadn't seen.

Hermione went next, meaning all four boys were out in the corridor, and Dean spent the intervening time tugging on his robes and muttering about them. Harry asked if they needed to wear the pointy hats, and the reminder just made Dean shake his head.

"And I thought the uniforms for posh schools were stupid."

"My aunt and uncle sent my cousin to Smeltings," Harry volunteered. "His uniform has a big stick in it."

"What, like a wand?" Ron asked. "I thought Muggles didn't have those."

"No, just a stick," Harry clarified. "I think the only thing you can do is hit people with it."

Then it was their turn, and Harry discovered that perhaps he should have practiced putting on his robes at some point in the entire month of August. It took him fifteen minutes, along with help from both Ron and Neville, to finally get his wings and legs and neck in the right places without the robe forming a kind of giant ruff around his shoulders.

Harry did then glance over at his book, unsure how much of it he could finish but willing to give it a try, then snorted as he remembered something.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

"Oh, just – I'd almost forgotten about it, but that thing that happened with Draco," Harry told them.

"That was pretty funny," Ron nodded.

"But it was – hold on," Harry asked, and jumped up to grab onto the storage at the top of the compartment. He got a hindpaw over the lip for support, unbuckled his trunk, and rummaged around for a bit before finding what he was after.

"It reminded me of this," the young drake explained, showing them Tooth and Fang. "It's really funny, it's about this whole society of dragons hiding at a French magic school."

"How do they do that?" Hermione said. "Dragons are very large – well, except for you, and for young ones. But most dragons grow very quickly. I'd think they wouldn't be able to remain hidden very long at all."

"I know," Harry agreed readily. "But that's the thing, they're really helped out by this simple rule all the young dragons get taught."

He waited expectantly, and this time it was Neville who asked first.

"What's that?"

"Wizards," Harry replied, "don't look up."

After a moment's silence, all four of his new friends laughed. Harry grinned, then settled himself a bit on top of his trunk and began reading out a bit of the book.

The Seeress of Kell could wait.

"Monsieur Joseph finished his lecture, and asked if there were any questions," Harry read out. "Red saw his chance, and spoke up from the back of the class. 'What's the password into the staff room?' he asked."

"What, really?" Ron said, trying not to laugh. "That was his big plan?"

"It gets better," Harry replied. "'I'm sorry, I don't think I've met you before?' Monsieur Joseph asked. 'You are?'

Red answered quickly. 'Indigo Disguise,' he said, and adjusted his fake beard and moustache, sure he was completely undetectable."

Over the giggles from the rest of the compartment, Harry continued reading. The dragon called Red, it turned out, hadn't quite made his disguise perfect… but only because there was another student in the class called Indigo Des Guise.

The subsequent four pages described the dragon and the real In. Des Guise getting into a duel of honour, and Red's plan to win the duel without exposing his true identity. They were almost at the opening for the duel when there was an announcement that the train would be reaching Hogsmeade Station in five minutes, and also that they should leave their things on the train.

"You've really got to lend me that book some time, Harry," Dean said. "Is it like that all the way through?"

"Well, the plans keep getting crazier," Harry replied. "Hold on."

He dropped down from the rack, his wand in one pocket of his robes, and corralled Trevor again. "There we go."

"Are all wizard fiction books like that?" Hermione asked.

"Not really, there's all sorts," Harry told her. "I just picked up anything with a dragon on it, but I didn't like half of them. That one was the best."

"Any idea what we do with pets?" Ron asked. "I could put Scabbers in my robe pocket, he's probably been in there before, but you can't really fit your owl in there."

"We probably just leave them on the train?" Harry guessed.

"Nah, I wouldn't trust Trevor in the train on his own," Dean pointed out. "He'd escape."

"I'll bring him," Neville decided.

Hagrid was there on the platform, calling for the first-years to follow him. Harry was pleased to see him, waving a hello, but then there came a bit of a problem.

The first-years had to ride boats to the glittering mountaintop castle that was to be their school, and there weren't supposed to be more than four to a boat.

After a bit of thought, Harry decided that – because there was a big, black lake in front of them – the reason for the boat ride was clearly to get across the lake. Since he had another way of getting across the lake, he solved the problem by spreading his wings and taking to the air.

It also meant he could stretch his wings after so long on the train, and he climbed rapidly into the air with a series of powerful wingbeats.

Unfortunately, Harry was enjoying himself so much in being able to fly – especially in a much wilder and more interesting place than Surrey – that he completely missed when the boats set off, and when he looked around again they'd vanished.

Worried that perhaps he'd made a mistake, Harry landed back where they'd started from (no luck there), then took off to scout around in case he'd just not spotted them. That took several minutes, and he was about to land at the castle front door and admit he'd managed to lose the other first-years when he spotted Hagrid walking out of a sunken passageway.

Alighting with a thump on the soft, damp grass, Harry blushed. "Sorry about that, Hagrid."

"No harm done, 'Arry," Hagrid told him with a chuckle. "Anyone else I mighta been worried, but you can fly and all."

"We could fly if we were allowed broomsticks," someone grumbled.

Chapter Text

Harry vaguely remembered that Hagrid had introduced himself as the 'keeper of keys' at some point – possibly while Harry was still waking up? - but instead of actually using the keys he probably kept to open the door he knocked instead.

The door was opened by a tall witch with a stern face and emerald green robes, who Hagrid addressed as Professor McGonagall, and Harry hung back a bit until he found his new friends.

"What happened to you?" Ron asked quietly, sounding worried. "I saw you take off, then you just vanished!"

"It's because he's all-over black," Dean volunteered. "If I had a raincoat on and it was dark, people sometimes couldn't see me back at primary school."

"I thought I'd fly alongside," Harry explained. "To save space. But I didn't see when you set off."

He looked back, sniffing, to confirm Trevor was still there – he had the feeling that keeping track of Trevor had been a full-time job for Neville in the past – as they were led through the cavernous entrance hall and into an antechamber.

The Professor briefly outlined the House system, telling them about how there was a process to sort students (but not what it was) and that students would spend most of their time with their house. There was also a bit about the House Cup, but Harry was already worried about something else.

What would happen if he ended up in a house without any of the friends he'd already made? Would he have to not spend time with them?

Could they even make rules about which students you could spend time with?

Sitting on his haunches, he listened to the others discussing what the sorting process could be. Someone suggested that it was a written test, someone else suggested that maybe it was that you had to roll a dice, and one girl announced that she thought it involved pulling a House name out of a hat.

Then there was a gasp of surprise from near the main door.

"Oh, I say!" someone announced, and there were a lot more gasps from the first-years. "That's a dragon!"

"Is it, my good man?" asked another voice. "My goodness, so it is! How did a dragon get in here?"

"Make way!" a third voice called. "I've faced many dragons in my time-"

"Your time was three hundred years ago!" the first voice said, and Harry finally got a good look at them. There were about twenty ghosts, floating closer and spreading out so they could get a good look, and Harry waved.

"It looks rather more friendly than most dragons I've seen," said the third voice. "But that must be a trick! Fetch my sword!"

"Dragons don't usually wear robes, Lord Ridley," a plump little monk's ghost said. "Do you know, I think those are the new students!"

"Then we need to save them from the dragon!" Lord Ridley announced, flourishing a ghostly sword.

"Can you not slay me, please?" Harry asked, stepping forwards a little. "I am a student… this is my first term, though."

"Don't mind Lord Ridley, he's quite harmless," another ghost said, bowing with a hand pressing his hat firmly to his head. "If he does try to slay you, please inform any Hogwarts ghost. Except Peeves, he's not really a ghost but it's easy to get confused."

"Thank you," Harry said, grateful for the support. "I'll remember that."

"What I don't understand is why none of you new students are surprised!" said another ghost, this one a woman with an enormous hairdo. "A dragon is amongst you, and you seem more startled by ghosts!"

"We've had up to nine hours to get used to the idea," Blaise said. "That is, if we hadn't heard the gossip – anyone who'd heard that has been thinking about the idea of a dragon at Hogwarts for more than a month."

One of the girls who'd shared a compartment with Blaise muttered something which Harry didn't catch, but based on his experience with them so far he could sort of guess it wasn't approving.

Then Professor McGonagall told them all to line up, and led them away from the ghosts and into the Great Hall.

Harry's first reaction to the Great Hall was to stop and stare, though he worked out the problem with that quite quickly when a girl tripped over his tail. He reacted just in time to flick his wing out and catch her, saving her from a nasty fall onto the stone flags, and once she was back upright he followed… whoever it was he'd ended up behind… through the hall itself, up towards the top table where the teachers were sitting.

The thousands of floating candles high overhead looked amazing, though he wasn't sure how much of his reaction was amazement at their beauty and how much was that they looked sort of tasty, and the golden plates made his talons itch slightly at the sight of so much precious metal. The enchanted ceiling overhead looked very impressive as well, though it was too light in the hall to see as many stars as you could on a proper dark night, and for a moment Harry wondered if they could extinguish the candles to get a better look.

Shrugging the idea off, he looked up at the teachers. There were some very strange looking people there – Hagrid at least he'd seen before, but there was a tiny little man who was sitting on several cushions and a really very old man with a long white beard, and at the other end of the table a woman with a red witch's hat sat next to a sallow-faced man who appeared to be dressed entirely in simple black robes.

Harry briefly noticed that the sallow-faced man was staring at him – and with an expression that looked like he was overcome with horror, or perhaps shock – before there was the scrape of wood on stone as a four-legged stool was put in front of them.

A very old-looking hat was put on the stool, and Harry tilted his head. Were they going to be pulling names out of a hat?

Then it started to sing, and by the end Harry felt he had a better idea of what was going on.

Slightly.

Fortunately, the sorting process itself didn't seem to take all that long. When a name was called out (and they were going alphabetically) the student hurried to the stool, placed the hat on their head, and then the hat mumbled to itself for a bit before shouting out the name of the house – or sometimes shouted it out immediately, though Harry couldn't really tell if there was any sort of pattern to it.

Harry had been expecting that the first of the people he'd actually met properly who would get sorted was Hermione, but it transpired that it was actually one of the girls he'd met while hunting for Trevor – Tracey, whose surname was Davis and which meant that she went quite near the front of the list. She got about thirty seconds of mumbling, then was assigned to Slytherin, and walked over to that table accompanied by applause.

Hermione was naturally second, and went to Gryffindor after several minutes of Hat-based contemplation. Daphne (whose surname turned out to be Greengrass) went third, joining her friend with a much quicker decision, and Harry wondered whether she was cunning or underhanded or both.

Or maybe he was overthinking it. The song had mentioned a couple of features of each House, but were those really all of them? Maybe Slytherin was also for the people who liked snakes, or Ravenclaw for people who liked flying? Or perhaps Hufflepuffs liked oranges, that was a word it was supposed to be hard to rhyme.

Realizing he was still overthinking it, Harry looked around for something to take his mind off it, and turned his attention back to the table with all the teachers on it. The sallow man near the end seemed to have calmed down a bit, though he was still eyeing Harry (or at least Harry felt like it was him in particular who was being looked at), while there was a scarred-looking wizard also focused on Harry who was actually writing furiously on something the young dragon couldn't quite see.

At least the wizard on the end with a massive turban wasn't staring at Harry. In fact, the turbaned wizard was looking almost directly away from Harry.

The warning tingle of an incipient headache made Harry realize that this wasn't helping; he was now worried about teachers either seeing him as a study project or being scared of him, and neither was really very nice.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat announced, and Harry turned back to see who it had been. Embarrassingly, it was Neville, who must have been under the hat for several minutes and who Harry had completely missed.

Dean was paling slightly and Ron had gone a funny grey colour, and Harry wasn't sure how he looked either. Wouldn't this be much less stressful if they'd done it in private?

As it was, he knew it was coming, and he knew roughly when, but he had no idea how many people had names that were ahead of him in the alphabet so every new name just ratcheted up the tension. It was sort of like how he imagined Impression would be (if you were one of the humans, anyway; dragons never had to wait for Impression).

Draco went to Slytherin very quickly indeed, the hat barely having time to touch his head, which only made Harry wonder about cunning again.

Maybe he just wanted to be with his two big friends, who'd also gone to Slytherin?

Hopefully when it was actually his turn it would be all right…

Over the next few minutes, Harry discovered that there were four other people waiting to be Sorted whose surnames began with P, and all of them were before him in the alphabet. The twins Patil had been a little puzzling, as they'd gone to different Houses, and Harry briefly wondered if the whole thing was just random before his name was finally called.

Whispering broke out all over the hall, and Harry was slightly surprised to discover that at least some of the Hogwarts students had both not visited him on the train and not noticed the dragon standing in the row waiting to be sorted.

Then he put the hat on, which fell over his eyes.

"Well, now!" said a small voice in his ear. "This is quite the surprise! I knew there was a dragon, most certainly, but you haven't always been a dragon, even if you think of yourself as one..."

Harry closed his eyes, and there was a pause.

"Where did you go?" the voice asked. "I swear you were there a moment ago..."

That made Harry blink, and the hat went on. "Ah, there you are! I see, I see, dragon scale, very magically resistant. Don't close those eyes, now… and, my word! Do you know, it's rare that I get a good book to enjoy? Not many people read before they come here, or at least not books worth reading..."

What's actually going on? Harry asked, doing his best to think in the direction of the hat. You're reading my mind?

"Well, yes, yes, don't fuss! I've been doing it all this time, and it's quite honestly tradition," the hat replied. "Ah, yes, I see… don't worry, I may be a person but I'm quite happy with my lot. Well, I say that, it'd be nice to read a book or two every now and again, I'm sure you agree… but to sort students is the highlight of my year, and I really do spend most of the rest of the time sleeping."

Harry was sure not everyone had this kind of conversation. But maybe that was why Neville and Hermione had taken so long?

"Good, ah, drake," the hat informed him. "Very sharp… and, hmm. Well, now, as to actually sorting you, you present me with something of a puzzler. I know all about how to sort humans, but for dragons I'm flying quite blind. And no, it's not about your favourite colour, but you're quite right that not everything goes into every song. I do a new one every year, you know..."

After what had to be several minutes, Harry had the distinct feeling that the Sorting Hat was quite easily distracted.

"...of course, naturally none of the others would allow Godric to put a griffin on his banner! They said it was all magical creatures or none of them, you see – so that's why there's no dragon house, well, that and that they all preferred other magical creatures if a choice had to be made… I've always suspected old Salazar of sneaking a Basilisk into the Slytherin banner, though…"

The hat caught itself. "Oh, dear, where are my manners… I'm terribly sorry about this. Hmm… well, now… you could do well in Ravenclaw, most certainly – reminds me of a girl from earlier in that respect… Slytherin would make you great, I think..."

That's what Mr. Ollivander said about what He Who Must Not Be Named did, Harry countered. I don't think I like that sort of great.

"True, true, I can see that… well, now, I believe that narrows the choice a little," the hat went on. "You'd certainly rather find out about a problem than not, but… ah, a pleasure to try and Sort, I must say, but if I had to make a choice I'd have to say GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry found a seat next to one of the ghosts – fortunately not Lord Ridley, who gave him a suspicious glare from the other side of the Gryffindor table – and shifted a bit to get his tail properly in place without overbalancing one way or the other, then turned to watch the rest of the sorting.

There weren't many left, and both Dean and Ron came over to Gryffindor – filling up some of the only few places left. Blaise was the last, and he was assigned to Slytherin by the hat after a minute or so of deliberation.

"There's a lot of applause for everyone," Harry said. "Is that normal?"

"Fairly normal," replied someone who he thought was probably one of Ron's many brothers. "It's a big moment, though having you in Gryffindor house is more exciting than normal."

"It shouldn't be, really," Harry replied. "I know it's pretty much impossible for me to not stand out with people who can see I'm a dragon, but I'm not used to it."

He looked over at Ron, who was sitting on the other side of the table. "Yours was fairly quick… did the sorting hat not say much to you?"

"Not really," Ron answered, thinking about it. "Why?"

"He seemed to get distracted really easily," Harry replied. "He spent most of the time with me talking about stuff like the personal tastes of the four wizards and witches the Houses are named after, and about books I'd read, and stuff. I think maybe he just doesn't get to talk all that much."

"Huh," Ron frowned. "I wonder what Neville and Hermione had."

He sniggered. "If that's how it works then maybe he didn't want to say a single word to Malfoy?"

"Isn't his name Draco?" Harry asked.

"Well, yeah, but his surname's-"

"Welcome!" said the headmaster, who Harry remembered from his letters was called Albus Dumbledore, Grand Sorc. and so on. "Welcome one and all! And before we begin our meal, I would like to say a few words."

He cleared his throat. "A Few Words. Thank you."

Harry snorted, then noticed that the plates were suddenly full of all kinds of food.

(Well, that wasn't quite correct. But it was all kinds of human food, and Harry understood they wouldn't vary their menu just for one student if that one student could still eat all the regular food.)

After a very long day of nothing but two sandwiches and some sweets, Harry was quite happy to pile all kind of everything on his plate – mostly roast meat and vegetables, though not exclusively – and dig in.

"My goodness," said the ghost next to Harry, watching as he ate a chicken leg. "I didn't know that was possible."

"What?" Harry asked, then looked down at the remains of the chicken leg – which he'd bitten off cleanly about halfway up, bone and all. "Oh, yeah… the bone's just a bit chewy, that's all."

"For most of us it's a lot more than a bit chewy," Dean said, swallowing his peas. "I think I'd break my teeth if I tried to do that!"

"It's very impressive to watch, actually," the older Weasley boy said. "I wonder what Charlie would think – most dragons don't mind making a mess of what they eat, of course, but you're much more tidy."

"Aunt Petunia would blame me if I dropped anything on the tablecloth," Harry explained. "Besides, manners are fairly easy if you learn them."

"It took me a while," Ron admitted, keeping his elbows clear of the table. "But Mum would give me a real telling-off if I made a mistake."

"Of course she did, Ronald," his brother said. "And rightly so as well."

"Percy," Ron groaned. "Not now?"

Harry looked a little wistfully at their interaction, wondering what it would be like if Dudley was okay with him all the time instead of just when he needed something, and took another bite of roast potatoes.

There was a faint clang.

"...oops," Harry blushed. "I haven't done that for years..."

Everyone within four places stared as Harry pulled the remains of his fork out of his mouth and put it down. It still had the flare, but all four tines had vanished completely.

"Is there something I should do to tell someone?" he asked. "Sorry about that, it was just really tasty..."

Percy took his wand out of his pocket and tapped the fork, and it regrew the tines in a trice.

"...okay, that was cool," Dean pronounced. "What was that?"

"Just a simple transfiguration," Percy said, but Harry could tell he was pleased. "There are restrictions on what transfiguration can do, such as that it can't create food, but-"

"Wait, hold on," Harry asked. "It can't create food?"

He pointed at the fork. "If that's made of metal, I could eat it. Does that mean it can create food for me?"

"No, that's different," Percy told him. "The First Exception to Gamp's Law is that you can't turn something that isn't food into food. What I did there was to increase the amount of what was already there."

He frowned. "Though, now I come to think of it, maybe you could transfigure something you can't eat into something you can eat. What can't you eat?"

Harry had to think long and hard.

"Um… I actually can't think of anything?" he admitted. "I haven't tried everything, but everything I've tried has been pretty edible."

"That's remarkable," Percy said. "But it does mean you could probably consider the First Exception irrelevant… unless you do find something you can't eat, and you can turn it into metal or something."

Harry shrugged, then picked up a pot pie and ate it.

"...that was in a china dish," Dean pointed out. "I'm kind of afraid you'll eat your books one day, mate."

The dragon shook his head firmly. "No, I… it's kind of hard to describe, I just think of them as… mine, I think?"

"I think I'll let the House-Elves know to prepare extra dishes for the Gryffindor table," Percy said.

"Oh, there are House-Elves at Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, revealing herself to be a bit further down than Percy. "They're not mentioned in Hogwarts: A History, but I saw mention of legislation to improve their rights in Modern Magical History."

"That's right, it's how such a large castle with so many students is taken care of," Percy explained.

Harry listened with half an ear to the conversation, but mostly just concentrated on eating – this time trying to confine himself to things that were actually meant to be eaten.

Over the course of the next hour or so, everyone ate their fill – then the main meals were exchanged for desserts, in a variety as great (or greater) than the main courses.

Fortunately, so many of the Gryffindors had already asked Harry the Five Obvious Questions on the train that the conversation over the dessert started some way after that. Harry got asked about his home life, and he did his best to explain how he got on with his family.

"For the last month or so I was living in the loft," he said. "And… honestly, I think that kind of worked out best."

"But surely your aunt and uncle would want to see you?" a third-year girl asked. "And how you were doing?"

"Not really," Harry replied, with a shrug. One of his wings went through Sir Nicholas, which felt oddly chilling, and he furled it again before continuing. "I… kind of think they knew I was magic before I knew it – except for the dragon thing – and they didn't really like it. But they're not too bad."

He inspected a jam doughnut, biting into it, then swallowed and went on. "I just try to stay out of the way as much as possible, and when I come down for meals I cook them – that way it's easier to eat the packaging."

That drew a few stares, and Dean laughed.

"I really hope I don't get used to how you eat stuff, mate," he said. "It's great every time."

That drew attention to him, and he shrugged. "For me, well… I don't know what happened to my birth dad, but my new dad treats me just like one of his kids. Mum actually thinks my birth dad might have been a wizard, now, 'cause that would explain where I came from."

"That's actually quite plausible," Percy informed him. "You were born a year or two before Harry ended the last war."

"That makes it sound like I had anything to do with it," Harry winced. "I don't know what happened."

"So you grew up in an all-Muggle household?" Seamus Finnegan asked. "Mine was half and half, so I never really had trouble adjusting to magic and stuff."

Dean nodded, and pointed at Harry. "He grew up in a Muggle household too, don't forget."

"So did I, obviously," Hermione said. "All these differences really are fascinating. It must be so helpful to grow up around magic and absorb all these spells as they're being used."

"Well… you don't, really?" Ron tried. "It's just… mum cleaning the kitchen, or dad fixing the chair. That's all it is, really."

"He's got a point," Dean nodded. "Not like I know how the plumbing works just 'cause I've seen mum doing the washing up."

"I don't know, I think Harry might know how the plumbing works," the third-year girl said.

"I know how to use it, that's not the same thing," Harry replied. "But if you want to know how to fly in a rainstorm, I'm your dragon."

He rubbed his head, remembering a long-ago crash. "The important thing is to listen for when you're about to reach the ground..."

"Hey, hold on a moment," the third-year girl asked. "You taught yourself to fly?"

She blinked. "Well, I suppose you must have done. That's really impressive… I'd better let Wood know we might have some up and coming talent for next year."

"Oh, hold on, I know you," Ron realized. "Fred, George and Charlie talked about you. You're… Angelina, right?"

Angelina nodded in confirmation. "Yeah. Didn't know they talked about me at home though..."

"There's only seven players in a Quidditch team, everyone gets talked about," Seamus pointed out.

"So what are the rules of this thing?" Dean said. "It sounds mad."

That led the discussion off into Quidditch, which did indeed sound quite baffling. Harry wasn't sure it sounded at all safe for people who weren't dragons, and the fact you couldn't tell how long a game was even going to last was completely bizarre.

It gave him a mental image of teachers in the stands shouting lectures at the teams, still playing well into the second week.

As talk of the rules shifted into talk of the teams (Ron apparently being a fan of a real no-hoper team, while Neville admitted to just vaguely supporting whoever sounded like they had a chance that year), Harry looked back up at the table – counting teachers.

"How many classes are there?" he asked Percy, who seemed disinterested in the sports talk.

"Oh, well, for you first-years there's seven," Percy informed him. "Astronomy, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic. There's also flying lessons in the first term."

Harry nodded as Percy pointed out each of the teachers. The sallow man turned out to be the Potions teacher, Professor Snape, and Professor McGonagall was Transfiguration.

"Then starting in third year you take at least two of five extra classes," Percy went on. "Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Muggle Studies. Professor Kettleburn is Creatures, Ancient Runes is Professor Babbling, Arithmancy is Professor Vector, and Professor Burbage is Muggle Studies."

"Where's the Divination teacher?" Harry asked. "And do you do that subject?"

"I do all the subjects," Percy told Harry, sounding very pleased with himself – and Harry could understand why.

"So what's Divination like?" the dragon went on. "Is it about reading ancient codexes and trying to piece together concordances?"

"Not… really," Percy replied. "To be honest, the teacher isn't always the clearest on the subject. She spends all her time up in her tower."

Harry counted back and forth again, feeling another of those faint tingles warning of a potential headache. Hagrid obviously didn't teach a subject, and the Divination teacher wasn't here… that was the flying teacher, so...

"So what does the headmaster teach?"

"Well, some years he teaches Alchemy, if there's enough interest in it for the sixth-years," Percy said. "But he simply doesn't have the time to teach, normally – he's a very busy man."

Harry nodded, finding that a bit odd but maybe it was just normal here.

"This is my O.W.L year," Percy added. "So I'm quite anxious about Professor Quirrell's subject move. It's always a gamble for Defence."

At Harry's head-tilted look, Percy elaborated. "Defence teachers change every year. It's said that He Who Must Not Be Named cursed the position, and by now it's looking quite true. It's a pity, really, but Professor Quirrell was quite good in Muggle Studies two years ago so I hope we have a good education this year at least."

Harry wasn't sure how to take that.

"So… what's the best class?" he asked. "Of the first year ones, I mean."

"Well, I've always been quite partial to Potions, but nobody else in Gryffindor agrees with me," Percy sighed.

"That's because Professor Snape hates Gryffindor," Angelina interrupted. "You can tell because he takes points off for made-up reasons."

She winked at Harry. "Don't worry, most of the classes are pretty cool. Not History of Magic, though."

Harry looked back up at the table. "That's the one taught by a ghost?"

"Ah, sadly Binns is not such a well-animated ghost as myself," Sir Nicholas sighed. "He may not have noticed that he passed away."

That was such an odd thing to hear, even for the kind of day Harry had had, that he decided to just have one last chocolate eclair instead.

With the meal over, Professor Dumbledore gave a short speech. Harry was a bit disappointed to find that a whole area not far from the castle was forbidden to students – it would mean that he couldn't actually go out there to visit – but then again there was a lot of other space around to stretch his wings, and if he hadn't been noticed in years of flying around southern England then he'd probably get away with it up here in what had to be northern Scotland.

There was a mention that it wasn't allowed to do magic in the corridors between classes, which made sense, and one about Quidditch trials which had most of the table commenting excitedly. Apparently Gryffindor was down two players – it'd be three except for a reserve player who would now step up to the main squad – so it was a matter of considerable importance, though Harry was still trying to puzzle out how it could be fair.

There was a codicil about how, yes, there was an incoming student who was a dragon, and that Professor Dumbledore hoped that nobody would hold his little physical peculiarity against him or make too much of a fuss about it. The young dragon in question wasn't at all sure that it would work, but the effort was nice.

Finally, there was something about how there was a corridor which was out of bounds on pain of death.

"...what?" Harry asked. "Really? Why?"

"I couldn't say," Sir Nicholas replied. "Though I do think I might take a look at some time – death holds no fear for those who have already departed, I might say."

Then Dumbledore mentioned a school song, and Harry's ears perked up – though, fortunately, slowly enough that his glasses didn't go flying off this time.

His mind spun with thoughts of the Harper Hall, of the poetry of Arda and of the music of Valdemar, and his tail flicked from side to side eagerly as Dumbledore conjured the words out of thin air.

Then the Headmaster told them all to pick a tune.

Several minutes later, Harry finally took his paws off his ears.

"What was that?" he asked, weakly. "That – that's not music..."

"Well, it's how the school song's always been," Percy replied, then stood up. "First years, follow me please-"

"I was expecting a proper beat to it," Harry went on, still trying to get his head around what had just happened. "Or a tune, maybe?"

Shaking his head and wondering if maybe he could write one, Harry followed the rest of the first-years up the steps. The castle's layout seemed awfully confusing, with the staircases moving the way they did, and then they got into Gryffindor Tower by way of a portrait who asked for a password.

"Are they all like that?" Harry asked, trying to ignore the password – Caput Draconis sounded unpleasant, though he was sure they hadn't planned it.

"Oh, heavens no," the portrait replied. "Not all houses trust a portrait."

"Sorry, I should really ask your name," Harry added. "I'm not really used to portraits being alive yet."

"Well, aren't you the surprise!" she smiled, as Harry walked around the side a little – moving so he could still see her, as the other tired first-years filed through the doorway behind her. "A dragon, and so well-mannered as well. Alas, I fear that I must guard my identity, and so you have my permission to refer to me as all do – as the Fat Lady of Gryffindor."

Seeing Harry's surprise, she laughed. "Dear me, don't you know that to be plump was a compliment for centuries? It entertains me so to hear everyone calling me beautiful."

Harry nodded in understanding, then walked over to check something. Sure enough, despite the complex route they'd taken to get here, they were at the top of the Grand Staircase – and it had a large enough open space that Harry felt confident of being able to fly up or down and save quite a lot of time.

The dorm rooms for the first year boys were up several flights of spiral stairs, and when Harry belatedly got up there the others had already changed into their pyjamas. Not having the same chore, Harry spent a few minutes checking on his things – everything was in his trunk, though Hedwig's cage was empty and she was presumably being sorted out – before getting a couple of dozen letters out and piling them on his bed.

"What's that for?" Dean asked, sounding sleepy, as Harry disrobed.

"It kind of… helps me sleep," Harry replied, unsure how to really put it. "I think it's a dragon thing? Not sure, though."

Actually getting into bed was a bit of a puzzler, though. Unlike his robes he couldn't really avoid coming into contact with the bed linen with his talons, and he sort of stared at it thinking for several more minutes.

"Wassat?" Ron mumbled. "Not… ergh… not slept in a bed before?"

"...funnily enough, no," Harry admitted. "Maybe it'll work out. Your brother fixed something, maybe they can fix any holes I make..."

Ron's yawn reminded Harry how long the day had been, and he crawled into bed himself before sort of curling up. The sheets stuck to a few places on his wings and paws, but Harry comforted himself with the thought that if he did damage the bed he could at least use the same one all year.

Or, failing that, see if this tower had an attic.

Chapter Text

Used to short nights and not much sleep, Harry awoke at seven the next morning feeling more rested than usual.

He'd moved around enough in the night that the sheets were badly damaged, but consoled himself with the thoughts he'd had last night and shook himself out. The other four boys were still asleep, so he got himself dressed in his robes (which took a bit less time than it had the previous day) and contemplated his school books.

Without any idea of his schedule for the day, he couldn't just carry them all around in his ex-Dursley backpack – though the more correct term was probably frontpack given where he usually slung it – and so he decided to just take his wand to breakfast, and come back up to the tower once he knew what he was after for the day.

Snagging Seeress from his trunk and holding it against his side with one of his wings, he loped down the flights of steps to reach the common room. There were only a few people here this early in the morning, and Harry said hello – meeting someone called Cormac who didn't sound very awake – then made his way out of the portrait hole and jumped down the grand staircase.

Someone on the fifth floor shouted in surprise, and Harry spread his wings to slow his fall – resulting in a great crackling whoom of air, and also resulting in his book dropping out of his grip until he somewhat belatedly caught it with his forepaws. Then he beat his wings twice, blowing a storm of air around as he slowed and landed.

A couple of students who were near the bottom of the staircase clapped, and Harry blushed slightly – ears folding down a little in embarrassment and a hint of pride. Stowing his book under his wing again, he made his way to breakfast.

Breakfast turned out to mostly be much more conventional than the feast had been. There was toast, sausages, baked beans and scrambled egg, among other things, and Harry took some sausages and toast before settling down to read. One wing sufficed to hold the book in place, and he could turn the pages with one forepaw while eating with the other.

This time he managed to retain enough focus to not bite the end of his fork off, and he was still reading when Dean stumbled down to eat half an hour later.

"Any idea how we get our schedules?" the black boy asked, then looked up as Professor McGonagall came over.

"Mr. Thomas, good morning," she said, and handed him a piece of paper with his class schedule. "For the first year, all Gryffindor first years will have the same schedule, but please keep a hold of this."

She gave one to Harry as well, who scanned it and found that their first lesson was Charms. It gave a classroom number as well, which made Harry stare – how could they need more than thirty classrooms with only about a dozen teachers in the entire school?

To his surprise, there were free periods dotted around the timetable, and some of the classes were stacked to make double or triple periods. There were several free periods on Wednesday morning, for example, but that was because Astronomy was at midnight the night before.

It also looked like most of the classes were joint with another House, which made sense.

Ron joined them ten minutes after Dean, but the first thing he did was ask Harry if he could borrow Harry's owl.

Reminded by that of something else he was planning to do, Harry nodded. He took the letter Ron had written, put it in his pocket along with his book and schedule, then headed out the main doors.

The grounds outside the castle were beautiful in the September sunlight just coming over the mountains, and Harry crouched for a long moment before exploding into the air – gaining height rapidly and soaring over the slope leading down to the great lake he'd flown over the previous evening. The Forbidden Forest hulked not too far off, dark and menacing, and Harry examined it carefully – wondering what hid within – before spiralling around to gain height and rise up towards the top of Hogwarts.

He'd been expecting to have a little trouble locating his target, but it turned out to be very easy. As he passed the highest level of the main building and reached the height at which there were only towers, a white shape came flying out to join him and barked something.

"Morning, Hedwig!" Harry called, smiling. "I've got a letter one of my friends wants to send, but I'm not sure where it's going… do you mind if I ask you to send it?"

Hedwig flew over and landed on his head, then nibbled his ear.

Taking that as it probably being okay, Harry slid sideways a bit before alighting on the roof a little outside the Owlery. Removing the letter from his robes, he offered it to Hedwig, and she looked briefly at the address before taking it in her beak.

"Good luck!" Harry told her, and she touched his paw with her wing before taking off and flying south.

With almost an hour before his class, still, Harry was tempted to fly down and visit Hagrid – but after remembering how complicated it was to get around inside Hogwarts he reluctantly declined, deciding instead to go up and snag his books before finding his first lesson.

He was already wondering whether he could get his robes adjusted to have bigger pockets, or maybe whether it was possible to make pockets that were bigger on the inside. If he could, he wouldn't need the backpack to carry his things around for the times there were two classes in a row.

Best of all would be a Luggage, but he wasn't sure Hogwarts would survive dozens of Luggages running back and forth.

When he actually got back to his dorm room, however, Harry realized that there wasn't exactly a clear indication of which books he'd need for Charms. History of Magic and Herbology were obvious enough, perhaps, and he could make a guess at Potions (while Astronomy didn't seem to need any at all) but most of the books about magic could be for Defence, Charms or Transfiguration – except for the Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration, of course.

Harry eventually shrugged and decided to take both the spellbook and the magical theory book, and set off to find Charms class.

Forty-five minutes later, Harry had gone up fourteen flights of steps, down seventeen, found Neville, found Hermione, properly met Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, run into Professor Quirrell, asked four portraits for directions and been the subject of a very determined haunting by Lord Ridley. He'd also finally found the Charms classroom, which was already occupied by several Ravenclaws.

He couldn't help but feel as though it would be easier if Hogwarts was a bit less massive and imposing and a bit more… flat.

Sir Nicholas led Ron, Dean and Sally-Anne in just a minute or so before the stroke of nine, and Harry waited with interest to see what the lesson would be like. All the books he thought might be relevant were lined up at the head of his desk, and he'd pushed the chair out of the way so he could lean with one forepaw and use the other to write with.

The teacher – Professor Flitwick, if he remembered correctly – was nowhere in sight, and at first Harry wondered if they'd all got the wrong room by mistake. He wouldn't put it past the confusing castle to have wrong numbers on the doors sometimes, but then someone gasped.

Some books were floating up from behind the teacher's desk into the air. They all looked different, with titles like Charming Wizards From The Past and Spells for the Household, and Harry tensed – getting ready to jump out and catch one of the books, if that was what they were going to be doing today.

The books spun in midair, however, then began to all drop down behind the desk. Or at least the first few did – later volumes landed on top of the first ones, forming a pillar of books atop the teacher's chair behind the desk.

One final volume, The Flying Book Of Flight, rose above the level of the desk with the tiny little Professor Flitwick atop it. His wand was waving as he directed the books to their landing places, with the one he was riding coming down last, and it was only once the last one had landed that he looked out at the class.

Then he gave a little gasp and fell off his newly built tower.

"...what was that all about?" Seamus asked, looking around to see if anyone had an answer for him.

"Oh, my – goodness," Professor Flitwick said from behind the desk, and one of the books floated back down so he could ride it up again. Once there he pulled a small scroll from the pockets of his robes as he floated up, and unrolled it. "Well, I can see Mr. Potter is here, but is Mr. Boot?"

Terry Boot raised his hand. "Here, Professor."

"Good, good… Miss Brocklehurst?"

After the attendance roll had been taken, Professor Flitwick moved on to the actual lesson.

He started by asking if anyone knew what Charms was, and jumped around the classroom getting half-a-dozen answers before he told them all the real definition. Charms were spells which added properties to an object or creature (such as the Hover Charm he had performed on his books), or which had an instant effect not related to transfiguration (such as summoning).

From there the Professor moved on to some of the basic concepts behind magic, and about how spells were cast. Spells could be cast with nothing but a wave of the hand and an effort of will, but it was made much easier by a wand and also much easier by saying the words associated with the spell – which interested Harry, as even when Professor Flitwick went into more detail it sounded a lot like how things were done in the Belgariad books. Belgarath would only carry around a staff to make himself look impressive, but it was enough to make him wonder if the author was secretly magical.

After about a page of note-taking, Professor Flitwick told them they were going to be doing the fun stuff. That meant getting their wands out and waving them around, sending coloured sparks of all sorts bouncing off the walls (though Ron and Neville both had a bit of trouble in making anything as fiery as the rest), and then trying to learn their very first spell – Lumos, which was simple enough and just made the ends of their wands light up.

Harry was very pleased with himself that he got it working, though he wasn't the first – about half the class had beaten him to it. But it didn't matter, because he'd done some actual, intentional magic.

Their homework was to write about ways to use the charms in the first chapter of their spellbooks, and Ron and Neville – both of whom hadn't quite managed to get the charm working properly – were also told to get it finished.

It had been quite an enjoyable lesson, which Harry took as a good omen (though he did wonder why the homework was assigned by parchment length) and he headed off to change books for the next lesson in high spirits.

"Hey, Ron," Harry said, poking his friend with his tail. "Ron. Wake up."

"Huh?" Ron asked, yawning. "W-wha?"

He looked around, seeing they were in a classroom with about two dozen other drowsing students, then over at Harry.

"You fell asleep during the lesson," Harry explained, putting away his notes. "I did my best to try and keep you awake, but it kept distracting me."

"Wait – mate, you didn't fall asleep during that?" Ron asked, rubbing his eyes as Harry turned his attention to trying to wake up Dean. "How'd you manage that?

"It wasn't really that bad," Harry shrugged.

"It was!" Ron insisted. "I've heard stories from the twins about it – heck, even Percy said he had trouble staying awake in History of Magic sometimes!"

"Huh," Harry frowned, having successfully woken Dean up. The other boy didn't even bother complaining, just picking up what notes he'd managed to make and packing them in his bag. "I mean, it was a bit dry, but it wasn't as bad as the Silmarillion."

"What's that, a fruit?" Neville asked, but of their little group even Hermione looked surprised.

"You actually read through the Silmarillion?" the witch blinked, tilting her head slightly in a way Harry recognized as one of his own mannerisms. "Why?"

"There's dragons in it," Harry answered, since that made it obvious to him. "Really powerful ones, too, though not very nice."

"Charlie's told me some stories of how hard dragons are to stop," Ron volunteered, as they began to file out of the room to head down to lunch. "How much worse than that could it be?"

By the time Harry had finished telling them, Ron seemed quite surprised.

"...destroyed a mountain range?" he repeated. "By crashing?"

"Yeah, though he was the biggest," Harry explained, choosing a place and sitting down. A second fork appeared next to his first, and he blinked in surprise before putting it to the side.

While the feast the previous evening had been spectacular and breakfast had been fairly conventional – aside from the lack of cornflakes – it transpired that lunch involved a few normal things and a few things only Wizards (or Witches) could think up. Pumpkin Pasties and Chocolate Croquettes sat alongside robust ham-and-cheese sandwiches and pot pies, and Harry found plenty to satisfy him.

"A mountain range," Ron said, shaking his head, then seemed to decide it would be better to eat lunch now and wonder about Muggle ideas of dragons later.

"What's next after this?" Dean asked, halfway through one of the croquettes.

"Herbology," Neville told them. "That's after lunch, then I think it's Transfiguration straight after that."

"Oh, great..." Ron groaned. "That means we have to carry both sets of books, and Transfiguration's got loads."

Harry had to admit it didn't exactly sound ideal either, but they'd have to get used to carrying all those books sooner or later.

Herbology, well… Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of Herbology, yet.

It was sort of like gardening, which Harry definitely had experience with, but it was also a kind of gardening where there wasn't much pruning (a problem for a dragon who had become used to the odd snack as he did the gardening) and a lot of the plants were quite odd. Oh, plenty of the herbs and fungi which had magical uses were ones that were at least known to Muggles – like mint, which Neville told him had magical properties if mixed right, or nettles – but others like Bubotubers looked very strange indeed.

As was the case with Charms, the first lesson was largely about introducing them to the concepts involved, and Professor Sprout also took pains to make sure they were aware of all the dangers involved. Greenhouses One and Two didn't have any lethal plants, but a few of them were quite unpleasant or could sting, so it was gloves whenever they got near them.

"What are those?" asked one of the Hufflepuff boys – Harry thought he was called Justin – as Harry used one of the trowels to unpot a nettle.

"You mean my gloves?" Harry replied, shifting the plant to a new pot and then packing some mulch around it. "Yeah, Hagrid helped me get them."

"That really big man who met us at the train?" Probably Justin checked, and Harry nodded in confirmation. "Why not just – oh."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "It made me kind of uncomfortable… I mean, these aren't exactly dangerous to me, but I know some stuff might be."

He carefully touched one of the nettles just below his rolled-up sleeve to demonstrate, and Probably Justin blinked.

"That's pretty impressive."

"Mr. Potter?" Professor Sprout called, hastening over. "While I appreciate that your unique circumstances mean that you have less to fear, less does not mean none! Please don't take chances like that in future."

"Sorry," Harry replied, chastened. "I'm still getting used to the idea of magical plants."

As Professor Sprout left, Justin gave Harry an odd look.

"Surely you should be used to magical plants?" he said. "You're clearly not Muggle-Born."

"No, but I got raised Muggle," Harry explained. "There's the same kind of magic there is on the Leaky Cauldron at the top of Diagon Alley… I think. Nobody ever notices unless they're magical."

Justin nodded, then snorted.

"I was just imagining how it would have gone if we had ended up going to the same non magical school," he explained. "First day at Eton, there's a dragon standing in assembly and nobody else seems to notice."

Herbology was only an hour long (though it was three times a week to make up for that, and at different times of the day because some plants were only active in the evening) and straight after that Harry barely had time to brush off his gloves and put them back in his bag before it was off to Transfiguration.

Professor McGonagall's started the class by revealing herself to have been the cat standing on the desk at the front, and Harry stared for a long moment before raising his forepaw. The Professor went through her warning about how dangerous the class was before calling on him, and Harry took a moment to decide just which question to start with.

"Is that something that all wizards and witches can do?" he asked.

"Not exactly, Mr. Potter," she answered. "It is a very rare skill, though almost anyone could learn it if they put in sufficient effort and had the dedication to see it through … dedication which is extremely rare. A few witches or wizards however have abilities which prevent it, such as being a Metamorphagus."

Harry still had his forepaw up, and after taking a few questions from the rest of the class Professor McGonagall called on him again.

"Can you turn into any animal?" he asked then, thinking of Poledra's wolf-form and owl-form – or more correctly her human-form and owl-form, as she'd been born a wolf.

"Not at all, Mr. Potter," she told him, though she sounded pleased with his questions. "An Animagus can turn into only one animal, which is an animal version of themselves; it is not known exactly what determines what animal someone gets, though it always shares some identifying mark with them or their personal image."

A couple more questions followed, then they were into the really substantive bit of the lesson. That turned out to mean more note-taking, an explanation of the fundamental philosophy of transfiguration (which was that 'free' transfiguration could turn anything into anything, subject to the Five Exceptions, but was very difficult, and that transfiguration working with specific spells was easier to learn and to perform) and then moving on to turning a matchstick into a needle.

The idea, as Professor McGonagall explained it, was that by learning enough spelled transfigurations one would become more adept at performing other spelled transfigurations without needing so much learning time – or even eventually make one able to progress to free transfiguration.

Of course, it was harder than that made it sound, and by the end of the class only Hermione had managed to do more than make the matchstick perhaps a bit thinner.

Apparently it was all about visualization.

Between the end of Transfiguration and dinner about half the First-Years gravitated to the library, which was when Harry spent an hour or so writing about ways to use charms – doing his best to come up with interesting if impractical ones to go with the obvious, such as using Lumos to send signals or the Hover charm to lift up a chair one was sitting on – before putting his quill down and deciding to have a proper look at what Hogwarts library held.

It was a dry, dusty place with shelves creaking with books, some of them hundreds of years old and written in that funny font where an s looked like an f. In fact, quite a lot of the books were very old, but Harry supposed that that had to make sense if there weren't many wizards, as that would mean it'd take a long time for wizards to write enough different books to be worthwhile. Anything that might be relevant to a main course class had at least three copies, some of them checked out already, but annoyingly there wasn't a fiction section in sight.

Resigning himself to doing a lot of rereading – and wondering if he could perhaps contrive to convert some more of his galleons to pounds and fly into a Muggle town to stock up – Harry instead took mental note of where the section on magical creatures was, which also led to the realization that a lot of the books stored in that section were travelogues of long journeys up rivers into dark rainforests.

"Well… maybe," he mused.

It sort of counted.

That evening, Harry flew down to say hello to Hagrid. The big man seemed a bit out of sorts, his heavy coat scored with new marks and lines, but he waved it off as being the result of a creature in the Forbidden Forest being 'feisty' and welcomed Harry in.

"So, how's your first day been so far?" Hagrid asked. "Hope you're getting on all right."

"It's been great," Harry assured him. "I'm not really used to this kind of school, and that makes it kind of weird, but the magic stuff's all interesting so far."

He glanced back up at the castle. "Though I think I'm going to get lost at some point..."

"Ah, well, you don't have the same problem some have," Hagrid noted. "If you're worried about getting lost, just learn the way back from the front door to your dorm – and if you ever don't know where you are in the castle, jump out a window and sort it that way."

He gave Harry a rock cake to try, which was crunchy and interesting, and asked him how things had gone with his relatives (fairly well) and how everyone was finding it that he was a dragon.

"I think everyone's trying to ignore it, actually," Harry confided. "I get looked at, especially when I use a wing to keep my place or something, but it's not too bad."

"Good, good," Hagrid nodded. "Sometimes kids can be interested in what's different."

He flashed Harry a smile. "I never stopped bein' interested."

Harry chuckled as well.

"Is it allowed to go and visit a nearby Muggle town?" he asked. "Not straight away, that is. But I think I might run out of books, and..."

"Hmm… don't know that, actually," Hagrid admitted. "Don't think there's been any call for it. We're a way away from anywhere Muggle, and o' course most students don't have a way to get there without risking being discovered. But you're different, and… I'll ask Professor Dumbledore."

"Thanks," Harry smiled.

He looked under the table, which was where Hagrid's big dog Fang was hiding. "Do you think he's coming out?"

"Not likely," Hagrid judged. "Fang's bark's worse than his bite, and 'e thinks you're worse than his bark."

Tuesday brought a new lesson, Defence Against the Dark Arts, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Professor Quirrell had a dreadful stutter, and his classroom had a strong smell of garlic which gave Harry a bit of a vague headache throughout the class.

He did his best to concentrate in spite of that, as the Professor ran through the difference between a Jinx, a Hex and a Curse, as well as a few other spells which were technically Charms or Transfiguration but fell into the category of defensive spell. The differences didn't really seem to be all that consistent, but Harry supposed he'd learn at some point.

They were also told the reason why there was such a variety of spells to deal with the subject. There was something of a trade-off between ease of casting, how much a spell tired the caster out, and how effective it actually was on the target – as well as how easy it was to reverse, for that matter – and Professor Quirrell made sure to point out that dragons were just one of several kinds of magical creature which were highly resistant to magic.

Harry should really test that out at some point.

Oddly enough, though, once the class was over and Harry looked over his notes, they seemed fairly clear – he could see where it had all come from and where it was going – but the stutter just made it upwind work to treat the class seriously while it was going on. (Harry had heard of 'uphill work' and decided a dragon should rephrase it slightly.) Maybe it would go better once they moved on to practical work, though Harry was fairly sure fire breath wasn't allowed.

Though, if he was magic resistant, could he use his wings to block spells or something? Or just take off and fly around, because moving things were harder to hit – and if his eyes were the only place that wasn't covered by magic-resistant scales, then moving fast would make it even harder to hit his eyes.

The penultimate regular class that Harry was introduced to was Astronomy, which began at the stroke of midnight as Tuesday became Wednesday.

Owing to issues with the lack of week nights available, Astronomy took place with the whole year at once. This gave Professor Sinistra perhaps the largest single class in the school, but she seemed quite up to the challenge – explaining clearly what they would be doing tonight and for the rest of the year. They would be using their telescopes to examine the moon, to look at the planets and their moons, to view the constellations and to plot out when they intersected.

Someone from Ravenclaw raised his hand to ask if that meant it was like Astrology, and Professor Sinistra told him quite sharply that it was not – that was a matter for Divination, which was a third-year elective. Astronomy was concerned with facts, with the here and now, and only with those parts of the future which concerned the predictable movements of the planets and other celestial bodies.

The practical upshot of this was that the somewhat-tired students were taught how to use a telescope, as well as the basics of navigating the night sky. It would change, week by week, and the sky would get darker towards the end of the year before lightening again, but with a sufficiently good telescope and enough training it would be possible to locate the stars and the planets even during the twilight pseudo-night of the Scottish summer.

While it was interesting enough, Harry was curious, and when the class proper was over he approached Professor Sinistra as the other students were packing up.

When asked why it was that students were taught Astronomy as a compulsory subject, the Astronomy teacher looked at first a little offended.

"Well – why not?" she asked him. "Surely you don't find the class boring?"

"I don't, it's interesting to learn about," Harry replied. "And I can use it to navigate by the stars, if I ever go flying at night – or I hope I'll be able to, at least. I'm just curious why everyone does it."

"Astronomy is used in Potions," Professor Sinistra said then. "And in Alchemy. There are ingredients of both which rely on the lunar cycle – as do some magical beasts."

"Like Werewolves," Harry agreed, remembering that part of the Fantastic Beasts book. "And Mooncalves. But I… suppose I don't see why it takes five years of study."

Professor Sinistra looked around. "Mr. Potter, you're curious, and I think that's admirable. So I believe I'll now tell you why I believe it is that my class is core studies, and not an elective like Muggle Studies or Divination."

Harry sat down, doing his best to look trustworthy and admirable.

"Professor Dumbledore likes astronomy, and we have an Astronomy Tower."

After a long pause, Harry blinked. "That's… it?"

"That, as you say, is it," Professor Sinistra told him. "I suspect it is the same reason why we have a Divination class, or why there are clubs for both chamber music and tenpin bowling."

After the end of Astronomy, the various First-Years had to make their way back through the upper reaches of the castle – yawning and tired – to get their sleep. There were no classes until quite late in the morning on Wednesday, to compensate, but it was still a pity for the Slytherin and Hufflepuff students who had to make their way down at least fourteen flights of stairs to reach their dorms.

Harry had to go back up to the Astronomy tower after being the last to leave – having managed to mislay his telescope, which was awkward for him to carry – and several twists and turns later on the way down from the tower he found himself unsure whether he'd ended up in the right place.

Looking suspiciously around, and not quite sure if he'd got himself turned around or not, Harry peered down one corridor. Everyone else had gone, he was up after what would normally be Curfew were it not for Astronomy class, and if the cratchity caretaker caught him he was fairly sure he wouldn't take 'Astronomy' as an excuse.

"Good lord," said a doorknocker. "Are you a dragon?"

"Yes?" Harry replied. "I'm fairly sure I have everything you need to be one."

"Wait," the doorknocker said suddenly. "I didn't – oh bother."

The door behind it opened, swinging to the side and revealing an empty room full of armchairs.

After due consideration, Harry decided he should go in to what was presumably Ravenclaw common room. If there was a Prefect here he could tell them he was lost, and get back to Gryffindor Tower that way, and if not then he could… well, do something or other.

Five minutes later, he found the library.

Eventually, Harry woke up on Wednesday morning.

He yawned, shifting a bit, and a couple of books clattered to the floor. That prompted him to wake up the rest of the way, and he blinked before looking around.

He was in that library he'd found the previous night, surrounded by books that had looked interesting – a few of them half-finished, open to where he'd switched to look something else up or spotted a better choice.

As he shifted, there was a quiet chirp from a foot or two away. Harry looked, and Hedwig was sitting serenely on his telescope – as if that was where she'd been meant to be all along.

Harry yawned, and a second or two later a Prefect peered in through the library door. She seemed pleased to notice he was up, and waved her wand, and suddenly a hubbub of conversation could be heard through the door.

"Good morning," she said – Harry was fairly sure she was the one who he'd seen on the train. "I assume you got lost last night?"

"Yeah, on the way back from Astronomy," Harry agreed, stretching his wings out. "I'm sorry I made a bit of a mess."

He looked around. "It's just… you have novels in here. I'd thought there weren't any in the castle except my own collection!"

"Are you quite sure you're a Lion?" the Prefect asked. "That sounds much more like what an Eagle would say."

Harry looked politely confused about the terms, and the Prefect explained how Slytherins were Snakes, Hufflepuffs were Badgers and so on.

"Tempus," she added, and a string of numbers appeared in the air before she waved them away. "If I've got your class schedule right, you have History of Magic in half an hour."

"That's right!" Harry realized. "Why didn't someone wake me?"

"It's the school motto," the Prefect told him, which was fair enough.

Ten minutes after that, Hedwig had flown out the window, and Harry was out of Ravenclaw tower feeling quite pleased about how the night had gone.

It might have been the result of a total accident, but while a few of the Ravens had been leery of him most had apparently decided that a dragon who curled up on a pile of books for the night was perfectly acceptable.

He had the vague feeling that they might have adopted him.

Then it was across to Gryffindor, lope up the stairs, exchange Astronomy equipment for History textbooks, and jump down several floors of the staircase with sweeping wingbeats to reach History of Magic in time.

In a way, Harry was starting to see the appeal of such an oddly laid out school. It did make getting to lessons a lot more interesting.

A few questions once Harry had finished eating lunch that day established that there was nothing strictly preventing Harry from going into Ravenclaw Library again. Professor Flitwick seemed quite entertained by the idea, though he did ask Harry to please make sure he didn't fall asleep there again as it made the actual Ravenclaws uncomfortable using the library, and even gave him permission to take one or two books out of the library at a time so long as he was diligent about returning them in good time.

Then the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday was largely normal lessons, none of them strictly new but all of them settling down to the more normal rhythm after the demonstrations that had been specifically selected to give them all a good introduction to the course.

It was funny how quickly something could become routine – though Harry himself was still having problems navigating the castle at times, and on one occasion had to resort to Hagrid's advice and jump out a window. He'd felt a bit guilty about it, but the window had been quickly closed – even though he'd been sure there was nobody there.

And it was still odd that he could tear up his bedclothes every night – albeit by accident – and then find them fixed the next time he came to his room, with his letters neatly stacked in his trunk again. He'd have asked Percy for details, to check if it was something House-Elves did, but the older boy seemed to be very busy all the time and Harry was sure he'd seen Percy go into a room and then not come out of it – only to stride along a corridor in a different direction five minutes later.

Then Friday came around, which was one of the days where the First-Year Gryffindors didn't have much in the way of lessons at all – just their final new full-time class, Potions.

It was like Astronomy, in that it was a class where they only had one lesson a week but it was a two-hour double, and it was a class they had joint with the Slytherins – which was the house that Professor Snape was in charge of.

Harry didn't think that would be a problem, though. He was fairly adept at cooking (and a lot of Potions seemed to be about cooking, from what he'd read about it), and they'd already had lessons with the other three Heads of House. Professor McGonagall had been fair as far as he could tell, though he was able to admit that maybe he wasn't in the best position to notice it, and Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick had both been far too enthusiastic about their subjects to be biased at all.

About the only real concern Harry had to admit about the class was that it would mean he'd have to try not to nibble on any of the ingredients – or the equipment.

"Really?" Ron asked, at breakfast that morning. "You're looking forward to Potions?"

"Well, I've enjoyed all the other classes," Harry pointed out, he felt quite sensibly. "Even Defence has been pretty good, it's just all that garlic in the classroom and the stutter that's giving me a headache."

"Yeah, but my brothers all say Snape's biased," Ron countered.

"It sounds like a bad idea to just jump to that conclusion," Hermione said. "Harry, did you just eat your fork again?"

"Well, an extra fork keeps showing up whenever I sit down to a meal," Harry replied. "I'm just assuming that it's for me."

He swallowed. "I want to make sure I'm nice and full before Potions, so I don't feel hungry in Potions… actually, anyone got an idea where it is?"

"I asked one of the Badgers," Dean said. "They had it yesterday. It's, uh… yeah, you go into the door to the dungeons, and it's two floors down..."

Potions class was laid out differently to any classroom Harry had ever been in. The tables were arranged in pairs, with a hearth between each pair, and it was clear after a little thought that that was where the cauldron was meant to go.

Several of the places were already taken when Harry and his friends arrived, and after a complicated round of negotiations and place-switching that Harry could barely follow he found himself working with Daphne. Ron and Dean had ended up working together, with the black boy announcing that he 'had cooked once', and Neville and Hermione were seated together as well.

The rest of the class filtered in over the last few minutes as Harry put his textbooks on the table, and then at almost exactly nine Professor Snape entered the room.

The first thing he did was to take the list of names, which gave Harry a valuable reminder about who was in the Slytherin half of the class, but oddly enough he paused at Harry to say that Harry 'couldn't help standing out'.

While Professor Snape moved on to Dean, Ron and Blaise, Harry inspected his wings to make sure they looked the same as always. Daphne shrugged, but she looked mildly interested.

Professor Snape's description of what the class would be like was simultaneously interesting and puzzling. The bit about no wand-waving made Harry wonder if anyone could mix a potion just by following the recipe – could Aunt Petunia have done Potions class, if she wanted? - and the lists of effects were quite amazing. What would it mean to brew glory or bottle fame?

Harry wrote it all down, resolving to look it up at some point, then Professor Snape called on him.

"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry frowned briefly, then reached for his One Thousand Magical Herbs And Fungi. Flipping through to the end of the A section, he located Asphodel and scanned the page.

"I think it's a powerful sleeping potion called the Draught of Living Death, but I'd have to double-check to make sure," he answered.

Professor Snape frowned.

"Close that book, Potter, I'm not testing your ability to look things up," the Professor said, and Harry did so promptly. "Where would you find a Bezoar?"

"In my pocket," Blaise said, before Harry had time to think about the question. "You need them around my house, I've had three stepfathers die last year."

"Zabini, was I asking you that question?" Professor Snape demanded. "Sit down and stay silent. Potter, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

That one Harry did know, thanks to his letters to and from Neville. "I think they're both non-magical names for the same plant."

After a long moment, Professor Snape nodded slightly.

"Perhaps this year won't be as bad as I was anticipating. For your information, a Bezoar is found in the stomach of a goat and it is a preventative against most poisons, but any Potions class will also contain several in storage in case of a potion mixed by a complete dunderhead."

Turning without further comment to the chalkboard at the front, the Potions Professor began outlining the basic rules of safety when handling potions ingredients – namely, to only use them in precisely the ways outlined by the recipe as it was presented on the board, to only handle them with gloves of dragon hide material (Harry hoped his own Manticore-hide gloves would suffice) and to be careful when using knives and the fire in the hearth and all the other potential sources of danger when dealing with hot, poisonous or otherwise malodorous ingredients.

A quiet discussion between Harry and Daphne as the recipe in question went up on the board led to the conclusion that Harry would do the cutting and weighing – he'd done enough of it at home – while Daphne would take responsibility for outlining what they were required to do and for stirring.

The recipe on the board was a little different from the one in the book, so Harry took notes on the differences (Daphne did the same), and then settled into a relaxing rhythm of preparing ingredients. Getting the exact correct amount of dried nettles was a bit fiddly, but the instructions specified the exact amount in ounces so Harry thought it was better to be precise; the rest went to the side. Then the horned slugs needed to be put in for stewing, which meant having two things on the fire at the same time as the main potion was supposed to be in use before the slugs were finished.

Professor Snape was going up and down the desks offering criticism to just about everyone (except Draco) but Harry thought this was entirely appropriate given that they were handling dangerous magical mixtures; he even took the opportunity to ask for clarification on what was to be done with the cut-offs, which Professor Snape told him should simply be thrown away if they were common ingredients like nettles.

When Harry ate them a minute or so later during a quiet section of the preparation process, Professor Snape seemed unsure what to make of it.

"Can you do that to everything?" Daphne asked, as she stirred the cauldron and they waited for the slugs to finish stewing.

"Most things," Harry replied, double-checking the recipe. Nettles, snake fangs… the only things left to go in were the porcupine quills and the stewed slugs, and those both had to be added in quick succession after the cauldron was off the heat. "I haven't tried anything poisonous though."

"I'm pretty sure nettles are poisonous," Daphne replied, sounding amused. "How do you tell if something's poisonous?"

"Oh, well… I read a book about it once," Harry told her. "A Muggle book, I mean. It said that if you don't have a reaction for several hours after it's rubbed on your skin, and you don't for a few minutes after you've put it against your lips, and you hold it in your mouth for at least fifteen minutes without anything bad happening – and a few other steps – then you can eventually be sure."

"Muggles," Daphne chuckled. "Wizards just have a spell for it. It's much simpler."

She frowned. "Though I don't think it's set up for dragons. Actually I don't think anyone knows much about dragons that eat plants as well as meat."

"No chattering in class," Professor Snape warned.

Harry wondered if there was a book somewhere in the library which explained all the odd interactions that potions ingredients could have. He'd overheard the Potions teacher criticizing Neville for nearly following two of the instructions in the wrong order, and apparently if the porcupine quills had been added before the cauldron had come off the fire it would have resulted in a nasty, magically-infused mess that could easily have dissolved the cauldron.

Nothing in Harry's experience cooking could explain that, at least not directly, but that was why he was here to learn – and it was clear that, while caustic, Professor Snape knew his potions. Four pairs had made mistakes which had rendered their potions useless or nearly so, and the Professor had barely had to glance at the results before outlining exactly where they'd gone wrong.

All that meant that Potions slotted into Harry's Hogwarts experience somewhere in the middle of the pack. It wasn't as pleasant so far as Charms, perhaps, but it was a better classroom experience than Defence and was more paws-on than the somewhat one-note History of Magic.

Maybe Professor Snape's brusque attitude would become a problem, as time went on, but Harry could overlook that sort of thing. He'd been doing it at home for years.

"Potter, stay behind," Professor Snape instructed, as they were packing up. "I want a word."

"Yes, Sir," Harry agreed promptly, thinking quickly over the schedule. He'd planned to go up and get started on the Potions homework straight after the lesson, but since the homework had turned out to be prep for the next lesson it would arguably be better done on Thursday evening if possible.

At the Potions teacher's words, Draco and his friends (Vincent and Gregory, if Harry remembered right) all sniggered on their way past and out the door.

Once the rest of the class had left, Professor Snape approached Harry's desk.

"Mr. Potter," he began. "I have been teaching Potions at this school for many years, but never have I seen anything quite so foolish as a student eating Potions ingredients."

Harry tilted his head a little. "I'm sorry, Sir? I usually eat the leftover ingredients when I cook."

Professor Snape blinked. "When you… cook."

"Yes, Sir," Harry agreed. "My Aunt and Uncle expect me to cook, and I think they try to not give me enough, but it doesn't work because I can eat the eggshells and packaging and stuff and that fills me up."

"Your… Aunt," Professor Snape repeated. "Mr. Potter, are you saying that you have been cared for the last few years by Petunia Evans and her oaf of a husband?"

Harry nodded. "If that's what she was called before she married Uncle Vernon. But they haven't been all that bad, because… well, since I turned into a dragon I think they couldn't find a way to make it awful for me."

He frowned. "Hold on, how do you know my Aunt's name?"

"That is none of your business, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape told him. "But, for your information, you should not eat or drink anything in a Potions laboratory because of the serious risk that it is contaminated and may be toxic. I do not care if you have not suffered a toxic reaction before because you are a dragon, this is something you should not do."

"Okay, Professor," Harry said, nodding. "Sorry about that. Do you have any tips on how I could avoid the temptation?"

"I am not your nutritional consultant, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape told him. "Since the rest of your year, and all the other years in Hogwarts, have managed to refrain from eating potions ingredients for the last decade then it should not tax you to do the same."

Harry considered that, and nodded again. "All right, Professor. I'll do my best."

Professor Snape frowned, examining Harry's expression, then seemed to accept (possibly on guesswork) that the Gryffindor had been sincere.

"Another question, Mr. Potter," he said. "You mentioned turning into a dragon, and of course I can see that you are now. But how did this come about?"

"I'm sorry, Professor, I don't really remember," Harry admitted, wings twitching slightly. He raised a talon to his muzzle, scratching absently as he thought. "It was kind of a long time ago… it was after I'd gone to school for the first time, but not long afterwards."

Harry waited to see if Professor Snape had any further questions. His face had gone an odd colour and he was muttering things about 'legacy' and 'delayed Charms' to himself, and after what he thought was an appropriate length of time Harry raised his forepaw.

"Can I go, Sir?"

"What?" Professor Snape asked. "Yes. Of course you can go!"

It was nice to have a teacher so concerned with his well-being.

Chapter Text

That afternoon, since they all had free time, Harry invited his friends down to Hagrid's hut.

Well, the Slytherins who Harry thought were sort of friends didn't have free time, because their schedule was different, and if you counted Ravenclaw House then he didn't really invite many of his friends at all. But the friends who'd ended up in Gryffindor with him were all willing to come – even Hermione, though Harry had to point out to her that since the Potions homework was about their next potion then the logical thing to do would be to complete it closer to the next class.

Hagrid was delighted to see them all, laying out rock cakes for all five first-years and asking about their classes.

Harry related how he thought of all the lessons, eating through the rock cakes on his plate as he did so (which meant everyone's rock cakes, as the others slipped their unwanted cakes onto his plate whenever Hagrid was distracted.) Neville wasn't very happy with Potions, while Dean had said that he'd begun trying to do sketches during History of Magic to stay awake and Ron was generally dissatisfied with how things were going in the wanded classes; Hermione of course couldn't get enough of all the lessons, and asked Hagrid eagerly how much he remembered about the subjects in the rest of the year.

Hagrid's somewhat-embarrassed reply that he hadn't really done very well, and that it had been almost fifty years ago, left Hermione blushing a little and apologizing for her mistake – though the big man was quick to assure her that no harm had been done.

While that conversation was going on, Harry finished the last of the rock cakes, and managed through dint of considerable effort to reach Fang and start stroking him. The massive Irish wolfhound still didn't like the idea of getting any closer to the dragon than he absolutely had to, but after a few minutes of that treatment he seemed to have calmed down a bit.

He also took a quick look at the paper on the table, which had a story about an attempted bank robbery and another about someone in wizard prison saying 'bloody hell, he's a dragon' over and over again. Maybe it was a slow news day.

"So," Hagrid said, after he'd heard all about Harry's misadventure into Ravenclaw tower. "Any of you got any thoughts about what clubs you're gonna do? Didn't really get into any of 'em meself – oh, you've seen 'em yet?"

"I don't think so," Harry replied.

"They don't announce any of the clubs until after our first week," Hermione informed them. "That's when the upper years do Quidditch tryouts, as well. That's so the students all know how much work they have, so they don't take on clubs which take up too much time."

"Okay, seriously, did you eat the school syllabus or something?" Dean asked, without any real malice. "How do you know all this stuff?"

"Some of us read," Hermione replied with a huff.

"Yeah, and Harry reads a lot too," Dean countered. "Heck, Neville's the one who's got Tooth and Fang at the moment. We're all reading."

"I'm not!" Ron announced, sounding proud of the fact. "I'm only reading what I need to."

"Doing the bare minimum isn't going to help you with your grades, Ron," Hermione pointed out. "Don't you agree, Hagrid?"

Hagrid nodded. "Summat in that, right enough."

"Ron's lying, anyway," Harry clarified. "I found something in my collection he likes."

Ron's ears turned red.

There was a whoosh overhead, however, which interrupted the conversation, and Hagrid looked out the window to see what it was.

"That looked like Charlie Weasley to me," he said, sounding confused.

"Charlie?" Ron repeated. "No way it can be Charlie."

He got up to look out of the same window, the one which pointed in the direction of the Black Lake, and stared for a moment.

"Bloody hell, that is Charlie."

He headed for the door, and the others weren't far behind.

"Charlie, what on earth are you doing at Hogwarts?" Ron asked, as they reached the shore of the Black Lake. "Aren't you meant to be in Romania?"

"I was yesterday," Charlie replied, holding the bristles of a sleek-looking broomstick in the water. A faint hiss of steam was rising from the contact point, and a huge plume of white mist showed that it had originally been much more violent.

Up close, Harry had to admit that Charlie looked like the sort of person who could work with dragons. He was short for an adult, stocky, heavily freckled, and looked like he could probably wrestle a much larger dragon than Harry to the ground.

"But – hold on, you mean you've flown all the way here from Romania?" Ron blinked. "Why?"

"Ron, you sent me a letter about one of your housemates being a dragon," Charlie replied, shaking the water off the bristles now that the broom had stopped actually generating steam. "I came as soon as I got permission from my boss."

Still inspecting his broom, Charlie produced a wand with a flick of his wrist and drew all the water off in one smooth motion. "So, how are you getting on, Ronnie? Uncle Fabian's old wand not giving you too much trouble?"

"It kind of is," Ron replied. "The core's nearly poking out. I don't know how you used it for seven years without any trouble."

"So that's how you've got your brother's old wand?" Harry asked, remembering something Ron had said in passing on the train. "I wondered what kind of wand he was using."

Finally satisfied that his broom was cooled down to a safe temperature and dry enough that he could leave it alone, Charlie turned to his brother. "Yes, I got a new wand when I started-"

He stopped.

"...Ron, why didn't you mention that your dragon classmate was here?"

"Oh, um… I thought you'd notice?" Ron said. "This is Harry."

Charlie strode over, looking Harry up and down.

"Pleased to meet you?" Harry offered, putting his paw out, and Charlie shook it. That prompted the others to introduce themselves, shaking Charlie's hand as well.

"Do you have any idea how cool it is that you're a dragon?" Charlie then said. "I've always liked dragons, but normally it's quite hard to see them up close even if your job is working with them – it takes a lot of magic to stun them."

"I haven't actually tested if that's true for me," Harry volunteered. "But when I was being Sorted and I closed my eyes the Sorting Hat couldn't tell I was there for a moment."

"That sounds like magic resistance to me," Charlie replied. "We're always told the only place to cast a spell on a dragon where it's remotely likely to work is the eyes."

He stepped back a bit, and looked at Harry's forepaws. "Those are unusually dextrous… obviously you're able to talk, while most dragons aren't… do you mind if I see your wings?"

Harry spread them, interested to see where this was going – he'd never met a dragon expert before, and after Charlie had come all this way it seemed only polite.

"Wings supported by alar phalanges, differing lengths," Charlie muttered to himself. "No elbow spine, and a long wing insertion along the upper body. Very large for the body size – Ron said you can fly with these?"

"That's right," Harry confirmed. "I'm still training to try and go faster and for longer."

"And you're clearly not developing at the same rate as a normal dragon..." Charlie went on. "Can you breathe fire?"

Harry nodded, and at Charlie's request he demonstrated. It wasn't something he did very often, but what he produced was a jet of quite intense orange-yellow flame that could reach out about six feet if he really pushed it.

"Um… Charlie?" Ron asked, after about twenty minutes.

"Huh?" Charlie asked, looking up from taking measurements of Harry's teeth. Dean was sat down on the grass with a pencil, with sketch drawings of Harry's wing, head, tail and paw already down on the paper, and next to him Hermione was taking notes of her own about the spells Charlie had already used.

(Based on the results of the spells, Harry didn't have dragon pox, scalerot or Mingus' Tongue, his wing membrane was strong enough for sustained flight at high speeds and his fire was hot enough that if sustained it could melt lead. On the other hand, the spell designed to detect a dragon's age had produced a cloud of sparks before announcing that Harry was six weeks old, so he had the feeling that one wasn't really properly designed for dragons like him.)

"Not that I'm not pleased to see you or anything," Ron went on. "But where are you going with all this?"

Harry watched as Ron's handwave took in himself, Charlie, Dean and Hermione – along with Neville, who had sat down to read the paper for something to do.

Charlie took a moment to understand the question, then realized suddenly what Ron was getting at.

"Oh – right," he flushed slightly. "Sorry, I've been all excited about this – but – do you realize how amazing this is for me?"

"Yeah, I think we all realize how amazing it is," Ron agreed. "It looks like you want to do another NEWT, this time in Harry Potter."

Charlie paused.

"Wait, wait, hold on," he said, looking back at Harry (who waved). "So when you said Harry, you meant Harry Potter?"

Dean sniggered. "Did you not work that out yet?"

As the sun was slowly setting in the west, Charlie finally stepped away and went through his thick sheaf of notes. Dean handed him one last sketch, this time of Harry's dentition, and Charlie accepted it with a thanks.

"Let's see..." he said, flicking through. "Wings, tail… musculature structure, and the spines… various descriptions and dietary habits..."

"What are you going to do with that lot?" Ron asked. "It seems like you've got enough to write Harry's biography."

"Oh, that's not what I'm planning," Charlie replied.

He looked faintly embarrassed. "Sorry, I should have mentioned… I couldn't find anyone else who'd done it yet, so what I'd like to do is to describe Harry."

"Describe Harry?" Dean repeated. "I can do it for you. Little dragon, lots of books, and he's black."

"No, I mean a description like in a book," Charlie tried.

"Oh, I think I see," Hermione said. "You mean an official description that spells out how to identify whatever Harry's type of dragon is. Like how the Peruvian Vipertooth is copper-coloured and has venomous fangs."

"Exactly!" the young man told her, pleased with her way of putting it. "With this much information I should be able to publish a monograph – do you mind if I use your sketches, Dean? I'll be sure to credit you."

"Sounds great," Dean agreed. "Can you send us each a copy? It'd be cool to show my mum."

Harry didn't see Charlie's reaction, as he was pulling his robes back on, but it seemed like Charlie must have nodded or something.

"What are you going to call Harry?" Neville asked, looking up from his book – he'd finished the paper and was two thirds of the way through Hagrid's reference volume on the plants of the Forbidden Forest. "You can't just call him the Harry Potter dragon."

"Well, the names can be changed afterwards," Charlie replied, frowning. "The Romanian Longhorn used to be the Rumanian Longhorn, and there was a big argument about whether to rename the Ukranian Ironbelly back in the twenties because of the Soviet Union but they eventually decided against it. So the name I use doesn't have to be permanent."

He flicked through the documents. "I was thinking… the Black-Backed Bookwyrm."

Ron snorted.

"Is that okay?" Charlie added.

"Sure," Harry replied. "I mean… none of the stuff we've discussed is secret or anything, and I found some stuff out myself. I didn't know jinxes bounced off my wings."

"I might actually leave that detail out," Charlie said, after a lot of thought. "I'll just say you're magic resistant like other dragons, and apart from that mostly focus on the differences."

"Are you going to be okay flying back?" Harry asked. "It's quite a long way to Romania."

"I'll probably drop in on Mum and Dad for the evening," Charlie replied. "It'll be a nice surprise for them. Then I'll fly back tomorrow."

He shook Harry's paw. "Thank you so much for letting me do this – it's been the kind of thing I've dreamed about for years."

Harry smiled, glad to have been able to help.

As Charlie was about to leave, though – probably going to head up to the castle to use the Floo that Neville had told Harry about – the young dragon had a sudden idea.

"Do you read Muggle books?" he asked.

"Muggle books?" Charlie repeated. "I… don't think so, no. Not since I tried Muggle Studies – it wasn't for me."

"Can you hold on a few minutes, please?" Harry asked. "I think you might like some of them."

He checked that his wings were properly through the holes in his robes, then took off – flying hard for the castle doors.

Through the doors, up the grand staircase, into Gryffindor tower, loping up seven flights of stairs, a quick "sorry!" to an older boy who nearly got flattened, and Harry skidded to a halt in the First-Year dorm room. He rummaged through the books he'd brought along, wondering which one to pick, then after a bit of hesitation selected Dragonflight.

Setting it aside for a moment, he opened the dorm room window and then climbed out. Snagging the book again, he jumped clear of Gryffindor Tower and spread his wings – feeling the evening sun and the air – then dove right back down to where he'd started.

"Did you just jump out a window?" Charlie asked, blinking.

"I suggested that," Hagrid supplied. "Easy enough with wings, right lad?"

Harry nodded, furling his wings after his three-point landing, and held out the book he'd retrieved from his trunk.

"I think you might like this book," he explained. "There's no magic in it, or at least not the kind of magic wizards have, but the dragons can teleport and speak with their minds… to some people."

"Teleport?" Charlie repeated.

"'e means Apparate," Hagrid told the outdoorsy Wizard. "That's what you mean, right?"

"I don't think I've heard of Apparating before," Harry frowned. "So wizards can do that as well?"

He looked at Charlie's broomstick. "Why did you have to fly here?"

"Apparating is harder the further you're going," Charlie said. "You can do all sorts of nasty things to yourself if you're going too far."

That didn't sound as good as between did to Harry, though he was still curious why Charlie didn't just go in shorter Apparition jumps. Unless it was just that Charlie liked flying?

As he pondered that, Charlie took the book. It took a moment for Harry to let go, until he noticed that he hadn't and concentrated a bit on doing so.

"Sorry," Harry apologized, as he finally released the book. "I-"

"We did talk about that," Charlie remembered. "That hoard behaviour thing. It's really interesting, because I don't think there are any other dragons which actually do that."

"That's Harry for you," Dean chuckled. "Maybe he read about it in a book?"

After that unusual Friday afternoon, the rest of the weekend was more like what Harry had imagined would be normal.

Homework got done, and books got read. Harry visited the Ravenclaw library twice, this time answering proper riddles to get into the Ravenclaw common room, and it felt very satisfying to do so – a bit like a scene from The Hobbit, though fortunately the penalty for getting the riddle wrong was nothing like as severe as in the riddle-game in that book.

The first riddle had asked him what tree held knowledge on every leaf, and after some careful thought he'd decided it was a book because another word for a page was a leaf. Then the second one had been when Christmas came before Halloween, which Harry hadn't managed to get and so he'd skipped that day.

The third riddle was about something which grew without being alive, needed air without lungs, and drowned without a mouth. That one Harry answered quite quickly, realizing it was 'fire' (and Padma Patil had groaned, both because she hadn't got it herself and because obviously asking a dragon about fire had been an easy one).

"I'm not really sure that flying on a broomstick is the same as flying with wings," Harry said, looking back along his own body and inspecting his wings. Dean's sketches from last Friday had been the first time he'd really had a good look at how they were laid out, rather than relying on odd angles and instinct, so he was quite interested in the idea of a proper flying lesson that afternoon… whether or not it would actually work out nicely.

"But you're the only person who's got experience with flying, right?" Hermione asked. "At least, in our year?"

"What am I, chopped liver?" Ron demanded. "Our brooms may be a bit naff, but I've been flying for years!"

Hermione blushed. "Okay, um… good point. But I meant that you grew up in the Muggle world, so do you have any ideas?"

Harry thought about that, looking from Ron to Seamus (who'd also been boasting about his flying ability), then to Parvati, who'd also mentioned a bit of broomstick experience. He didn't think it was worth asking about how far they could fly…

"Can brooms hover?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah, easy," Ron said. "Unless it's really old, then you kind of have to tilt it back a bit 'cause their charms go a bit duff. That usually sorts it, though."

Harry nodded. "And I assume they're faster in a dive… what about getting on them?"

"Just like you'd expect," Ron replied. "Tell them to come up and that's what they do. Then you can make it hover at the right height and get on – though you have to make sure you get the cushioning charm in the right place."

"There's a cushioning charm?" Dean blinked. "What does that do?"

"I read about this," Hermione announced, glad to be back in the position of 'knowledgeable'. "It was invented in 1820 and it provides a magical cushion to make riding a broomstick much more comfortable."

"...yeah, that," Ron confirmed. "But apart from that, you lean back to make it slow down and lean forward to make it speed up. Kind of? It's hard to explain, but it really makes a lot of sense once you start."

As the conversation continued, Harry flicked through the library book about Quidditch that Hermione had been reading. Then he paused.

"Um… Ron?" he began. "Where exactly do Quidditch matches happen?"

"Huh?" Ron replied. "Why?"

"This book says that Quidditch is – or used to – be illegal within a hundred miles of a town," Harry explained. "But I'm not sure that the person who made that law understood what a town was, or maybe that they didn't understand what a mile was."

"...yeah, that sounds crazy," Dean agreed, sniggering.

"There's a pitch on Dartmoor," Parvati supplied. "One in central Wales, one near St. Mary's Loch and the last one's a little southwest of Halkirk. I think there used to be one in the Fens, but it closed ages ago."

At their looks, she winked. "What? I'm not just a pretty face, and besides, my father used to play for the Arrows."

"Really?" Dean asked. "That's pretty impressive. They're a local team, right?"

Ron sniggered. "They're a League team, mate. One of the thirteen teams in the League."

"It's not like it was a full time job," Parvati added. "Teams only play twelve games a year."

"I think we're getting off topic," Harry said. "So the important stuff is… sit on the broom, lean back to stop, and apart from that we'll get told during the lesson?"

Nobody disagreed with that, so he decided it was probably fairly accurate.

"Malfoy keeps saying how he's been flying for years," Ron added. "Bet he's not as good as he thinks he is, though."

He turned to Harry. "Any idea if you'll be allowed to skip the broomstick bit? You're clearly able to fly."

"If Draco has to do it, then so do I," Harry replied, with what he felt to be quite good logic.

Once the day's other lessons were behind them, the Gryffindor and Slytherin First-years congregated on a neatly-mown lawn on the grounds. Harry brought up the rear with Neville, assuring the timid boy that he'd be ready to help out if Neville got in trouble, then lined up with the others by the two rows of broomsticks.

As Ron had said – though not as clearly as Madam Hooch – you had to tell the broom to come "up", and it took almost everyone a few tries. Even Draco didn't get it quite right the first time, lazily drawling the instruction and then looking disappointed when the broom simply twitched and rolled over.

"You have to be firm!" Madam Hooch instructed. "Firm but not shrill, and make your instruction clear! Mr. Malfoy, I don't care if your broom at home is a well-crafted precision instrument, you need to learn how to use any broom not just one!"

Once he'd got his broom to jump up, Harry inspected it – noticing how the twigs were a bit uneven and tattered. All the ones in the class were similarly tired-looking, though if you thought about it maybe that just meant they'd tend to be fairly reliable because the bad ones would have disintegrated a long time ago.

Or maybe not.

Then the next step was how to sit on the broom. The feet had to go to the side of the brush binding or on a bipod, never kicking the handle end of the brush itself, because it was far easier to unseat them that way; the hands had to be turned properly, and the body properly rested on the cushioning charm. Harry's unusual body shape caused him several problems with that bit, and Madam Hooch came over to help him sort himself out.

They'd decided his tail should probably be left to fly free in the wind while his wings could help in the corners and were working on how the cushioning charm should carry his weight – but then Neville suddenly yelped.

"Lean back!" Ron called, as the poor First-year went flying skywards. "Nev, if you hold on too tight it'll only go faster!"

Dropping his broom, Harry jumped skywards to follow his friend. Madam Hooch did so as well, but she'd barely kicked off when Neville slipped and fell.

Gritting his teeth, Harry pulled up-and-over. He reached out to grab Neville's arm and yanked them both out of the dive, making his foreleg ache faintly from the force, and flared his wings with a hollow boom of air to shed velocity.

By the time Madam Hooch reached them, Harry had lowered Neville to the ground as gently as he could manage. He was panting, shocked by his fall, and Harry was sitting down and gingerly spreading his wings to see if he'd damaged them. (He wasn't sure how he'd tell, but it seemed like the right thing to do.)

"Are you all right, Mr. Longbottom?" Madam Hooch asked. "Look at me."

Neville did so, and the flying instructor shone her wand light into his eyes one at a time. "Looks all right… nothing broken?"

The Gryffindor shook his head. He winced, clutching his shoulder for a moment, then let out a slow breath.

"I… t-think it's nothing," he said.

"Well, then, if it still hurts be sure to take it to Madam Pomfrey," Madam Hooch went on. "And you, Mr. Potter!"

Harry winced, hoping that he wasn't about to be told off.

"I'd have preferred you left the job to me, but you have good instincts," she said. "But if you hadn't been in the way I could have used a Slowing Charm to slow Mr. Longbottom down. Keep that in mind in future."

"Yes, Madam Hooch," Harry replied.

She clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't sound so glum! Your instincts are good, and we can train the rest. I expect you'll be a fine Quidditch player if you decide to join the team in a later year."

Fortunately, that was the most excitement that the lesson saw. In fact, after the incident, Madam Hooch took care to start with Neville – using a different and particularly low-powered broom, and walking him through the basics of how to shift your weight to either rise or fall.

After ten minutes or so Neville was doing fine, and then the rest of the class went through the same in groups of three or four. It meant the whole flying lesson overran by nearly an hour, but it also meant that – despite their scare – everyone got at least slightly used to flying.

Harry, however, found himself at an unexpected disadvantage. If he tried to use just the broom he was fairly good, and he already knew he was both strong and manoeuvrable with his wings, but if he combined the two the result tended to go badly.

"Hmm..." Madam Hooch mused, eventually, inspecting the latest dragon-shaped dent in the lawn before repairing it with a wave of her wand. "We'll work on that, Mr. Potter."

"Why can't I just use my wings?" Harry asked. "I know this is a lesson about broomsticks, but it's called a flying lesson."

"I've got an idea," Dean said. "What about if you use a broomstick like… what's it called… reheat, that's it. That thing fighter planes do when they go faster in a straight line."

"I don't think I've ever heard of that," Harry admitted.

"Dad thinks it's cool," Dean explained.

Harry had to admit, it would be good to be able to go faster in a straight line.

So long as that straight line wasn't straight into the ground, that was.

The next evening, after Potions and after Hermione had pulled the rest of their group into a homework session in the library, Neville asked Harry if he'd seen a shiny orb-shaped object with a golden rim.

"I… hmm," Harry mused, thinking about the various things he'd seen around the castle.

He knew he was well-disposed to spot shiny objects, which he assumed was probably a dragon thing getting its chance to show off in the much more shiny environment of Hogwarts rather than Little Whingeing JMI School, but he couldn't remember something offhand that was like that and said so.

"I got it at breakfast a couple of days ago," Neville told him. "It's a Remembrall, it's supposed to help me know if I've forgotten something, but I think I've forgotten it somewhere."

"Yeah, I can see how that's a problem," Harry agreed. "So… does it help you remember what it is you've forgotten?"

"No, just tells me that I've forgotten something," his friend replied. "I think, anyway… I've only ever heard of them before."

"I'll look them up," Hermione volunteered. "It'll probably be in A Hundred Odd Office Oddments."

Madam Pince appeared from behind a shelf as if by magic (which, come to think of it, it probably was). "No unnecessary noise in the library."

"Sorry," Harry said, lowering his voice. "Okay, Neville… let's see. Did you have it in Potions?"

"I…" Neville began, thinking hard, then nodded. "Oh – yes, because I used it to see if I'd forgotten anything I needed for the lesson. And I hadn't."

Harry nodded, thinking back to the Potions lesson.

He hadn't seen it on Neville's desk, but then he'd been concentrating fairly hard anyway and Neville might not have had it out – Professor Snape's second potion for them had been more complex than the first, though he hadn't had a quiz to start the lesson, and the Remembrall might have been more of a distraction than a help.

"Okay, I'll retrace the route," he decided. "I've got all my homework done anyway, except for the Potions."

"Are you sure you're going to call that done?" Hermione asked.

"Well, I did as much as we got told to," Harry replied. "And I didn't write too large."

"But there's so much more you could-"

"Hermione," Ron interrupted her. "Don't worry. Please?"

"If the amount of work I'm doing isn't enough to get a high grade, I'll do more," Harry agreed. "But I've got good marks so far… I'll come back here and tell you how I get on, okay?"

"Right," Dean agreed. "And we'll try and make sure Hermione doesn't overdo it."

As Harry left, he heard Hermione protesting again and Dean pointing out that if she filled her evenings to the brim with homework she wouldn't have any space for clubs or for when it was her turn with Tooth and Fang.

Hiding a smile, he set on his way back down through the halls and staircases of Hogwarts to reach the dungeons.

Several floors later, Harry had little to show for the journey.

He'd met the caretaker's cat, Mrs. Norris, who was sufficiently wary of him to keep a wide berth but sufficiently suspicious to keep an eye on him anyway, been very ineffectually stabbed by the insubstantial lance of Lord Ridley (until Sir Nicholas and a ghost by the name of Harold Rathburne had carried him away in an ethereal armlock, apologizing to him the whole way) and nearly been hit by some awful glitter-bomb that Ron's twin brothers had cooked up to drop on Professor Quirrell.

There was no sign of an orb with a golden rim, however, and Harry had retraced their steps all the way to the Potions lab when he stopped and frowned.

There was Neville's scent, all right, making its way up to the Great Hall for lunch… and there was Neville's scent, weaker but still there, heading down a different corridor.

Tail flicking from side to side with interest, Harry checked the time – it was about halfway through a lesson period – and followed the trail.

Unfortunately for Harry, the trail seemed to go nowhere in particular that he could see. There were a lot of dank smells down in the dungeons of the castle, and it was harder and harder to pick out the faint traces of Neville… until finally he lost it in front of a blank stretch of wall, all jumbled up with all the other scents.

He sighed, blowing out a faint flicker of smoke, and shrugged.

It had been worth a try, though.

Halfway back up into the above-ground section of the castle, a thought struck Harry. He'd been so caught up in tracking down that trail that he'd missed out on what it actually meant, which was that – probably – someone had taken Neville's Remembrall. If it wasn't in Neville's bag, and it wasn't anywhere he could have dropped it, and the only other scent trail was someone leaving the room Neville had been in…

Harry wasn't exactly the main character from that detective book he'd read, but he could work that one out. Which meant the best thing to do was to find a Prefect… but Percy was still proving very difficult to track down.

But now Harry had another idea, and so when he reached the Grand Staircase he crouched before spreading his wings and jumping.

All the floors of the castle went past in a few seconds – a couple of Ravenclaws making their way up past the third floor whooped – and Harry alighted on the guard rail at the top, scrabbling for a moment before pulling himself over onto the top floor of the main castle.

Left turn, right turn, and he was approaching the brass door knocker – which had a couple of first- and second-year Ravenclaws standing around it.

"Afternoon," Terry Boot said. "I didn't get this one."

Harry waved, going briefly to three legs instead of four to do so, then knocked.

"Ah, you again," the door knocker greeted him. "What has roots nobody sees, is taller than trees, up it goes, and yet never grows?"

"I think it's supposed to be a mountain, but mountains grow as well," Harry replied. "They just do it really slowly."

"A fair answer with your working shown," the door-knocker replied, and opened.

"Actually, I'm afraid it's in one of the books I've read," Harry apologized. "Gollum asks it in The Hobbit."

"I suppose you can't win them all," the door knocker said amiably as the Ravenclaws went through, followed by Harry.

Inside, he located the person he'd been after – the Ravenclaw prefect he'd met several times already, who he now knew to be called Penelope. She listened to his explanation without interruption, nodding slowly, then stood.

"Thank you for telling me this," she said. "I'll have to have a word with Percy to make sure he's making enough time in his schedule for the students of his own house – and check on the other Gryffindor prefects as well, or ask Professor McGonagall to do it."

"Do you think you'll be able to get Neville his Remembrall back?" Harry asked, worried.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry," Penelope assured him.

On Saturday morning, Neville had his Remembrall again.

"So, based on what I read, you can sort of ask it questions," Hermione was saying. "So as well as 'have I forgotten something', you can think, 'have I forgotten something to do with my classes'..."

Harry listened with half an ear, chewing through the spare breakfast fork the House-Elves had provided him, then his ear perked up as he noticed the sign-up sheets going up on the walls thanks to Professor Flitwick.

"Looks like we can sign up to the clubs," he said, getting the attention of his friends, and hurried over. A lot of the other students did as well, crowding around, but Harry had managed to get in quick – which was fortunate, as he wasn't really tall enough to see over a crowd.

It looked like there were about two dozen, roughly speaking. Some of them weren't any interest to Harry, like the Gobstones club (which sounded unpleasant) or the Charms club (which looked like it was for the later years), and he didn't even know what Rummy club was… but some of them looked much better. Swimming club sounded vaguely interesting, though Harry hadn't swum except for lessons at school which hadn't gone very well, and the Book club was the one which looked the most appealing of all.

It took a few minutes for Harry to squirm his way over to that sheet and tap it, which added his name with a flourish of an enchanted quill. It was really impressive, just one of the ways magic made things easier, and he saw Ron putting his name down for the Chess club at about the same time. (That sheet was particularly popular.)

Once the scrum had faded a bit, Dean put himself down for the Art club – where he joined a number of unfamiliar names, but also Blaise Zabini. The Slytherin boy seemed to have signed up for about four different clubs, and Harry wasn't sure if that was just enthusiasm or wanting to decide which he'd continue with later, but it tempted him before he ultimately decided to stick to just the one.

Hermione hadn't wanted to do any of them at all, and Ron was trying to convince her to give at least one a go when the Weasley twins came hurrying over.

"Harry!" one of them said.

"Just the person we wanted to see," the other continued.

"Do you think you could help us with something?"

The second one held up a red envelope. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to deal with this?"

"By which we mean eat this."

"Our dear mother gets very uptight about things."

"Even when we've been punished for them already."

Harry felt like he was watching a tennis game.

"How are you doing that?" he asked, as the envelope began to emit curls of smoke.

"Don't have time for that now," said the one not holding the envelope, picking up a pepper grinder and grinding some over the smoking envelope. "You could really help us out."

"Just dispose of this for us."

"It should be a snap."

"I think it's a good idea, Harry," Percy said, surprising Harry. "My brothers have broken the rules, but they deserve detention – not public humiliation."

"We're just thinking of the children," said George, or possibly Fred.

"Don't want them deafened," George, or perhaps Fred, agreed.

Harry opened his mouth to ask, but the letter was starting to curl up at the edges now. George held it out, Harry got slightly confused, and in a moment the letter was going down his throat.

A few tense seconds passed in silence, as the Weasleys waited with bated breath – along with Neville, while Hermione and Dean just looked confused.

There was a faint tickling in Harry's stomach, but nothing that seemed important.

"Phew," George said (Harry had decided to call them both George unless something changed). "Thanks, Harry."

Harry tried to say it was nothing, but what came out was a magically enhanced shout. "DISRESPECTING A-"

His glasses went bouncing away across the floor as he shut his mouth with a snap.

"Mm?" he asked.

"It's a Howler," Ron supplied. "It's a magical letter that shouts at the person who gets it."

"TOLD YOU-" Harry bellowed, then decided to just hold his mouth shut until the conversation was over.

"Mum loves sending them whenever we do something wrong," George supplied. "And normally there's no way out of it, we just let them run. But since you're around..."

"They sound unpleasant," Hermione frowned. "Why doesn't she just tell you off in a normal letter?"

"I bet it's just that it lets off steam," Dean suggested.

George retrieved Harry's glasses, and George took them to hand off to Harry. "There you go. And, um… it should only take a few minutes until it stops."

After the hubbub had died down, Harry went back over to look at the sign up sheets. To his delight, Hermione and Neville had decided to go for the Book Club as well, and the first meeting was on Sunday afternoon.

"Harry," Percy said, getting his attention, and Harry looked around.

"Yes?" he asked, then sighed in relief when Mrs. Weasley's shouts didn't fill the Great Hall.

"I wanted to apologize," Percy told him. "Penelope told me about what happened yesterday, and… well, I was so pleased with the good side of being a Prefect that I forgot about the difficult sides of the job."

Harry nodded, thinking about when Percy had told him how many classes he was taking.

"Maybe you need the same advice as Hermione?" he suggested. "She keeps trying to work as hard as possible and spend all her time on class work, but Dean thinks that's a bad idea this early in the year because then she's got nowhere to go during exam time."

He tried to remember the way Dean had put it. "Something about trying to go everywhere in a high gear meaning you can't get started."

Percy frowned. "Is a gear one of those things Muggle cars have?"

"I know, I didn't really understand it either," Harry admitted. "I know bikes have them, but the school bike I used for cycling proficiency didn't have any gears and I never got used to which way around they are."

Percy nodded. "Well – what I'll try and do is to make sure that when I am doing my school work, I'm always in the library or the common room. And if you do need my help for a proper Prefect thing, just interrupt me."

That lunch, Harry was finally reaching the end of The Seeress of Kell – well into what looked like being a very happy ending, even if it was one bereft of dragons – when Draco Malfoy came over, accompanied by Vincent and Gregory.

"I suppose you think that's big of you, do you?" Draco demanded.

Harry looked down at himself, wondering if he'd gained any weight – he'd certainly been eating better at the castle, or at least better in food terms – then back up at Draco. "Pardon?"

"What's your problem, Malfoy?" Ron asked.

"Shut up, Weasley," Draco instructed. "Potter's been getting a Prefect to do his dirty work."

Harry flared out a wing, separating Ron and Draco before the latter had finished speaking, and looked at his book. "Can it wait? I'm almost finished, there's this knight who Mandorallen is insulting and it's really funny."

Draco seemed slightly bemused, but rallied. "Well, if you'd rather wait, we could make it a formal thing. Wizard's duel, tonight at midnight in the trophy room."

Harry paused. "Hold on a moment."

He turned to Hermione, who had been watching in a kind of vague shock. "Are wizard's duels allowed by the school rules?"

At that, his friend reached into her bag to get out one of the books she carried everywhere.

"What are you, Potter?" Draco demanded. "Chicken? Looking for a way out of the duel?"

"Well, I know going out after curfew isn't allowed," Harry answered, vaguely noticing that a lot more people were listening now. "But if a duel is allowed, then we could have one outside after lunch? I always thought the person who got challenged got to pick where and what."

"I – hold on," Hermione mumbled, as on Harry's other side Ron shifted out from behind the big black wing so he could see. "Um… yes, they're allowed, so long as a teacher's supervising and there's no lethal or potentially lethal spells used."

"That actually sounds all right," Harry said. "What do you think, Draco? We could ask Professor Flitwick to supervise, because he's not either of our Head of House."

"And he's a well-known duelist," Hermione supplied.

"Hold on, hold on," Dean said, from the other side of the table. "A duel?"

The tall First-year blinked. "Like… knights and stuff?"

"I was actually reading about knights having one," Harry related.

"What's this about a duel?" Professor Flitwick asked, surprising everyone. "Mr. Potter, I understand you're involved?"

"Yes, Sir," Harry agreed. "Draco challenged me to one, and I've suggested we have it outside after lunch."

Draco looked venomously at Harry, but it had all become a bit too public for him to back out.

"All right," he agreed. "Who's your second?"

"I'll do it!" Ron said promptly.

"And you, Mr. Malfoy?" Flitwick went on.

"...Crabbe," Draco decided, after some consideration. "You'd better show up, Potter."

"Why didn't you tell Professor Flitwick that he challenged you to a duel after curfew?" Hermione asked. "He's trying to make you break the rules!"

Thinking about it, Harry realized that was probably true.

"Well, he'd have broken the rules as well, if he showed up," Harry replied. "Or, rather, he'd have broken the rules. If it was against the rules I wouldn't have done it."

"Really?" Ron blinked. "Why not?"

"If you're going to break the rules, then you have to have a good reason for it," Harry answered. "I don't like Draco, but with what he's already said I don't really think he's going to like me no matter what I do."

He shrugged his wings. "It's not like I cared what my cousin thought about me."

"Wait, Harry," Dean frowned. "Didn't you tell me before you used to fly up on the school roof to read books?"

"Yeah, but only if Dudley was going to try and steal them off me," Harry replied. "After the time he kicked a library book to bits and blamed me for it I thought it was better to just keep them out of the way."

"Your cousin sounds awful," Neville said, speaking up for the first time that lunch.

"It kind of depends what sort of day he's having," Harry shrugged. "I think a lot of people are like that."

One happy ending to the Malloreon behind him, Harry headed out to the lawn in front of the castle after lunch.

There was quite a crowd, and he felt a bit nervous, but Ron had pointed out that they hadn't actually learned any dangerous spells yet so the most that Draco should be able to do was shoot sparks (and the Stinging Jinx, a very weak spell that Professor Quirrell had explained to them in Defence earlier that week).

Professor Flitwick was waiting, and so were Draco and Vincent, and the little Charms teacher smiled at them both.

"So!" he began. "Is this a recreational duel or a challenge?"

"A challenge, I think," Harry said. "Draco challenged me."

"That's quite all right," the Professor said brightly. "And is the dispute one that can only be solved by a duel, or does one of you want to back down?"

"I don't want to back down," Draco insisted.

"And I'm not quite sure what the issue is," Harry admitted. "But I don't mind having a duel."

"All right!" Professor Flitwick repeated. "Good enough for me. Now, the rules are as follows – no body contact, the duel is over when one side has conceded or when I determine enough time has elapsed, and because this is a duel on school grounds no lethal spells should be cast. The duel will not begin until I say so."

"All right," Harry agreed. "Are there rules about where we go?"

"You are not to leave the school grounds," Professor Flitwick said. "Now, please bow."

Harry bowed, closing his eyes, and Draco shouted something he didn't quite make out.

"Mr. Malfoy!" Professor Flitwick said sharply. "I did not instruct you to begin!"

"What happened?" Harry asked, looking up again. Professor Flitwick had his wand out and pointed at Draco, and the young Slytherin was looking shocked.

"Malfoy cast a spell at you!" Ron provided. "It sounded like the knockback jinx, but it just bounced off your scales!"

"Mr. Malfoy has wilfully broken the rules of the duel," Professor Flitwick went on. "He loses. Congratulations, Mr. Potter."

"What?" Draco demanded. "But he didn't do anything!"

"Which means he's followed instructions a lot better than you have, Mr. Malfoy," Professor Flitwick told him, his customary good cheer returning quickly. "If you wish to argue that Mr. Potter should have to defeat you to claim victory and Mr. Potter agrees, you can of course continue?"

Draco clenched his fist, then his gaze dropped.

"Excellent!" Professor Flitwick said. "And if anyone else would like to take part in a practice duel, please contact me and I can organize pairs."

Harry felt a bit bemused for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

It transpired that the book club's first meeting was just about meeting one another – there were about thirty students present – and then discussing what they were going to be reading before the next one in a week. There were plenty of suggestions, with Harry deliberating for a long time before opting to raise Equal Rites as an option and Neville instead suggesting a wizarding novel Harry wasn't familiar with.

Hermione didn't come to a conclusion about what to give as an example, which she was told was all right – she could come up with one later – and a quick spell to pick one randomly landed on the book suggested by a Hufflepuff Fifth-Year called Around Africa By Broom.

It wasn't a fiction book, which was about roughly a coin-toss based on what everyone had suggested, and it was obviously a book about someone magical. That was basically the point, finding new books and reading them, and the result left Harry quite pleased – though admittedly wondering whether the school library really had thirty copies of Around Africa By Broom.

The third week at Hogwarts wasn't quite as eventful as the second. No duels developed involving Harry, no important objects were lost (and Neville was able to make good use of his Remembrall now he knew how to do it) and relatives of Harry's friends failed to show up out of nowhere for purposes of natural history.

In fact, somewhat to Harry's surprise, the routine of class at Hogwarts actually settled down into a routine. Their Charms lessons gradually elaborated on the theory of Charms, their Transfiguration lessons continued slowly expanding their repertoire of Transfigurations, Potions class continued to involve making Potions (to nobody's surprise except for perhaps Neville, who entered every lesson expecting to make some horrible mistake) and homework joined the schedule at one end and was completed at the other.

Harry found a copy of the Around Africa book in the Ravenclaw library and read it on Tuesday evening before Astronomy class, finding the style a bit odd at times but enjoying the mention of Translation Toffee (to cope with all the different languages the witch met along the way) and how the tent she carried in her backpack every day and set up whenever she couldn't find somewhere to stay was 'only two bedrooms'.

"...doubtless you wish to know why it is that some Charms last only a very short time, or only while the witch or wizard is concentrating on it, and why others last a very long time indeed!" Professor Flitwick lectured, a week or so into October.

He waved his wand, and four pieces of chalk rose up to sketch out diagrams. "It is because of the pattern of the magic involved. A charm which is to last only a very short time is provided with a certain amount of magic and then that is all there is, and the spell is not tied off – it's a bit like a balloon with the nozzle left open, because it goes shooting off and it's very fast while it's using it up, but once it's done then there's no air left. An example of this would be the Stunning charm."

Professor Flitwick then drew a slightly different diagram. "The second type of charm is one where you give it a task, and enough magic to complete the task. This is very similar, except that if you do not give enough magic it will not work instead of simply being underpowered. This is like the Summoning charm, and most common spells of this type, if cast correctly, will call upon enough magic to actually complete the task."

Harry wrote busily with one paw, using the other to brace himself against the desk. He did his best to include the diagrams, as well, because they weren't quite the same as the ones in Magical Theory and these seemed to explain the whole thing better.

"Then there is the kind of charm where it lasts until the wizard stops casting it," the Charms teacher said. "Such as the Levitation charm. These spells are constantly using up magic to do what they do, but they are also constantly being resupplied with magic."

Professor Flitwick paused, and winked. "Of course, if you are using one of these spells in a duel, you should watch out! The spell can be ended, like puncturing a balloon, and all the magic will escape – and if you lose concentration this can happen, and it will stop it happening."

That point made, he moved on to the next type. "Then there is what is also known as the enchantment, which is using a Charm on a permanent or mostly permanent basis. This is often much harder than other types of Charms, and it involves pushing a certain amount of magic into the object and tying the spell off. It is then like a balloon which has had a knot tied in it, so it will stay there until enough magic escapes that the spell stops working. But since the knot is tied, this can take a very long time – it depends on how much magic has been put in and how good the knot is."

Harry raised his paw, and Professor Flitwick called on him. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"So does that mean that you could change a spell that's one type so it's another type?" he asked. "Such as… making a summoning enchantment?"

"A very good question!" Flitwick said, delighted. "Two points to Gryffindor, I think! Yes, that is very possible, Mr. Potter – you could do it either by changing how you cast the spell, or by making it a different spell, though both are quite difficult to do and the second would most likely require Arithmantic calculations to see how to make it work."

He waved his wand again, and The Flying Book Of Flying came rising up to the level of his desk.

"This is an example of quite a simple charm that you'll all be learning in the next few weeks, which is Wingardium Levoisa when cast like that," Professor Flitwick explained. "But when it is cast as an enchantment, it has quite a different incantation and it will last upwards of fifty years – though it is also much more difficult to cast successfully, and a wizard who gets the spell wrong may find themselves levitating five feet in the air until they can break their own spell. And, you see, a simple Finite will not work nearly so well on an enchantment, because the spell is already contained so well!"

Terry Boot raised his hand this time, and asked whether there was a kind of enchantment that didn't run down at all.

"I fear that is not for me to tell, Mr. Boot," Professor Flitwick said. "That would be the provenance of Professor Babbling's Runes class – the making of truly permanent spells is largely a historical technique from before the wide use of the wand, because a witch or wizard with a wand can do almost anything better than a rune crafter. It is easier to re-cast the enchantment once every so often and live with that than to spend the effort it would take to get all the runes just so. But it is a fine question, Mr. Boot – two points to Ravenclaw for spotting that gap!"

One morning Hedwig brought them all five copies of a four-page monograph, described as being by Charles Weasley with assistance from 'H. Granger, N. Longbottom, H. Potter, D. Thomas, R. Weasley'. It summarized a lot of what they'd discussed, though not all of it, and also mentioned how Charlie had followed up their conversation from September by doing some experiments on dragons in the Romanian preserve to see whether some of Harry's unusual properties were truly unusual or just the result of his upbringing.

There was a footnote about the response of a Ukranian Ironbelly fed a pile of leaves slathered in blood, which had resulted in the dragon in question being quite sick, and another about an incident where a young Romanian Longhorn about ten feet in length had merely left dents in a metal plate when induced to bite it. Then there was a spirited attempt to see how spells interacted with dragons of the appropriate size, which did confirm that dragon wing could block magic; the subsection also apologized to one Adrian Sala who had been mildly scorched during this testing.

"This is pretty cool," Dean said, looking at the second page; his sketches of Harry's wings and mouth and tail had all been enchanted, and they moved with wings-flapping and mouth-yawning and tail-twitching as he watched. The drawing of Harry's body as a whole moved as well, loping along before taking flight, and it swept off the page entirely before flying back around and landing again. "I wonder if I can show this to my mum."

"She knows about magic already, right?" Ron asked. "Got to to send you here. I think that's allowed, as long as you're careful about it; we've got a second cousin who's an accountant, but she's not allowed to bring her husband or her kids to any of the family meet-ups so it's kind of awkward."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, my mum and dad know. I don't think my sisters do though…"

"I can't really imagine what that's like," Neville said. "Everyone I've ever met has known about magic, and Long – and my house is big enough that my grandmother and my great-uncle can use magic without worrying about showing off."

"I think that must be the opposite of what happened to me, then," Harry noted. "Maybe it's because I flew from home to school and back, and – well, basically everywhere – but as far as I can remember Hagrid was the very first person who could actually see me as a dragon."

"There's got to be quite a lot of Muggles who know, surely," was Hermione's contribution. "Everyone who's muggle-born, or muggle-raised, their parents or caretakers would know, and a lot more people are half-blood. And that's not even getting into the people who are squibs."

"I'm almost a squib," Neville mumbled.

"Come on, Nev, you're not," Ron told him, clapping him on the shoulder. "Unless I am as well, and Seamus. We have trouble with the class work, that's different."

"Oi!" Seamus grumbled.

"Well, for Seamus it's just that he doesn't bother," Ron amended.

"Oi!" Seamus said again.

"If you don't want them joking about you, do better in class," Parvati advised, waving her hand.

Two days later, Harry was called up to the Headmaster's office in the afternoon. The password, it turned out, was 'Cauldron Cake', which Harry hadn't even considered and he had to admit that that kind of password was certainly effective.

The inside of the office was quite amazing. There were portraits all over the walls, as magical as the rest of them in Hogwarts, and little silvery things spinning and whistling on a desk behind where the Headmaster was sat. There was a large bird with brilliant red feathers and a golden tail, as well – what could only be a phoenix, looking at Harry with as much interest as the dragon had for him.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, it's so good to see you!" Professor Dumbledore said, with a cheerful smile. "I am glad you could take time out of your busy schedule to meet me."

Slightly puzzled by that comment, Harry approached the chair that Professor Dumbledore indicated and sat in it. It was big enough, and soft enough, that he could sort of recline back into it if he was careful to furl his wings and arch his back.

"Would you like a sherbet lemon, Mr. Potter?" Professor Dumbledore suggested, proffering a bowl, and Harry took one between his talons. He wasn't at all sure that Professor Dumbledore was what he'd been expecting, even with what he'd said at the Sorting Feast, but there wasn't any reason to refuse a kind offer of a sweet.

Popping it into his mouth, Harry rolled it around on his tongue. It tasted all right, at first, and Dumbledore smiled at him – then the hard case released the sherbet, which fizzed on his tongue, and Harry coughed in surprise before sneezing out a bright yellow fireball which rose ten feet into the air.

Drawing breath to apologize, Harry then sneezed again, and again – each gasped achoo sending a ball of flame into the air, and making the portraits all run for cover outside their frames.

One of the fireballs went towards the bookshelf, and a blur of what looked like glass intercepted it – exploding into a dozen pieces, then reforming quickly into a small glass alembic on Professor Dumbledore's desk.

When the fit had finally subsided, Harry cautiously took a deep breath and then let it hiss out. "I'm… so sorry, Professor-"

"Dear me, no, no harm has been done, my dear boy," Professor Dumbledore assured him. "And, please – Dumbledore will serve quite well. When one has so many titles as I it can be wearying to hear them all the time."

Dumbledore (as Harry was to call him) inspected the bowl of sherbet lemons, waving his wand a little, then put them away in his desk. "It seems we have finally found a substance which defeats your formidable constitution, Mr. Potter – the common-or-garden sherbet lemon."

"Harry's fine," Harry requested, still feeling embarrassed about his overreaction.

"Excellent," Dumbledore pronounced. "We are getting on like a house on fire – though, of course, I would prefer my office remain unignited."

He smiled faintly. "Now, I believe that Rubeus has told me that you would like to go off the grounds to visit a Muggle town. Under normal circumstances, of course, students cannot leave the castle or grounds without special permission. Would you be able to explain to me why it is you want to visit a Muggle town?"

"Mostly that I'd like to get some more books," Harry told him.

"Books?" Dumbledore repeated, still smiling faintly. "I have the opposite problem. I have entirely too many books, and entirely too many people think the best thing to get me for my birthday or for Christmas is another book. I've had to resort to letting Madam Pince steal them from me in exchange for a negative library fine."

The idea of having more books than he knew what to do with was a nice one to Harry, who couldn't really see why he'd give them away – unless maybe he had several copies of the same book? Or if it was to friends, perhaps, which was almost like still having them yourself.

"They're books that the library doesn't have," Harry explained. "I looked, and the Ravenclaw library has some wizarding novels, but there aren't any Muggle novels."

"Ah, I see!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "Well, that seems like an entirely admirable reason to me, Harry, but I will have to ask you a few questions. Firstly, you are doubtless aware that it is not possible to Apparate inside Hogwarts, even assuming you have learned to do so, and secondly that first-year students such as yourself are not permitted their own broomsticks?"

Harry felt like he was starting to get a hang of how Dumbledore thought, now, and spread his wings. "I was thinking of flying? Though I'm not sure where the closest town is."

"Yes, I see," Dumbledore said, nodding along. "I'm sure that there will be a map somewhere – not of Hogwarts, for sadly Hogwarts is Unplottable and so no map can show where it is, but of the area in which it is believed that Hogwarts probably is."

He considered for a moment. "Yes, and I believe that if you have managed to avoid being caught as a dragon for several years in the middle of Surrey then I am sure that you will be able to avoid being caught as a dragon for a few visits to a Scottish bookshop. Very well, then, Harry, I see no reason that you should not – so long as you do avoid being caught, that is, and so long as it does not affect your school work."

"I'm sure it will affect my school work, Sir," Harry replied. "I enjoy reading books, and so I'll feel better."

"An excellent point, Harry," Dumbledore smiled. "Oh, and before you go, one more matter."

Harry tilted his head.

"Forgive an old man for his lack of memory, but did you say precisely how it was that you came to be a dragon?" Dumbledore asked.

"I don't really remember," Harry answered. "It was a long time ago."

"Of course, of course," Dumbledore agreed readily. "I fully understand. And do you feel happy as a dragon?"

"It's how I've been for years, Sir," Harry told him. "It's hard to imagine how I'd get on without wings, or a tail, or any of the other dragoney bits. I think that even if I could be turned into a human I probably wouldn't want to."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Thank you, Harry. If you wish to talk in future, my office door is always open."

He paused. "Actually, my office door is usually shut, but I am sure that Professors McGonagall or Flitwick will be happy to provide you with the password. If not, then please do send me an owl."

Armed with Dumbledore's permission, Harry sourced a map from the library – which took twenty minutes of looking before finally turning up an old Ordnance Survey map from about 1953 – and deduced that his best bet was probably Fort William, a town located near what looked like a quite distinctive area of coastline.

With that out of the way, Harry could plan his journey. Taking his backpack was obvious, as was leaving his school robes behind to blend in, and with how Dean had asked him to be present at the Sunday morning Art club as a model that meant the only date that would really work was the Saturday – a day with no classes and no other commitments.

That still left the biggest concern, which was that Harry actually had no Muggle money left aside from a few ten-pence pieces that had been excess from his railway sandwich. The bag of gold in his trunk was quite well-stocked, but it was all Wizarding money and he doubted that a bookshop owner in Fort William would take Sickles. (Or, for that matter, a sweet store.)

After thinking about the puzzle overnight, and through the morning Potions lesson, Harry decided the best thing to do would be to ask Percy Weasley. The Gryffindor prefect had taken his mistake seriously and been spending quite a lot of time in the Gryffindor common room, usually working on some essay or other and adjusting a carefully-written timetable to suit – but still there to be asked. In fact, he was spending so much time there or in the library that Harry was sure he was either skipping classes or not sleeping, but Percy didn't seem especially tired or flustered so he assumed the older boy had it handled.

When Harry asked the question, after lunch on Friday, Percy put down his quill (he'd been working on columns of equations which looked like they were probably Arithmancy) and thought about it for several seconds.

"So you have plenty of galleons, but you need pounds," he said. "Well, you can't really go to Gringotts, so – I know."

He looked up at the clock to check the time. "I can't remember Professor Burbage's class hours, but if you check her office every hour or so you should catch her. She's the Muggle Studies professor – if anyone in the castle has pounds, it'll be her. Look on the south side of the fourth floor, her office is opposite the statue of Winston Churchill."

Harry blinked. "I didn't know Winston Churchill was a wizard."

"Oh, he wasn't," Percy said. "But she is the Muggle Studies professor."

"Are you sure this is a good idea, mate?" Ron asked, as Harry waited in the common room for another chance to see if Professor Burbage was in. "You might be seen!"

"I haven't been seen before," Harry replied. "And that was flying over London."

"Oh, yeah, that odd thing where Muggles can't see you," Ron remembered. "But still… are you sure you'll be able to get back to Hogwarts? It's kind of hard to find, that's the point."

"Yeah, that is a good point," Harry admitted. "Well… I'm pretty good at finding my way around, or I think I am, but maybe if there's magic..."

He thought about it, then smiled suddenly. "Wait here," he asked Ron, and loped upstairs – dodging around a sixth-year on his way – before sliding to a halt next to his bed. He dug into his trunk to locate a quill, two pieces of parchment and two envelopes, then hurried back downstairs.

Rejoining Ron, he wrote out a quick letter about picking up some sweets to try, then folded it up in an envelope and addressed it to Albus Dumbledore.

"Here's the idea," he explained, giving Ron the other envelope. "If I'm not back by, um… three in the afternoon? You send me a letter asking if I'm okay. Hedwig can find me, then I can send this letter to Dumbledore and follow her home."

"Brilliant!" Ron decided. "Owls can definitely get to Hogwarts – that's brilliant, mate!"

"I'll do my best not to need it, though," Harry added.

This time, his meeting with Professor Burbage actually happened, and after explaining the situation she was happy to help. In exchange for ten galleons, she gave him fifty pounds of Muggle money from her collection – which Harry remembered was about what the conversion was – and asked him to write her a quick report on how the expedition went for her to read.

Navigation, destination, money and permission all sorted out, Harry spent the last few hours of Friday evening making sure all his homework was properly done and then got an early night – planning to set off just after an early breakfast, to give himself as much time as possible.

Then it rained all day.

Unwilling to risk a flight to go and buy books in the sweeping, crackling thunderstorm which lashed the grounds of Hogwarts, Harry instead spent the day finishing the latest book club assignment – a Wizarding novel from about seventy years ago, about a family with a witch mother and a muggle father living in France during the First World War and trying to cope with the need for secrecy against their hopes that the father of the family would come back alive.

It was a bit depressing in places, but it was a good story, and with the storm lashing the windows of Gryffindor Tower – and Ron and Dean arguing over the difference between Impedimenta and Flipendo in their Defence homework, and Hermione practising a spell she'd looked up, and Neville quietly reading the same book in an armchair – Harry found that he didn't really mind that his plan had been spoiled by the weather.

He could always go shopping next weekend, after all.

Days began to go past faster, lessons and homework and free time slipping away to the flow of the week. Sunday saw Harry posing for art club (though the Prefect who was present managed to convince the club not to pressure Harry into posing with a miniature suit of armour) and then the discussion in book club – along with the next book being assigned, which was a non-fiction book called Centaurs of Caledonia about the long history of the centaurs of Scotland.

Monday's lessons had Professor McGonagall telling them all about the principle of similarity with a spell transfiguration, and how a poorly cast transfiguration spell would leave the result having some of the properties of the original object – while a spell cast well with good visualization could customize the result quite far from how it had started. The example used was turning a teacup into a rat, where a not-very-successful casting would leave the rat patterned exactly the same as the teacup while an excellent casting could result in a rat patterned however one chose.

The week's Herbology classes saw them learning about the ways to tell apart soils – some magical plants preferring sandier soils and others more inclined to the loamy, or to stranger combinations – and which went better with what kinds of mulch. It was a mucky lesson, but needed, and as Harry washed his claws after one he smiled at how much Neville was enjoying the course.

History of Magic was focused on the Statute of Secrecy at the moment, about the period when witches and wizards went into hiding, and it made Harry wonder what would happen if someone tried to burn him at the stake. (Based on how easily it was that he could touch things in a hot frying pan, he thought it was probably 'not much'.)

Then there was Astronomy, where they were talking about how it was that the Moon could orbit the Earth but the Earth orbit the Sun and the two of them look so similar, while all the other things that orbited the Sun looked so much smaller.

Defence Against the Dark Arts was still the weakest course as far as Harry was concerned, which was a pity because the subject matter was interesting, and talking with Second-Years and Third-Years gave him some idea about what the classes had been like under the last two teachers. It seemed as though Quirrell was actually an improvement in terms of teaching quality, though the other two had been easier to understand.

The Flying Lessons were moving on to some of the more advanced bits, about how to make a broom dive quickly or dive slowly, and Harry's own project of stabilizing himself mid-flight when using both a broom and his own wings was – slowly – advancing. Madam Hooch had taken him aside after the last class and told him that she had an idea to try out in future, which was a good sign, and even Neville was now confident enough to fly in a somewhat wobbly circle. He'd never be a Quidditch player, or he wouldn't be unless he improved in a really big way and got into actually enjoying flying, but he was doing well enough to get by.

As for Potions, they were going about as well as they had been. Professor Snape was quite ready to tell people off for even the most minor of mistakes, but Daphne and Harry were forming quite a good team. Ron and Dean had occasional trouble with some of the instructions, and Harry had winced at the tongue-lashing his friends had got when they'd mixed up the ingredients of an antidote to Manticore venom.

Admittedly, since the cauldron had trembled and sent a plume of acrid greenish smoke rising up to billow off the ceiling, it had been fairly obvious something had gone wrong. Apparently they'd been mixed up because the instructions on the board had told them to add the essence of giant hogweed before the puffskein fur, while the book instructions had had it afterwards, and the result had been adding it twice and a small explosion.

Then it was another Saturday, this time with the air crisp and clear, and Harry finally set off for Fort William.

After about an hour of flying, most of it higher than the nearby mountains (or were they hills? Harry knew that above a certain height a hill turned into a mountain, but he didn't have an altitude measurer) Harry landed on a peak overlooking a broad inlet and dug the map out of his bag.

It looked like the inlet was the right shape, though the town nearby was quite a bit bigger than he expected Fort William to look based on the map. That was probably because of how old the map was, though, and Harry double-checked that there were no other similar-looking inlets nearby before putting the map away again.

Spreading his wings and walking forwards, past the crest of the hill(?) and towards the steep drop-off, Harry waited until the strong breeze blowing up the side of the slope was making his wings ripple and crackle before flexing them and taking flight.

Rather than immediately descend down into Fort William, he instead used the rising air to gain height while he still had an idea of the direction Hogwarts was in. It wasn't as easy as he'd hoped, and he had to flap quite hard once the rising air had gone, but ultimately Harry spotted Hogwarts castle against the horizon before giving it up and gliding back down towards the town he'd flown so far to visit.

His wings ached a bit, but no more than they did after he'd flown from Little Whingeing to London, and he was expecting a few hours' rest before he had to fly back.

A dragon landed on the high street, and nobody noticed.

Furling his wings, Harry looked around – confirming that nobody was staring at him – then hopped to the side of the pedestrian street and started looking up and down to see what there was. He could see a lot of outdoors-equipment shops, and food shops, and more than a few places which were all about being Scottish, but his first real focus was to see if there was a bookshop… or, failing that, a library.

Then… a sweetshop sounded nice, to get something for Professor Dumbledore as a thank-you.

"Afternoon," someone nodded, stopping to talk to Harry and adjusting a massive backpack. "You planning on heading up Ben Nevis?"

"Not really," Harry replied. "I don't do all that much walking. I'm just visiting."

"Well, to each his own," the hiker replied amiably.

As the tourist walked off, Harry took a bite out of his sandwich.

His shopping was more-or-less done. He'd only spent about half the money in his bag, largely because he didn't want to use it all up on the first trip, but he had picked up a few new books along with copies of books he'd read before but hadn't had the money left to get before coming to Hogwarts.

The biggest prize had been the totally unexpected discovery of a brand new Pern book, All the Weyrs of Pern, which was carefully wrapped up in his backpack along with his other purchases and inside a pair of plastic bags in case there was any rain. That alone had made the trip worth it, and Harry occasionally had to stop his tail twitching in pleasure when it bumped into chairs or bushes and made them move.

After those, and also picking up a Muggle astronomy book in case it helped with Astronomy class, the other thing Harry had done was to go to a sweet shop. A lot of the shops on the high street that sold sweets sold specifically Highland sweets, things like fudge, that Harry guessed were mostly meant for tourists… but a bit of searching had revealed a much more conventional sweet shop, and Harry had picked up a dozen different things that sounded interesting.

The rest of the sandwich vanished, along with the rubbish (Harry had never really seen the point in unwrapping a sandwich, because to him it just had two layers instead of one) and Harry nodded his head a little as he went through the list of things he wanted to do.

He'd been to the book shop, and to the sweet shop as well… he'd had something for lunch, and looked in on a couple of other ships but hadn't got anything there.

That meant he could go to the library with a clear conscience.

Wings twitching slightly in eagerness, Harry hopped down from the wall he'd been sitting on, snagged his backpack, and loped down the high street to reach the town library.

The weather had become cloudy by the time Harry got back to Hogwarts, and as he circled over the castle before coming down to land he noticed that there was Quidditch practice going on.

It sounded like there was a lot of shouting going on, and he wondered if that meant the Gryffindor Quidditch Team was having trouble. If he remembered properly Charlie Weasley had been the Seeker and he'd left, and one of the Chasers had left as well…

Shrugging it off, he decided to just land through the Owlery. It would mean he didn't have to fly up the grand staircase, which was all good.

"So this is a pear drop," Ron said, inspecting it closely.

He poked it with his wand, and it fizzed slightly. "Ah, so that's what they do!"

"What?" Dean asked. "No, mate, they just taste sweet and pear-y. That's because you poked it with your wand."

"But I wasn't trying to cast a spell?" Ron asked, puzzled. Then the pear drop rose into the air and exploded into a cloud of sweet-smelling mist, which drew a long-suffering sigh from Hermione and a few cheers from the rest of the common room.

"Muggle sweets are mostly a bit less exciting than Wizard ones," Harry explained. "But there's some which are different – I don't know if there are any magic sweets which are like sherbet."

"Wait, you got some sherbet?" Dean asked.

"That doesn't sound like a good idea," Neville said softly. "Not after what you said happened in Professor Dumbledore's office."

"I thought maybe he'd like them," Harry explained. "And maybe if I get used to it I won't blow something up if it happens again."

He put the astronomy book on the table. "I got this, too."

"...now I come to think of it, we don't actually have an astronomy textbook, do we?" Hermione asked, as Ron cracked the book open to see what was in it. "Good work, Harry, that's going to help a lot."

"I think you got the wrong book, Harry," Ron said. "This says that Muggles have sent somebody called Galileo to visit Jupiter, but even I know that Galileo lived in Italy hundreds of years ago."

Hermione hid a smile. "That's a space probe named after him, Ron. It was launched two years ago."

Ron slowly lowered the book, staring at his friend, then flipped through it.

"Muggles have been to the moon?"

"Nineteen sixty-nine," Hermione supplied. "My mum and dad both watched it on the TV."

Flipflipflip.

"A giant crater in Mexico?"

"Oh, that must be a very new book!" Hermione said, pleased. "Well done, Harry, that's only been in the science magazines in the last year or so – I read about it in Dad's copy of Nature."

"We are so different," Dean chuckled.

"I just asked for a good astronomy book," Harry admitted. "I don't really know enough to tell."

"What in Merlin's name is this!?"

Hermione leaned over to look at the illustration. "Oh, that's just a picture of a spaceship. Not a real one, it's just used to make the picture more interesting – it's the one from Star Trek."

She turned a few pages back. "That's real, though. It's been having all sorts of problems."

Ron looked up at Hermione, then back at the Hubble Space Telescope.

"...is this what Muggles can do because they don't have sweets that run away?"

"I think a lot of it is because there's a lot more Muggles," Harry said. "They come up with a lot more ideas, because there's more of them, and then they do their best to make them come true. So there were stories about going to space, and then that's what they did."

He rummaged in his backpack and unwrapped All the Weyrs. "Maybe I should think about doing this?"

They all looked at the cover, which showed a white dragon and a much smaller golden one inside a room, with the golden one pressing buttons. Out of the window of the room an entire planet was visible, green and blue and whorled with cloud.

"I always thought those books were fantasy books, like the other ones you like," Hermione said. "But suddenly there's a spaceship?"

"Well, dragons are real," Harry said, shrugging. "And even if she doesn't know that, they're dragons on another planet – they aren't actually fantasy books, it's a bit complicated."

Ron was still staring at a photograph of the Space Shuttle.

Professor Burbage was delighted to hear how the trip had gone, especially when Harry handed in his write-up of what had happened. It wasn't anything especially sophisticated, but he had listed off all the shops he'd gone into, as well as how many people were in town to walk because Fort William had a train station.

"The really fascinating thing about it is that it's a town with so many people in it!" the Professor smiled. "It's big enough that it really shows how many Muggles there are, but it's small enough that you can visit all of it – most Wizards tend to live in quite small villages or out in the countryside, and those that don't can spend all their life in London without ever leaving it."

Harry had the feeling that if he did Muggle Studies he'd probably learn more about Wizards than about Muggles, but it was a good point.

"Malfoy's got to be planning something," Ron said, a few days later, as they worked on Transfiguration homework – giving examples of the spells in their standard spellbook which were the most similar to various things they were told to do. Turning a tortoise into a rat looked like it was best to go tortoise-to-teapot, and then base the next step off teacup-to-rat, for example, and it meant lots of checking back and forth. "That duel made him look silly, and I don't trust him."

"I don't know," Harry shrugged. "When Draco ran into me in the hallway, yesterday, he asked how I felt about Halloween. I said that I was looking forward to getting sweets, because Dudley was the only one who got them."

"But-" Ron began, then subsided when Hermione waved her hand at him to make him quiet down. "But you can't let him get away with it, Harry."

"Get away with what?" Harry asked.

"He's – uh – I bet he was trying to make a point about, you know, what happened when… when You-Know-Who died," Ron elaborated. "About what happened to your parents."

Harry frowned. "Oh, maybe. I didn't think of that… is there a transfiguration spell which turns a feather duster into a paintbrush? That would help here."

"Oh, hold on, I think I saw one of those," Dean volunteered, flipping through his own copy. "Uh… there."

Harry wrote down the words of that spell, looked at his spell-chain, then frowned. "I think I must have copied one of these down wrong."

"Let me see?" Hermione asked, comparing the spell chain to her own – all finished already, of course. "There's a difference there… hold on… oh, I see. No, that spell won't fit there, I think you copied the wrong one down."

Sighing, Harry took the paper back and crossed out the offending spell. Finding the page again, he saw that he'd put down the wrong one on the page – instead of turning a duck into a pillow, he'd put in one which turned a weasel into a wastebasket.

"That's better," he said, substituting the correct one in. "Thanks, Hermione."

"You're welcome," Hermione told him, sounding pleased.

Professor Sinistra was quietly impressed with the astronomy book, and Harry also got a thank-you note from Professor Dumbledore a few days after that which told him that the Headmaster very much enjoyed the black-jacks and the flying saucers Harry had sent him.

Harry didn't really agree on the flying saucers – the one time he'd tried one he'd discovered that the sherbet fizzed enough to make him cough, just like the lemon sherbets – but he was glad that Dumbleore liked them, not least because it made him feel like the journey had been worth it for more than one reason.

Then it was more than halfway through his first term, and Halloween rolled around. Charms class saw them learning to make objects float into the air – it was harder with bigger objects, but not much harder, but they still started with feathers.

Professor Flitwick explained to them all how it was much easier to make something float if you thought it should float, and a feather was naturally very light and floaty, so it was easy for a new spellcaster to make it float – it wasn't that you didn't have to cast the spell with the right words, because you did, but that the more you thought the spell could work the more forgiving it was of little mistakes.

A wizard could cast a spell with the words and the wand movement without even knowing what it was meant to do at all, or they could cast it with just an effort of will without saying the words or moving their wand, but all three together worked best… and, as soon as someone got it (Hermione, naturally) and proved that it could be done, most of the rest of the class followed over the next half hour.

Harry mostly wondered what would happen if he cast the spell while flying. Would it mean he'd levitate something a little bit and then pull it along with him as he flew at high speed?

Then, after their other lessons (and homework), and after their things were stowed away in their rooms, came the feast.

For some reason, this involved a lot of live bats, and his friends laughed at how obviously Harry was visibly restraining himself from leaping into the air to catch the black flying things. There was plenty of food, as well, though with how much Wizards liked pumpkins normally it was a bit hard to tell the difference from a typical meal… until the desserts, which were all kinds of bizarre but very tasty combinations. Like the fudge torte, or a pie which contained within it twenty-four chocolate frogs, or even a strange kind of trifle with blood oranges in it that was both fruity and sweet at the same time.

Compared to his time at the Dursleys, when his aunt and uncle had absolutely refused any suggestion of trick-or-treating by Dudley, let alone Harry – probably because of the magical associations – and simply stuffed their son with chocolate while more-or-less ignoring Harry, Halloween 1991 was the best one Harry could remember and stood out from several quite boring ones. (When he thought about it after Malfoy's point from a couple of weeks ago, Harry knew that the Halloween ten years ago was probably the most memorable one of them all for older wizards, but he'd been too young to remember it so it didn't count.)

Chapter Text

At the start of the first flying lesson of November, Madam Hooch came over to Harry with a bundle.

"Here we go, Mr. Potter," she said, putting the bundle down and rolling it out. Harry looked on with interest, ears twitching, as a pair of very similar looking brooms rolled out.

"I've got an idea about that instability of yours," Madam Hooch explained. "These are old Swiftsticks, very resilient brooms, not hard used but they're old enough that they're not worth much any more. But they're durable enough they should be nice and even."

"I'm not sure I understand," Harry admitted.

"Well, I got hold of these from a contact of mine at Quality Quidditch Supplies," Madam Hooch told him briskly. "Took a week to get time with old Filius to alter the charms, too – the cushioning charm's been turned down and we've added a sticking charm in their place. Wings out."

Harry complied, and Madam Hooch put one of the two Swiftsticks under his wing – just below the long join where it met his body, where it wouldn't impinge on a full flap of his wings.

"Stick," she said, and it did – probably sticking firmly to his durable robes, rather than to his hide. The other one went under his other wing and stuck on the same way, and she stepped back to check on her work.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Harry asked.

"I had Septima work out the numbers with me, don't worry," Madam Hooch assured him. "You're good enough at controlling brooms, it's just that you're not used to balancing a single source of power. If this works we might see about getting you used to a single broom, but this ought to work out better for now."

She raised a hand in caution. "Remember! You'll have to control the brooms the way we've been discussing without leaning on them. This still isn't going to be easy. And if you have trouble, tell them to 'unstick' and they will – they're attached to one another now."

"Right," Harry said, looking at first one broom and then the other. They had little serial numbers engraved on the head of the broom, both of them four-digit numbers beginning with a 5, and he wondered just how old they were before shrugging it off.

If there was anybody in the entire school it was safe to experiment like this with, it was probably him.

Madam Hooch turned to give instructions to the rest of the flying students for a few minutes, telling the ones in the first-class (mostly Wizarding children used to flying brooms, but not all of them) to practice flying in formation in small groups, while the ones in the second-class were to keep working on flying straight and level.

"Up you go, Mr. Potter," she added, and Harry crouched before jumping into the air with a sweep of his wings.

At first, it felt just like his normal flights. Then he did that funny little mental thing which he'd learned over the last couple of months was how you made a broomstick start going, and it was very different all of a sudden.

Doing his best to keep himself from simply surging off into the distance, Harry kept his wings spread and tried to think of it like diving, and that helped – he lowered his neck a little, flexing his wings back, trying to use them to control his flight rather than push.

Then it seemed to click, all of a sudden, and he banked around to the right – going wider than he expected, but definitely flying with most of his momentum coming from broomsticks instead of from his wings.

"Very good, Mr. Potter!" Madam Hooch called, flying alongside with her own broom. "Now let's see a landing!"

Turning again, Harry did his best to turn the speed of the broomsticks down again. It was a bit difficult to concentrate on that at the same time as shedding altitude and flaring his wings – but he managed it, touching down with a thump and turning both broomsticks off at once.

"Nice one, Harry!" Dean called.

"Thanks!" Harry called back with a wave – but that somehow managed to start just one broomstick going, not both of them, and he stumbled as the force pulled him to the side. His wings flared out automatically and he flapped hard, trying to stabilize himself like he had back at primary school during cycling proficiency, and it all got a bit complicated.

When the world stopped spinning, both broomsticks had detached – Madam Hooch quickly dispelling the effect of the sticking charms when Harry actually left the ground not under control – and Harry had ended up upside down against a grass bank.

It felt like he'd left a dent.

"All right, Mr. Potter?" Madam Hooch asked, as Harry pulled himself out of the impression he'd left in the soft ground. "Still some work to do, I think."

Harry could only nod agreement, but he was still smiling.

Forty-five minutes and three crashes later, Harry was feeling a bit less sanguine about the whole thing. Draco hadn't stopped laughing since about halfway through the class (except when Madam Hooch glared at him) and while hitting the ground at fifty miles an hour didn't actually injure Harry it was still starting to give him a bit of a headache.

At the end of the lesson, though, Madam Hooch pointed something out which interested everyone and which made Harry forget his worries about what would happen if he landed on one of the two nearly-identical brooms – the first Quidditch match of the year was on that weekend, Gryffindor against Slytherin.

"I think we've got a chance if the game goes long enough," Ron speculated, on the way up to Gryffindor tower. "Fred and George say the Chaser team's great, and of course the better that is the more you want a long game… I remember Charlie said that Oliver Wood's good too, he's the Keeper, and of course my brothers cause havoc on the pitch which is what you want from a Beater."

"And the Seeker?" Neville asked, keen to show he was keeping track.

"…not sure," Ron admitted. "I don't think they wanted to talk about it."

Saturday rolled around, and so did the Quidditch game.

The pitch was big enough that the stands had plenty of room for people to sit as they pleased, forming small groups among the large numbers of seats, and Harry's friends took advantage of that to set up in a group.

"It does look kind of empty," Dean said. "If this was a Hammers game the stands would be a lot more full."

"I did read about that, actually," Hermione said. "Because the stadium's made with magic, they can just make as many seats as they want. So they can just put dozens of blocks of twenty-five or fifty seats everywhere."

Harry had been fiddling with the seats a bit, and finally decided it would be most comfortable to lie across two of them. "So this is probably never full?"

"Right," Hermione agreed, looking slowly around at the other stand blocks. "It looks like just about everyone in the school is here."

"Of course they're here!" Ron snorted. "This is the first Quidditch match of the year!"

"I'm not quite sure everyone's here," Hermione replied. "The box the teachers are in… it looks like a couple of them are missing. Isn't there meant to be a Divination teacher?"

"Would she need to come?" Harry asked. "She'd just look in her crystal ball and know who was going to win."

"That sounds awesome," Ron said. "Divination's kind of weird, but it sounds useful-"

Whatever else Ron was about to say was drowned out as Lee Jordan was permitted access to a microphone. The Third-year was very enthusiastic, and – it sounded to Harry – a little bit biased, a he was enthusiastic about Gryffindor and complimented the whole team as they flew out onto the pitch.

Slytherin's team got less in the way of compliments – which was to say, just about none at all – and Madam Hooch walked out to the middle of the pitch before releasing the three flying balls.

"They have to give it at least ten seconds for the Snitch to vanish," Hermione said, into the hush as both teams mounted their brooms, and then the whistle blew.

Quidditch looked a bit like a cross between a rugby game and a dogfight, with both sides sometimes passing back and forth or lining up for pursuit but also having to deal with the frankly dangerous Bludgers. Ten minutes into the game, the score was thirty-twenty to Slytherin – and it would have been a lot higher were it not for some excellent saves by Oliver Wood – and Harry nudged Ron.

"Why haven't Cormac or Terence got the Snitch yet?" he asked.

"What?" Ron blinked. "They haven't seen it, yet, of course! Where is it?"

"Over there," Harry pointed at the little glittering streak of gold.

Ron squinted. "I… can't actually see anything there. You sure it's-"

"It's right there," Harry went on. "Under the level of the stands on the other side."

"That's way too far away to see anything," Ron said, blinking in surprise. "How good are those glasses of yours? Can I try?"

Harry passed them over, and Ron put them on.

"I can't see anything now!" he complained.

"They're Harry's glasses, Ron," Hermione said, as Ron took them off again. "They're meant to correct what's wrong with his eyes."

Harry spotted the Golden Snitch again, watching it fluttering to one side before pausing and diving down instead; there was still no sign either of the Seekers had seen it.

He wasn't really sure why – it was made of gold, after all. Some things were harder to spot than others, but gold was really easy.

"...Harry?" Neville asked, carefully. "Do you actually need glasses?"

"Well, not really," Harry replied, taking them back from Ron. "But I'm used to them now."

He put them on again, then noticed that Hermione was staring at him.

"You know that normally wearing glasses that aren't for you means you can't see properly, right?" she asked. "I don't even know how your eyes can adjust for strong lenses like those."

Harry shrugged.

"Okay, close your eyes," Dean said. "One, two, three, four-"

"Slytherin scores!" Lee Jordan announced. "Eighty-thirty to Slytherin!"

Ron groaned.

"And – look!" Dean told Harry.

Harry scanned the pitch quickly, and pointed. "There."

"Okay, this is just nuts," Dean decided. "Is this some kind of dragon magical power or something?"

"Well, Harry does like gold," Hermione frowned. "Maybe that's it?"

There was a crack overhead as (possibly) Fred hit a Bludger at one of the Slytherin Beaters. The Beater in question deflected it with his own club, sending it at his fellow Beater, and then that player launched the Bludger at the Gryffindor Seeker – who saw it just in time to avoid a full hit, but took a glancing blow which spun him around on his Cleansweep broom.

"Ouch," Neville said, rubbing his shoulder in empathy. "Quidditch looks painful."

"That's part of the fun, though," Ron said, then groaned again as the Slytherin Keeper managed to block a goal shot. "Come on, Lions!"

The Quaffle dropped down and got snagged by Marcus Flint, who bent low over his broom and charged upfield. He rolled out of the way of a Bludger sent his way by (probably) George, then Alicia snatched it from his grip. She threw it up to Katie, who found herself at the epicentre of two incoming Bludgers and two Slytherin chasers, and dove out of the way in time to avoid being the middle of a four-way collision.

Terence flashed past, making Katie brake reflexively, and Marcus took the Quaffle back off her. He got ready to throw it, and Harry sighed – seeing where Terence had actually been going.

"What?" Neville asked, then the whistle blew.

"Slytherin snitch catch!" Madam Hooch called, as the Slytherin Seeker held up his glittering prize. "Game over!"

"That's a two hundred point lead," Hermione said. "Ouch."

Ron looked crestfallen, then shrugged. "Better than some Cannons games."

"Really?" Dean asked. "How?"

"We scored!" Ron replied. "That's better than the first half of last season."

Dean gave him a long look.

"Mate, I'm a Hammers supporter," he said. "And I'm telling you – your team needs to improve."

"It could be our year!" Ron insisted. "All it'll take is for all the other teams to catch Spattergroit."

"That's, what, a hundred witches and wizards?" Hermione replied. "I think at that point it counts as an epidemic."

"Yeah, but the Cannons would have a much better chance at the Cup," Ron said. "Worth it."

"P-p-p-perhaps you have h-heard of w-wards," Professor Quirrel said, chalking the word WARDS on the board and heralding the beginning of another theory lesson. "T-the term has t-two m-meanings, in n-normal use and in t-t-technical use. W-what do you t-think it m-m-means… M-mr F-Finnegan."

"Defensive spells," Seamus told him.

"S-such as?"

Harry wrote down the Professor's words in his notes, doing his best to avoid noting down the stutter. Fortunately for the next several minutes Professor Quirrel just kept asking for examples of what wards did, writing them down on the board – prevent Apparition and Portkeys, keep out ghosts and dangerous spells, stop someone walking over the property line.

People mentioned spells to keep out anyone below a certain age, to curse a thief or just to keep Muggles away.

Professor Quirrell eventually stepped back and looked at the board, half-covered with spells, and then back to the class.

"A f-fine list," he pronounced. "And all w-wrong."

"What?" Seamus asked, sounding highly offended.

"W-ward is a term used by M-M-Muggle writers and f-foolish w-wizards," the Professor went on. "T-there is no s-such category, and I w-will not hear a-anyone m-mentioning it in m-my class in t-this way."

He turned to the board. "C-charm. Hex. J-jinx. C-charm. Curse, C-curse… im-p-possible…."

Harry watched in surprise as the chalk for every last one changed colour, one at a time. Some of them vanished entirely, but the rest took on colours indicating whether they were a Charm, Jinx, Hex, Curse or in one case a Transfiguration.

"The only W-wards are o-obscure r-rune magic used by G-Goblins," Professor Quirrell went on. "And t-that is b-because they can c-call them that if they w-want. B-but none of you w-will ever cast a p-proper W-ward."

As he spoke, Harry noticed something – a faint smell he could sort of detect over the garlic – and raised his hand.

"Professor?" he asked, when Quirrell called on him. "Are you all right? I noticed you're favouring your right side a bit, and I can sort of smell blood."

Professor Quirrell went a funny pink colour. "T-the w-weather was v-very sunny t-this morning," he said. "W-which is s-suprising after how c-cold it w-was last n-night."

"Oh, sorry, Professor," Harry winced. "I suppose you must have slipped."

"A-any im-p-portant questions?" Professor Quirrell asked, as Harry shrank back a bit.

Hermione asked why it was that the word ward had become used in Muggle language, and Quirrell replied with a shrug – saying it wasn't up to him to explain – before moving on to explain the basics of defensive spells more generally. It didn't seem like there was much logic in what the defensive spells actually got labelled, except that anything that didn't interfere with anybody inside it was maybe a Charm?

Harry wasn't sure what was so wrong with using the word ward anyway as a catch-all way of describing protective spells.

But not on exam papers, of course… unless they were about Goblins, at least.

This was one of the better lessons, though. Last week Lavender had asked a fairly innocent question and that had drawn Professor Quirrell off on a thirty-minute complaint about how few wizards understood how dangerous Muggle cars were.

On Friday afternoon, after they finished telling Hagrid about the week, Hermione twirled her wand.

"I was thinking about how you have to go out in the cold, Hagrid," she explained. "I had an idea about it."

"Oh?" Hagrid asked. "Well, um… y' don't really need to do anything for me on that front, Hermione. I've got me coat, and I don't care much about the cold anyway."

"Actually, I'm kind of interested now," Dean admitted. "What's your idea, Hermione?"

Hermione replied by pulling a glass jar out of her robes, unscrewing the top and pointing her wand inside.

"Hyacinthum Flammare," she announced, and a jet of bluish flames shot out of her wand and splashed into the container – half-filling it in moments.

"Whoa, that's cool," Neville said, watching as the fire continued to burn. "So it's fire that doesn't need fuel?"

"It doesn't need fuel, or air," Hermione told him. "And it's actually safe to carry."

She demonstrated, sticking her hand into it and scooping some out before letting it drip back into the jar. "But it'll be sort of… like a hot water bottle, I suppose. It keeps you warm enough, it just doesn't burn anything."

"Now I want to learn that spell," Ron said. "It's right cold now."

He glanced at Harry. "Well, Harry doesn't feel it. But I bet you do – Nev, doesn't it sound great?"

"Well, if it doesn't burn things… I'm just not sure I could get that spell right," Neville admitted. "I have so much trouble with the spells in class..."

"You're keeping up with the theory work," Hermione said, considering. "I think you could do it, it's not actually a very hard spell."

"If everyone else is learning it, I'd like to as well," Harry decided.

"Why do you need a spell to conjure fire?" Ron asked. "You're a dragon. You can conjure fire by breathing out."

"It'd be nice to be able to use fire that didn't burn things," Harry explained. "There are some times when I think a flame would look nice but I don't want to set something on fire, because fire gets out of control. But this fire doesn't set things on fire, or… I think the word fire has stopped meaning anything now."

He sat back, tilting his head. "I wonder what would happen if I ate some?"

"Probably best not to experiment, mate," Ron said, sniggering. "I don't want to imagine you with hiccups, it'd look like you were a firework."

"Oh, that's something I hadn't realized!" Hermione gasped. "Dean, we missed Fireworks Night!"

"Fireworks what?" Hagrid asked, putting down the jar he'd been warming his hands on. "Is that a Muggle thing?"

Dean nodded. "It's where Muggles celebrate how, um… it's something about Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and to celebrate how he didn't we have a big bonfire and put a Guy on it and then send fireworks up."

He glanced at Hermione, suddenly worried. "Guy Fawkes wasn't a wizard or anything, was he? Is that why they don't have it?"

"I don't think so," Hermione replied. "I think if he was a wizard he probably would have actually blown up the Houses of Parliament."

She shook her head. "Anyway – yes, Harry, I'd be glad to teach you along with everyone else. I actually wonder if you could cast it so you could breathe bluebell flames instead of your normal fire breath."

"That would be nice," Harry said, then frowned in sudden thought. "Maybe I can do that with other spells? There's one which makes water, right?"

"A dragon that breathes water?" Hagrid chuckled.

"Let's start with Hyacinthum Flammare for now," Hermione said.

Twenty minutes later, Professors Flitwick, Kettleburn and Sprout all turned up at Hagrid's hut at once.

"Is everything all right?" the diminutive Charms professor asked, as Harry waved at him.

"This?" Hagrid asked, looking around at all the bright blue flames covering his hut. "Nah, this is fine. They're just practicin' a spell."

"Oh! I see, bluebell flames!" Professor Flitwick realized. "Yes, a very beautiful Grade One spell, not one I actually teach directly – but you seem to have an awful lot of it around, Rubeus!"

"That was mostly my fault," Dean said. "I managed to get it started, but I couldn't get it to stop."

"Is there a reason why you haven't dispelled it?" the Herbology teacher asked.

"It's not actually hurting anything, is it?" Harry shrugged. "I know I'm not very good at telling that, but Hermione said it wasn't dangerous."

"It's how it looks," Professor Sprout explained. "When we saw that part of the grounds seemed to be on fire, we were a bit worried!"

"If you'll allow me?" Professor Kettleburn added, producing his own wand – which was held in a quite amazingly scarred hand.

Nobody objected, so he waved it and cancelled out just about all the flames. The only bits left were where Ron and Neville were still trying to master the spell – Ron's flames were a vivid orange and uncomfortably hot, like overheated hot cocoa, while Neville hadn't produced more than a little curl of faint blue which seemed too cold to be going on with.

"Ah, let me see those again?" Professor Flitwick asked.

"Filius, do you mind if I head back to the greenhouse?" Professor Sprout requested, as Professor Flitwick gave every indication of being ready to give a little impromptu Charms extra-credit session. "I've got some honeydew to feed."

"Not at all," Professor Flitwick told her. "Now, let me see your wand movements, Mr. Weasley..."

That Sunday, Harry re-read the important bits of their latest book club assignment – this time a book about the life of a particular sphinx by the name of Phix in Ancient Greece.

It was a little hard to tell whether it was fiction or non-fiction, though it was certainly interesting. Phix had reportedly flown all over the place and had met plenty of the people Harry half remembered from a unit on Ancient Greece back in primary school, from Theseus to Heracles to Perseus (though it seemed like a lot of these people were actually wizards, which was a bit of a surprise to Harry until he thought about it).

"We should probably get going," Hermione said, and Harry checked the clock. It was about fifteen minutes before the book club was going to start, and it was all the way down in the dungeons, so that sounded like a good plan.

"Neville?" he asked.

"I'm – oh, hold on," Neville said, and pulled his Remembrall out of his pocket.

"Good," Hermione told him.

The glass ball glowed red, then went white-red-red-white-red.

"Oops," Neville added, and shoved it back into his pocket before running up the steps to his dorm.

"What do you think he forgot?" Dean asked.

"Probably the book," Harry guessed, and not long afterwards Neville came back down with the book held in both hands. He stumbled as he reached the bottom of the stairs, almost tripping, and Katie caught him.

"Whoops!" she said. "There you go, Neville."

"Thanks," Neville replied, ears going a bit pink, and they climbed out of the portrait hole before making their way down the stairs. Hermione led the way, as she was a lot more sure about the layout of the stairs than Neville (while Harry had to admit that he had a bit of a habit of jumping over the side of the grand staircase rather than actually trying to navigate his way through the castle's passages if he was in any sort of hurry).

They reached the classroom not long before the hour, and when they entered it most of the others were already there. The two other Gryffindors who'd decided to join the club weren't present, possibly busy or just having had a better idea of how to get down in time, and Harry squeezed himself into a space between two empty chairs which Hermione and Neville took a moment later.

"Did you finish it?" Hermione asked.

Neville nodded, and Harry confirmed that he'd been re-reading it instead of doing a last-minute sprint to the finish.

"What did you think of how Oedipus reacted?" she asked. "I thought that was awful!"

"He didn't sound very happy about it," Harry agreed, and then the two Gryffindor fourth-years arrived in a rush.

"Sorry," one said, speaking for her housemate. "Peeves."

"He is a bit annoying, isn't he?" said Robert, the Hufflepuff Sixth-year who was running the club. "I think we're all here? Anyone who isn't here, put your hand up?"

Nobody did, though there were a few chuckles.

"All right," Robert went on. "Let's see… Neville, let's go with you first. What did you think of it?"

"It's a bit violent," Neville admitted. "There's a lot of times when there's battles and stuff, and she gets really angry when people get questions wrong."

He squirmed a bit. "And… the other thing is how much she seems like a normal person apart from that. I liked it when she helped out a boat that was sinking."

"That is a good start," Robert agreed. "Phix is a Sphinx, and they're Beasts rather than Beings, but they're fully intelligent and you can have a good conversation with them. It's important to remember that, though I think some of us find that really easy."

Harry thought that was probably about him.

"What about you, Elora?" the Sixth-year added, indicating one of the girls this time, and Harry settled down for a good discussion.

It was perhaps forty minutes later, and an argument about how big a city Thebes actually was (and how many people would be going in or out of it by road) was in full swing when there was a sort of muffled thump.

"Did anyone else hear that?" Elora asked.

"What's that?" Robert said, then there was another thump and a kind of scraping sound.

"That's outside," Harry reported.

"Maybe it's someone moving a cauldron?" a Ravenclaw third-year suggested, and then there was a crash and the door jolted on its hinges.

Harry squirmed out of his comfortable resting place and stepped forwards, head tilted a little, and Robert slowly drew his wand.

Then the door broke into splinters as a massive club smashed into it, and what could only be a troll shouldered through the door with a grunt of effort.

"Everyone stay back," Robert warned, his wand tip lighting up slightly. "Protego!"

A shimmering magical shield formed around the Sixth-year, and the troll stared at it for a moment before swiping its club. There was a bright flash as the club hit the shield, breaking it, and Robert went sprawling – most of the force of the blow taken by his shield, but still knocking him across the floor.

Harry ran forwards as the troll raised its club, and flared his wings before spitting a jet of flame at it. That resulted in a howl of pain from the troll as Harry's breath burned its skin, and instead of smashing at Robert it backhanded Harry across the room.

The next few seconds were a bit of a blur to Harry, but the first thing he heard after the bookcase had stopped collapsing on him was Hermione shouting the incantation for her bluebell flames spell.

"Stupefy!" someone else called, and Harry flexed his wings to knock the books and shelves aside. There were at least a dozen wands pointed at the troll, firing hexes and jinxes which splashed off its tough skin, and it was flailing about more-or-less at random with the club because there were blue flames all over its eyes so it couldn't see properly. There was a crash-crash-crash as the troll smashed the wall, the floor and a desk, reducing the latter to splinters, and Robert was back on his feet with a shielding spell up again and firing some kind of blasting curse.

With the hand not holding the club the troll scraped away the flames, and Harry dove right back in.

"Keep casting!" he told them, shooting another jet of dragon fire at the troll to distract it away from the other students. "You might find something that works!"

"But we'll hit you!" Elora said.

"He's a dragon!" Hermione said, sensibly. "Flipendo!"

Hermione's spell hit the troll, though it didn't seem to do anything, and the monster slammed the club down to try and splatter Harry. He rolled to the side, knocking over a table, then picked it up with a forepaw and held it up like a shield.

How did you fight a troll, exactly?

Harry had the feeling that the answer most dragons would give to that would be "fly into the air and set it on fire", or possibly just "eat it" if they were big enough. But there wasn't really enough room for either – though Hermione used her bluebell-flames spell again and got it in the troll's eyes, so it couldn't see, which was sort of like using fire. And then Robert managed to hit the troll's club with a jet of red light that knocked it flying into the air.

Then Harry got knocked into the air, as the troll groped around for something to hit before finding the table he was using as a shield and flinging it at the ceiling. It smashed, and Harry flapped his wings before landing painfully – on the Troll's back.

It moaned, trying to grab at him and make him let go, and Harry dug his talons in and held on tight. His wings beat automatically to stabilize him, and spells went everywhere – some of them splashing off his wings, others his back as the troll spun around, and many more of them hitting the troll.

His view of the room was a bit dizzy, since the troll kept trying to get hold of his neck and use it as a handle, but Harry was sure that Neville was missing. That was worrying, but so was the fact he was trying to keep a ten foot troll from attacking anyone – then one of the Slytherins in the club levitated a desk before Banishing it at the troll's head, and Harry jumped off for long enough that the desk hit with a crash before he landed.

"Good!" Robert said. "Everyone who can, try a Stunning spell!"

Harry closed his eyes, and heard the shout of "Stupefy!" followed by the flickers and flashes of several stunning spells hitting him, the troll and the room nearby.

Then a very different voice shouted "Deflagrato!" and an explosion knocked Harry spinning through the air. He quickly opened his eyes, flared his wings as best he could, and managed to sort-of-crash into a table.

He watched as an upside-down Professor Snape lowered his wand, looking at the unconscious troll. There was a large scorch mark on its side, and it had been sent head-first into the wall by most of the force of the blast.

"What in Merlin's name happened here?" he demanded. "Stevens?"

"A troll came in during Book Club," Robert answered, panting.

"I knew that much!" Professor Snape said sharply. "Longbottom could say little else. Why does this class look like a bomb has hit it?"

Still a bit dazed, Harry rolled over onto his front and looked around. Most of the desks had been wrecked and the survivors turned over to try and trip the troll over, there were hex and jinx marks on the wall near the door, and it even looked like it was on fire from all the bluebell flames the troll had flung around. And that was before noticing the collapsed bookcase Harry had hit, or the three or four places where the troll's club had smashed into the stone walls and floor.

And, looking around the door, was Neville.

"Harry kept the troll distracted," Hermione began.

"Granger, I was speaking to Stevens," Professor Snape told her without looking. "Unless your name has changed in the last forty-eight hours please keep quiet."

"She's pretty much right, Professor." Robert said. "When it came in I cast a shielding spell, but the troll knocked me aside. Then Harry got involved, and he kept going in even though he was being hit really badly – he let the rest of us curse at it without being distracted. But I don't know how we would have stopped it if you hadn't shown up, Sir."

Professor Snape frowned, seeming to be thinking hard about something, then waved his wand. "Well? All of you get out of the way so I can fix this, don't be fools."

Hermione insisted on taking Harry to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey looked him over, cast a spell Harry didn't know and then asked why on earth Harry had been brought in for a few mild bruises.

When she heard what Harry had actually been involved in, however, she said he'd have to stay overnight. Harry wasn't at all sure that made any sense, but Madam Pomfrey was the school nurse and so she was the one who was the medical professional.

At least his friends brought him his books, and Harry took the opportunity to read through The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings again, focused specifically on the bits about trolls. He was sure it hadn't taken quite that much work to defeat the trolls in those books, and wanted to know what to do in future.

'Wait for the sunrise' wasn't very helpful, admittedly.

Chapter Text

The next day, the wizarding police came around.

They interviewed Harry, Neville and Hermione (separately), asking plenty of questions about what happened. Harry was pleasantly surprised to find that they only mentioned the fact he was a dragon when it was actually relevant, such as why he'd asked everyone else to keep using spells, and why he'd put himself in so much danger.

That last question had come from a pleasant Auror called Sturgis Podmore, who was quite surprised to discover that just how unwounded Harry had been by the whole ordeal. His total injuries amounted to bruises, which it had taken Madam Pomfrey seconds to magically heal.

Harry later found out that they'd interviewed everyone involved, including Professor Snape, and that Professor Quirrell had been brought in to try and explain just how a troll had made it into the dungeons of Hogwarts. The Defence teacher had rather weakly suggested that perhaps it had become lost, or that it had stumbled upon a secret passage (though Fred and George had thought about it for a while and had said that they couldn't think of a secret passage in the school that could let a troll in like that).

It was the talk of the castle for the next few days, and just about everyone involved (except possibly the troll) was considered to be 'cool', 'awesome' or 'brave', or in Snape's case 'surprisingly helpful'. Harry clinging onto the back of a rampaging troll got particular attention, and even Neville was treated with a kind of awe by the Gryffindors because he'd actually dared to seek help from Snape – successfully.

Almost inevitably quite a few of the next lessons ended up being about trolls as well. Professor Flitwick gave Hermione three points for her creative use of a simple charm, which made her blush, and Professor Quirrell spent the whole of the defence lesson questioning Harry on what he could resist apart from certain spells and being hit with a club.

Inevitably, though – apart from the occasional article Harry saw in the news about whether Hogwarts was safe – the furore slowly died down, and the normal rhythm of the week resumed. Harry did Astronomy and practiced flying on Wednesday, spent most of an hour trying to Transfigure a curtain into a bookcase on Thursday, and made another potion on Friday. Then over the weekend he visited Portree on Skye, instead of Fort William, and ran quite unexpectedly into about half of the Pride of Portree Quidditch team in a gift shop when the young daughter of the team's Keeper pointed him out in the middle of the shop.

It had taken a lot of fast talking (and some quite bare-faced lying) to convince the shop owner that all that was involved was an over-excitable child – and after some thought the Keeper, Meaghan, got him a T-shirt with a dragon on the front of it and told him to wear it whenever he came to Skye (which was apparently surprisingly well populated with wizarding families). The dragon on it was quite nice looking, blue rather than black, but it looked like a friendly dragon to Harry and he was very much in favour of friendly dragons.

The experience did make him wonder where else in the country there were wizarding communities, though.

As November wore on, however, something occurred to Harry – or, rather, several somethings occurred to Harry.

The first thing was that it wasn't all that long until Christmas, when Ron mentioned that he and his brothers were going to be staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas break. That sounded like a good idea to Harry, but it also got him thinking about the second thing.

The second thing was that he was now – well, he wasn't sure if he was rich, exactly, because he didn't know what qualified as rich by wizard standards and the only real standard he had for what was rich by dragon standards was "a mountain full of gold". But he had quite a lot of money, more than he needed for a bed, and he'd mostly spent it on himself so far. And that meant that he was in the unusual position of being able to get his friends Christmas presents.

(He was in the unusual-for-Harry position of having friends, too, but that wasn't quite as new.)

For most of the people he sort-of knew, like Blaise and Penelope and Terry, he didn't really know enough about them to know what they'd like (except that most people liked chocolate) and he also didn't know if he knew them well enough that it was all right to get them a present. The Dursleys had never really let Harry experience Christmas, or at least the present side of Christmas (even Uncle Vernon had realized that having half a dozen of Dudley's friends over while Harry was literally locked in a cupboard was asking for trouble, and Harry and Aunt Petunia had ended up with a sort of understanding that Harry helped with cooking and in return got to join the Christmas table – and even watch television – so long as he kept his head down).

That left Harry wondering who his closest friends were, and after a bit of careful thought he decided that in addition to Hermione, Dean, Neville and Ron, he should probably get something for Hagrid as well. Hermione was easy, and Harry knew straight away what to get Ron – in fact it gave him a rough idea of how much to spend on the others – but the others gave him a bit more of a problem. In fact they gave him a lot more of a problem, and it wasn't until early December that Harry's mental list of Christmas Problems was down to just Hagrid after a particularly productive trip to Fort William.

The only unusual aspect of that particular shopping trip had been that he'd discovered that the Forbidden Forest had a Hippogriff herd. Things hadn't quite escalated to a fight, though it had taken him several minutes to remember that you were supposed to keep eye contact and by then they were all very suspicious indeed.

Then, one Friday night, it snowed.

A lot.

Harry wasn't quite a newcomer to snow, but the most he'd ever actually seen was an inch or so that had blanketed Little Whingeing the previous winter. Uncle Vernon had moaned, Aunt Petunia had complained about the mess it would make of her garden when it started melting, and Dudley had thrown as much of it as possible at Harry.

But the snowfall at Hogwarts was something else entirely. On Friday there had been ominous grey clouds in the sky; on Saturday morning the snow was four feet deep.

Harry loved it.

The first thing he did after spotting how much snow there was was to dive out the window, dropping to a low altitude over where he thought one of the flat lawns was before deliberately crashing down into the soft, pillowy drifts. After that, a bit of experimentation told him that he was small enough to burrow into the snow and hide inside it, which gave him all sorts of ideas.

Since so few students had class on Saturday, practically the whole school came out to get involved in snowball fights or to make things out of snow. Professor Flitwick happily distributed Warming Charms to everyone who wanted them, Professor McGonagall went around making sure that the snowball fights weren't getting entirely out of hand and Professor Quirrell got bombarded by snowballs from Fred and Maybe Fred. (Their homing-in snowballs got six points for excellent charms work from Professor Flitwick and a deduction of eight points plus detention from Professor McGonagall.)

Harry's friends came out too, pushing their way through the thick snow towards where they'd last seen him, and Harry's ears pricked up as he listened to their approach.

Moving stealthily through the thick drifts, Harry dug underneath the top layer and waited.

"Harry?" Ron called. "Where is he?"

"Probably somewhere near the crash mark?" Dean suggested.

"Yeah, but it's all white now," Ron replied. "Except for, you know, the hundreds of fellow decent students having snowball fights… and the Slytherins."

Neville giggled. "That's kind of rude, Ron."

"What?" Ron replied, shrugging. "If Slytherins talk about us and they say there's hundreds of sensible students plus Gryffindors, I don't mind."

He paused. "Much. Okay, maybe it depends who says it?"

"I wish I'd learned a spell to let me find something," Hermione frowned.

"Would it even work on Harry?" Ron asked. "Most spells don't."

"It does depend on the spell," Hermione replied. "Healing spells seem okay, those dragon-related spells that Charlie used mostly worked as well… I don't think anyone's ever researched it."

She inspected her wand, wondering if there was some way she could use it to help. "I could use bluebell flames to melt a way through..."

"That would get rid of some of the snow, though," Dean said. "And that'd be a real shame."

Harry slowly spread one wing out, using all his strength to unfold it through the snow, then brought it up in a sharp movement. His flight muscles catapulted several cubic feet of snow into the air, and his friends yelped in surprise as he buried them.

"Snowball fight?" he suggested.

Dean shook the snow off. "You git. We were worried about you."

"Why?" Harry asked, honestly puzzled.

"We thought dragons were maybe weak to being cold," Neville supplied. "Like plants."

"Plants are also weak to being set on fire," Harry replied. "I'm not."

"I like the sound of a snowball fight," Ron volunteered. "Anyone else?"

Hermione scraped the bluebell flames back into her jar, having used some of her supply to melt the snow that had gone down the back of her neck. "I don't think it's fair if Harry's on one team."

"Well, what about if I'm on one team and all four of you are on the other team?" Harry suggested.

"That's what I mean," Hermione explained.

"It's not that bad, is it?" Neville asked, turning to look at Hermione.

Harry ducked his head back down, and Hermione pointed.

"...oh, okay," Neville realized, noticing that he couldn't see Harry at all.

"Maybe we could get Blaise, Daphne and Tracey involved?" Dean suggested. "That might make it a bit fairer."

Harry was a bit surprised to discover that the reason Dean wanted the three Slytherins involved was so that there could be a team with Harry and some of the others on it, so that at least the humans could be hit with snowballs. But it was good fun and lasted at least an hour, with people like Lisa Turpin and both the Patils joining in on a chaotic snowball brawl.

Then Fred and George noticed, and five minutes after that won the whole thing comprehensively with two dozen of their "snow-bludgers". Four of them even homed in on Harry under the snow, and when he tried to fly out of the way they followed him before splatting across his scales – except for the one he hit with a blast of his dragonbreath, which just turned to water and splashed instead.

Fortunately, Harry could add 'water' to the list of things that people thought might work on dragons but didn't actually work on him.

Harry found it a bit hard to focus on his homework for the last week of term, as there always seemed to be a new way to play around with the snow outside. From hollowing out a hide under a particularly deep drift with his fire-breath (which he was able to experiment with, and which told him that he didn't seem to have a limit on how long he could breathe fire for as long as he kept taking breaths), to skating along the frozen lake with his wings flapping for propulsion, to covering his tail in snow like an Ankylosaur club and flicking it as a giant snowball.

Everybody else was anticipating the end of term and the beginning of the Christmas holidays as well, and Harry had already sent Hedwig out on the first of three long journeys she would be making in December. As a snowy owl she had no trouble at all getting through the blizzards (she'd seemed offended at Harry for suggesting she might), and she hadn't even needed a name to know exactly where to go – headed squarely for 'Neville's House'.

The final few days of school that year went past, with their last lesson before Christmas being a Potions class in which they made an anti-drowning potion. It was difficult and fiddly, with small mistakes changing how long the potion would work for, and Professor Snape examined the results before telling everyone how well they'd done.

Apparently, for some of them, it might actually be worth drinking them before falling over the side of a ship.

Mentally converting this through what he considered his Professor Snape Translator, Harry decided that meant "quite good" and went to lunch – which was in a now-glittering Great Hall, with twelve enormous fir trees all around the walls festooned with candles, glittering bubbles, glowing red-and-green snow and even some glass baubles full of sparks. Holly and mistletoe decorated every surface, and Harry could swear he spotted Penelope and Percy talking under some of the decorations before his attention was drawn to the food.

Even though it wasn't an official feast, the house-elves down in the kitchens had gone to a special effort. Pigs in blankets and stuffing competed for space on the table with cuts of turkey and chicken, there were jugs of gravy and sauce (mint, apple, bread, cranberry and pumpkin), and when Harry sat down a plate of glazed ham with a little sign on it appeared just for him.

"Hey, Harry, can I have some of that?" Ron asked, seeing Harry inspecting it before giving it a taste.

"I don't know..." Harry replied. "What do you think of steel shavings?"

They were pretty nice and crunchy, as far as Harry was concerned, but Ron turned pale before saying that he'd rather just have what was available on the other plates instead.

"I bet this is going to be a pretty amazing Christmas," Dean said, looking around. "It's been months since I've seen my family, so I'm glad to be back with them, but if this is what it looks like here then what's it going to be like on Wednesday?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Harry realized. "You're leaving tomorrow morning, right?"

Dean nodded. "I know Neville's going too, and I think Seamus is. Most of the girls too."

"Gryffindor Tower's going to be pretty empty," Ron mused. "Maybe that means we'll get the good armchairs by the fire."

"You mean you will," Dean chuckled. "Harry could probably sleep in the fire."

"I did that once," Harry told him. "It just meant I had to wash before breakfast."

"We should probably just agree to not be surprised by you," Ron said, shaking his head. "What's next, sleeping out in the snow? Underwater?"

Harry started seriously thinking about it.

"I think I still need to breathe," he said eventually. "But there's this whole bit in All the Weyrs where the dragons go into space. They can hold their breath for a really long time."

Ron and Dean exchanged a look.

"So, Christmas!" Dean said loudly. "What are you looking forward to?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "I'm not sure if anyone's got me anything. I decided to send my Aunt and Uncle some fudge from Fort William, though, and I did get something for each of you."

"Of course you're getting something, Harry!" Ron told him. "Because – well, never mind that."

Harry looked interested, wondering what it would be like to get presents, then went back to his meal.

Halfway through his knife broke, and he shrugged before eating the broken-off piece as well.

After four days in the much lonelier castle – most of which Harry spent in the library, or in Ravenclaw Library, when he wasn't outside with Ron trying to make elaborate snow structures – Christmas Day came around.

There was a pile of presents at the foot of Harry's bed that morning, and Harry was surprised by just how nice it felt to get presents. Ron tore straight into his own, but the first thing Harry did was to carefully open a present which was wrapped in obvious Muggle paper.

The card on top announced that it was from Hermione, and inside was a brand-new book – Witches Abroad, a Pratchett book Harry hadn't realized was out yet. His tail flicked form side to side happily as he put it carefully aside, intending to read it later, and then Ron made a sound of surprise.

"Harry?" he asked. "What's this?"

Harry looked over, seeing that Ron had found his present – a small piece of folded paper on which he'd written the words 'I.O.U. One Wand'.

"I asked Professor McGonagall about it," Harry explained. "I know your wand's kind of old, and it's been used a lot, so I got permission for us to go and visit Diagon Alley today or tomorrow to get you a new one."

Ron blushed bright red so he nearly matched his hair. "Harry, this is too much – but – I don't-"

"Ron, you're my friend," Harry interrupted. "And I know your family aren't very well off. But I've never had the chance to get anyone Christmas presents before, and this is the thing I thought would help you out the most."

Ron seemed lost for words for a long moment, and while he was Harry opened the next present on the pile. This one actually turned out to be from Ron's mother, who'd somehow managed to knit a green sweater with wing holes – and which a bit of squirming revealed actually did fit Harry.

"Wonder how she managed that," Ron said eventually, as Harry tested out the wing holes. "...oh, yeah, right, she probably got to see all of Charlie's notes."

"It's really nice," Harry told him.

Part of him thought it was a bit of a pity that he couldn't be there when their other friends opened their presents, because Ron's reaction had been nice to watch as well. Neville would be opening a spider plant, Dean was the recipient of a big box of art supplies, and Hermione (in a move which Professor Dumbledore would have disapproved of but Hermione was almost certain to like) had got the abridged but still long version of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Harry thought of it sort of like The Silmarillion but about real events. And with fewer dragons, so clearly inferior, but Hermione had already mentioned giving the Silmarillion a go so getting her that as a present probably wouldn't be polite.

Neville had got him sweets, which was nice (especially the big collection of Chocolate Frogs, which Harry was sure he'd have fun with) and it turned out that Dean had been doing a painting of Harry for the last week and had finished it just before heading home. It showed him in the library, wand out to light the book he was reading, and perched atop a hoard of all sorts of things from envelopes to books to a Golden Snitch.

Underneath that was when Harry found the present from his Aunt and Uncle, and his snort of laughter made Ron look over in surprise.

"It's my aunt and uncle," Harry explained. "I got fifty p."

Showing Ron the coin, he converted the price in his head. "So that's about… a tenth of a galleon, which is a bit less than two sickles? I'm kind of wondering how they got it here at all though."

Under that was a wooden flute from Hagrid, which he seemed to have made himself and which sounded a bit like an owl, and as he was reaching for the last package there was a crash as The Two Georges came in.

"Blimey," one George said. "I didn't think Mum would go for it."

"I didn't think Mum could go for it," the other George agreed. "Are you two done opening your presents yet? We've already got Percy."

"Almost," Harry said, holding up the last package. "And Ron and I need to go and see Professor McGonagall before lunch – we won't be long."

"What's that about, Ronniekins?" George asked, and Ron mumbled something.

Then all four Weasleys stared as a fluid grey cloak slithered out of the package to the floor.

"Is that an invisibility cloak?" Other George said, as Harry picked up the note that had come with it in one hand and the cloak in the other.

"It says it used to belong to my dad," Harry supplied. "Whoever sent it doesn't know if I can use it properly, but he says I should give it a try."

When he pulled it on, draping the main part of the cloak over his body and pulling his tail in, only his head was visible – and, though it was a bit uncomfortable, he managed to get his head under the hood as well.

"That's not possible, though, is it?" Percy asked. "It's got to be at least a decade old even if your father got it new. Invisibility cloaks don't last that long without fading, and this one is absolutely transparent."

He frowned, clearly thinking about it, and Harry shrugged the cloak off again. "Maybe it's magic?"

"...that shouldn't be an explanation," Ron grumbled. "But somehow, I know it's the best one we're going to get."

Harry put the cloak away, thinking about how it was the only thing he owned which he knew had belonged to his dad, then followed his friends downstairs to the common room.

"Good," Professor McGonagall said, when Harry and Ron turned up at her door at a quarter to eleven. "I see you have managed to avoid being caught up in Christmas Day celebrations for the whole morning."

"It was pretty close," Harry told her. "But I said Ron didn't have his present yet, and the twins told us to get going."

"It would be nice if they were normally so reasonable," the Professor said, with a thin smile. "We will be travelling to Diagon Alley by Floo. Have you used the Floo before, Mr. Potter?"

Harry shook his head. "It's happened in some of the books I read, but they never bother to explain it."

Professor McGonagall explained it.

Apparently you threw some magical powder into a fire, and it made the fire turn green, and then you said where you wanted to go and jumped into the fire. But the fires had to both be connected to the Floo network, so Harry sort of wondered why you needed the connection and the powder.

Shrugging it off, he watched as Ron used it with confidence – throwing a handful of the powder, saying "Diagon Alley!" and walking into the green flames.

Harry did the same, though a bit of the powder trickled out between his talons. Then he went whizzing off through the Floo network, which turned out to involve spinning around and around while snatches of other fireplaces went past and flames like a warm breeze surrounded him.

Then he came out the other side, landing facefirst on the stone in the Leaky Cauldron, and someone yelped in surprise.

"You all right, Harry?" Ron asked. "Sorry, I forgot to mention, landing is kind of difficult..."

"I'm okay," Harry replied, checking his glasses weren't broken, and Professor McGonagall came through a moment later.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "I'm fine, Professor."

"I wasn't talking to you, Mr. Potter," the Transfiguration professor said, and everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was suddenly very interested in their drinks.

After thinking it over for a bit as they went to Ollivanders' and got Ron his wand, Harry decided that Floo was sort of like if you had to use a waterslide to get somewhere, except that there was fire instead of water and you didn't land in a swimming pool.

He wasn't certain about that, because he'd never actually been on a waterslide, but it seemed like a good comparison.

Mr. Ollivander had taken one look at Ron's old wand and described it as "a fine wand but far too tired, might be serviceable if it was a good match but not a good match at all" and begun measuring, and because it was a new experience for Ron that meant Harry could sit down on his haunches and enjoy it. It didn't take nearly as long as it had for Harry, which was fortunate, and after about six minutes and twenty wands the elderly wandmaker found a match.

It was longer than Ron's old wand, and willow instead of ash, but it had the same type of core. Harry felt almost certain that that meant… something… and Ron was almost in tears when he tried a spell he'd had trouble with for weeks and it worked just fine the very first time.

Then Professor McGonagall smiled, and told him that she'd be expecting great things from him in class now, and Harry did his best not to chuckle as Ron took on a distinctly hunted look.

The journey back confirmed Harry's belief that so far there was no form of quick magical transportation he thought was nearly as good as just flying everywhere. Apparition might be an exception, and he was looking forward to finding out, but that wasn't going to be for about five years.

(Maybe if he could connect his own flame to the Floo? That might not be possible but it would at least let him send other people somewhere.)

Then it was time for the Christmas dinner. There weren't nearly as many people as there had been at the previous feasts, but the meal was even more amazing – and there were crackers everywhere.

"Ever pulled a cracker before, Harry?" Fred asked, holding one out to his twin (who was wearing the jumper with the F on it, so Harry assumed he was George).

"I've seen my aunt and uncle pull them," he said. "There's a bit of a pop, and a paper hat."

"What, really?" Ron asked. "That's all?"

"Try this!" George said, pulling, and the cracker went off with a boom that knocked both twins flat. Half-a-dozen canaries flew out, orbiting briefly over the heads of the two cracker-pullers before flying up towards the ceiling, and a high-topped shako fell to the floor between them.

Harry tried one next, with Ron, and got a giant Chinese straw hat and a tiny grey statue of a griffin. A slip of parchment fell out as well, and Ron read it before giving the griffin a careful tap with his new wand.

Colour washed over the griffin, outlining it in red and gold, and it took off to hover just over his head. Then Ron pulled another cracker with Percy, engulfing them both in blue smoke, and won a fez which he put on and which the griffin landed on top of.

Fred and George had managed to get hold of two matching sombreros, one of them swapped for the shako, and Harry did his best to make sure the hat in question would stay put on his head before getting started on the food.

There were occasional pauses during the meal in which more crackers got pulled, the blasts echoing through the hall in clumps, and Harry managed to get hold of a thing that looked a lot like a gyroscope, several coloured marbles which orbited in the air like planets, a packet of luminous balloons and something called a 'dungbomb' which he wasn't sure he liked the sound of very much.

He was also patiently talked out of seeing what a wizarding cracker tasted like by Percy, despite the best efforts of the Twins.

The rest of the day involved another snowball fight (with the slight difference that, this time, the Twins' snow-bludgers were countered by Percy calmly Banishing so much snow at them that it knocked them both flat on the ground) and then long hours just relaxing together in the common room. Harry read Witches Abroad lying on his back by the fire, Ron routed all his brothers one by one at Wizarding Chess, Ron's griffin-statue chirped at Scabbers and the odd gyroscope-thing kept buzzing and whistling intermittently.

As he finally went to sleep that night, Harry could really see why people liked Christmas so much.

The next day, Harry explored the castle.

Mr. Filch, the caretaker, seemed to be quite suspicious about Harry going up and down stairs and looking in doors, but Harry had asked Percy the rules about it and the Prefect had told him that all the doors he wasn't supposed to go into were either password-locked or just plain locked. And Harry hadn't really had the time to do a really good explore of the castle yet, so he decided that was going to be how he spent the whole of Boxing Day.

His first conclusion was that there really was a quite amazing number of classrooms in Hogwarts, most of them not being used. One of them had something that rattled in a wardrobe, which he decided not to open, and another was full of piles and piles of old school papers stacked to the ceiling and forming corridors through most of the room. It seemed like there was always a surprise to be found, though usually the surprise was "really surprisingly thick dust".

By the middle of the afternoon, as the Scottish sun was setting and a couple of hours before dinner, Harry had done all the towers and most of the upper floors. He'd met a very surprised woman who told him he was a bad omen (which just seemed rude to Harry), along with plenty of portraits, and Lord Ridley had only ineffectually stabbed him twice before the Grey Lady had silently pulled him away.

He'd also found a secret passage, though unfortunately it was collapsed so it didn't really go anywhere.

As he opened the door to one particular classroom, however – another of the ones which smelled like they hadn't been used in years – he noticed that this one had a mirror in it, as well as the usual desks and chairs.

A big ceiling-high mirror with a gold frame wasn't exactly normal, even by what Harry had seen of Hogwarts, so he stepped forwards to have a look. Ron had told him about mirrors where you looked in them and they told you what you could do to look better, but this was so much bigger… maybe it did something else?

If it was a mirror where you could step through it and end up somewhere else, that would be nice. Maybe it would be a better way of getting around quickly than the Floo… but then Harry would need to know how to use it, and there was something written above the mirror but 'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi' wasn't any language Harry knew.

Maybe it was Gobbledegook.

Or maybe it was a mirror like the one that Lily Weatherwax used in Witches Abroad? Harry looked behind him, just in case there was a second one to form a tunnel of mirrors, but there was just the one.

Then he actually looked into the mirror itself, and had to stare.

Instead of a reflection of Harry looking the same as he actually did, like a Muggle mirror would give – or even a reflection of Harry waving – what he saw was himself curled up on top of a pile of books and gold and other things.

Then another dragon appeared, one with bright emerald-green scales, and shook the reflection-Harry awake. There was no sound, so Harry couldn't hear what he or the other dragon said, but the reflection-Harry's tail flicked eagerly from side to side.

A man came into the reflection as well, one with black hair and obvious Wizard's robes, then changed in a blur into a big black dragon about the same size as the green one. They both hugged reflection-Harry, and the male dragon told him something as well, then all three of them jumped into the air and vanished as the mirror went black.

Harry swallowed, a lump in his throat, and looked again at the inscription. It looked a lot like the kind of puzzle he'd read about, but he couldn't quite work it out.

When Harry looked at the glass, this time, he and the other two dragons were flying high over an unfamiliar landscape. The mirror-Harry was playing around the other two, sliding back and forth through their wakes, and after a long minute of watching Harry noticed that far down below looked an awful lot like Minas Tirith from The Lord Of The Rings.

Another jump, another long ten seconds of the blackness between, and he appeared next to the two older dragons again. This time they were flying over a volcanic crater, with hundreds of other dragons visible lounging on ledges in the sun, and Harry was sure it had to be Benden Weyr.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, rubbing at them with his paw, and decided it was probably a bad idea to watch alone.

Maybe if he got Ron to have a look? Or Neville, Dean and Hermione, when they got back? It was worth a try… and he thought it looked like a pretty good show, too. Almost like a film, though without any sound.

Ron was busy in a Chess match with a second-year Ravenclaw called Cho, so Harry decided not to interrupt him, and then it was dinner – then, after that, Ron mentioned how Harry had chased after Chocolate Frogs on the train. The other Weasleys (and most of Gryffindor) were interested in watching, so they pushed the armchairs to the side to make a clear space and spent the next hour or so cheering Harry on.

When Harry actually told Ron what he'd found, it was too late to actually go and see it without being out after Curfew. Ron was interested in trying anyway, wanting to try out the Invisibility Cloak, but Harry pointed out quite sensibly that they could just go tomorrow.

When Ron came to see it, it turned out that he saw something totally different in the mirror even if Harry was the one standing in front of it and Ron was off to the side. Instead of seeing Harry and the other two dragons (or a witch and a wizard), Ron saw himself – older, smiling, wearing a bulky Muggle spacesuit and being clapped heartily on the shoulder by his oldest brother Bill.

Confused, Harry looked back at the mirror – which this time showed the black dragon giving him the silvery-grey invisibility cloak – then up at the inscription. He'd been thinking about it overnight, but still couldn't-

-then, all at once, it hit him.

'ishow no tyo urfac ebu tyo urhe arts desirE'

I show not your face but your hearts desire.

He quickly passed that on to Ron, who blushed hard.

"That sounds, um… kind of creepy, actually," Harry's friend added. "It's like… how does it know? Is it getting into our minds?"

"I don't know," Harry replied. "For me, when the dragons are humans I don't recognize them… I think they're my mum and dad, which is something I'd really like, but how would I know? I haven't been human in years, and if that is mum she doesn't look much like Aunt Petunia."

"Maybe if you could see a photo of them you'd know?" Ron suggested. "But yeah, I think this thing is kind of dangerous. Dad says you have to be careful of anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."

"Really?" Harry asked, distracted. "What about the Sorting Hat? Or the Fat Lady, or any of the portraits?"

Ron blinked. "I guess the Sorting Hat keeps its brain in the hat?"

"But that means it doesn't make any sense," Harry replied. "Then you could just say that the mirror keeps its brain in the mirror."

Ron raised a finger, about to reply, then lowered it again. "Ummm..."

"And You-Know-Who was really evil, and you could see where he kept his brain," Harry went on. "And what about that little griffin statue of yours?"

"Okay, maybe it's a bit of a silly rule," Ron admitted. "I think you're just meant to think twice, and here that's what we're doing."

"You're right," Harry agreed. "I'm glad I've seen it, but I won't come down here and stare at it or anything…"

Chapter Text

Hermione, Neville and Dean arrived back by train with the rest of the students on the third of January, a few days before the spring term began. The castle was just as deep in snow as before, and Hedwig was quite smug about how easy the snowstorms were for her relative to the other owls.

Most of that evening was taken up talking about presents – Neville's spider plant went on his bedside table, while Hermione had already reached the sixth century. Harry proudly demonstrated his Weasley Jumper, Ron recharged the griffin he'd got in the cracker and had it do a few tricks, and Dean somewhat reluctantly showed that his mum had got him a dustpan and brush.

"She said it was because first years weren't allowed broomsticks," he said.

"Is this what Muggles use instead?" Neville asked. "Do you put your feet on this bit and… or not?"

"No, it's a joke about cleaning," Dean explained. "I got some books as well, this series called Redwall."

"I've read one of those," Harry told him. "It was pretty good. Scabbers might not like them, though, rats are the bad guys."

He frowned, sitting back a bit. "But I know orcs are the bad guys in The Lord Of The Rings, maybe some real orcs aren't?"

"What's an orc?" Ron asked. "I don't think there's such a thing as an orc."

Harry shrugged, a big expansive gesture with his wings. "We don't have a textbook called Fantastic Beings."

"That's because it's a lot harder to describe Beings," Hermione said, looking up from Belisarius' North Africa campaign. "A lot of Beasts are the same as one another, but Beings are really varied and not really a good subject for a first-year textbook. I think they turn up in History of Magic and in Muggle Studies."

"Why would they be in Muggle Studies?" Neville asked.

"Because Muggles know about a lot of them," Hermione answered. "Or they have myths at least. Like… giants, they know about giants, and goblins as well. And in Japan there's several stories about kitsune. But I don't think Muggles know about veela."

The conversation went on from there, and Hermione put a bookmark in her book to properly join in the discussion. They talked about whether Harry counted as a Being or a Beast, and whether Wolfsbane would mean that a Werewolf counted as a Being while transformed if it had taken the potion, and how it wasn't really fair that a lot of Beings weren't allowed wands.

An odd mention in one of the books they got out to check on their facts also left Harry wishing he could head over to Ravenclaw Library, but it was after curfew so he'd have to wait – and that reminded him of the other thing he wanted to tell his friends about, the Erised mirror.

It mostly wasn't that he wanted to go and see it again. It was more that… well, after Ron had looked into it, he'd been a bit thoughtful about what he'd seen.

Even if just staring into the mirror was a bad idea, and even if his desire wasn't something he could ever actually have… Ron's desire (which they'd talked about and decided was to go somewhere no wizard had ever been) was something he could actually manage, if he put in a lot of work on it.

Would the same thing happen with his other friends? It might, and that was what Harry thought was worth knowing.

Besides, it was really neat.

The next day was a Saturday, and Harry led his friends (all four of them, with Ron coming along for what he called 'moral support') through the castle to the disused classroom.

"Are you sure this is allowed?" Neville asked.

"Percy said that anywhere we're not supposed to be is either password locked or just plain locked," Harry replied. "And… here."

He pushed the door open, then frowned.

Ron pushed past, and saw what Harry had already noticed – the mirror was missing.

"That's kind of a shame," Hermione said. "I was actually interested in trying to work out how this magical mirror works."

Harry frowned, and sniffed the air a bit.

"I think someone moved it," he supplied. "Maybe yesterday? We could see if we can find it."

"But if someone's moved it, could it be because we're not supposed to look at it?" Dean asked. "Only makes sense to me, if there was something kids weren't supposed to look at."

"That's easy," Harry replied. "Like I said, anywhere we're not allowed to go is going to be locked, so if we run into a locked door then we're not allowed through. Simple."

Hermione nodded, agreeing that that made sense, and they followed Harry back out of the classroom as he did his best to track down the way the Erised mirror had gone.

They went along a corridor, then down a flight of steps, and after that through a secret passage that started behind a tapestry, sloped down, and came out again through a sliding wall.

"I told my mum about how many secret passages there are here," Dean said. "She didn't believe me."

"It's kind of common in old magical buildings," Neville told them. "My bedroom's on the third floor, but there's a way to get to it where you go to the first floor landing and then down a flight of steps."

A couple of fifth-years went past, telling one another something like 'it's still there' and giggling, and after another corner they came to a door.

Harry sniffed a bit, and nodded. "It definitely went in there," he judged, and pulled the door open.

The first thing he saw was three giant canine heads, bobbing up and down as they looked at him. One of them growled, the third one roared, and then the one in the middle shook itself and bumped both of the other heads.

"Oh, goodness me!" the middle head said, as Harry saw that all three heads were attached to the same giant dog. "You must be that young dragon that Rubeus talks about."

"So it is!" the left head realized. "Delighted to meet you, dear boy."

The three-headed dog offered a paw to shake, and Harry did so.

"What's going on in there?" Hermione asked, and Harry used a wing to push the door open.

"Oh, are these your friends?" the middle head asked. "Come in, come in, it's lovely to meet you all. You must be that Hermione Granger girl, Rubeus is very impressed with you – oh, and that's Ronald Weasley, isn't it?"

All four of Harry's friends came in, and Dean shut the door behind them as the big dog continued talking.

"So, tell me, how has your term gone?" the left head asked. "I'm afraid we haven't had a chance for a magical education ourselves."

"...you're a three headed dog," Ron said, staring.

"Well spotted," the right head grumbled.

"Oh, calm down," the middle head told him. "But he does have a point. I'd have thought that friends of a dragon would be quite happy with talking to a three-headed dog."

"It's not that we don't like the idea of talking to you," Hermione tried to explain. "It's just… we didn't know three-headed dogs existed. Or do you prefer Cerberus?"

"Either is fine, my dear girl," the left head assured her. "Either is fine. And I'm afraid we're rather rare – you won't find us in any textbook! Rubeus was delighted to meet me, I have to say."

"Why aren't you in the textbook?" Neville asked, beating Hermione to the same question.

"Why, I'm a Being, of course!" the dog explained. "Sadly I only get one vote between the three of us, but we usually agree on what to do with it."

"That's what we were just talking about yesterday," Dean realized, slapping his forehead. "Now I feel like an idiot..."

"Oh, but where are my manners," the left head said. "You can call me Fluffy."

"...really?" Ron asked, still sounding like the whole situation had rendered him completely discombobulated. "Fluffy?"

"That is my name," the middle head agreed, somewhat miffed. "Is something wrong with it?"

"It's a bit of a surprise," Harry told him. "I'm surprised you don't have three names."

"Well, Rubeus is the one who gave it to me, and I do quite like it," the left head said. "Really, though, that is a good point. Perhaps I should think of Fluffy as my surname…"

After half an hour or so of conversation about magical education and what Muggles thought of three-headed dogs, Harry asked about the trapdoor.

"Oh, well, do you know I'm actually supposed to be guarding it!" Fluffy's left head answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, we're looking for a mirror," Harry told him. "It's somewhere around here, the scent goes through that trapdoor."

"Well, now," the middle head mused. "A mirror? I remember something like that..."

"Not supposed to go down there," the right head grumbled.

"Full sentences, please," chided the middle head. "Those erudition lessons were for all of us."

"Is it locked?" Harry asked. "We got told that the only doors we weren't allowed past were either locked or password-locked."

"I see, I see," the left head rumbled, sniffing, as the whole of Fluffy stepped back to expose the door. "Well, I don't believe it's locked, now that I come to think of it…"

Harry pulled, lifting the ring of the trapdoor, and it opened with a light squeak from the hinges.

"There's no stairs," Ron pointed out.

Harry shifted his wings, half-opening them. "I'll go down and have a look. Maybe there's an enchanted trampoline or something, and if there's not I'll be fine."

"Or you could just use a light," Hermione pointed out. "Lumos."

Her wandlight revealed a mass of plants, and they exchanged glances.

"I'll go down and check," Harry decided, and slipped down into the hole. Deliberately not using his wings to brake his fall all the way, he dropped down hard and landed on the springy plant matter.

"It's fine!" he called up, then felt the plant still moving after the bounce from his landing should have stopped. A tendril curled up towards his neck, and he bit it off – it tasted sort of like celery. "But – um – hold on, this stuff's moving!"

Neville gasped. "Wait, that's Devil's – look out, Harry! It likes cold and damp conditions!"

"Hyacinthum flammare!" Dean called, sticking his wand through the trapdoor.

When Dean's massive dose of bluebell flames was over, the plant (which Neville clarified was called Devil's Snare) was trying to hide in the corners of the room. Harry himself was half-covered with bluish fire, but it helped him see so that was all right.

The next room contained flying keys, which was very strange indeed, but it also contained brooms, and Harry brought two of them back for the others to join him down at the bottom of the trapdoor in relays – with Fluffy asking them to please be careful, as he wasn't sure what kind of dangers there were down there if there was a Devil's Snare infestation in that room.

"Doesn't this door qualify as locked?" Hermione asked, trying the handle to the next one along.

"The key's up there, though, isn't it?" Harry shrugged, scraping off the sticky magical fire now he didn't need it. "There's loads of them, it's got to be one of the keys… any ideas?"

Ron looked at the lock, describing it, and Harry looked back and forth – then pointed. "There!"

With that sorted out (albeit with a bit of trouble getting the target key surrounded) they next found a massive chess board.

Dean pointed at the chess board. "Are you sure we're meant to be down here?"

"Why would a giant chess set mean we weren't supposed to be down here?" Ron shrugged. "It's like a puzzle. Haven't you seen that door to the kitchens where you have to tickle the right bit of fruit in a painting?"

He frowned. "Okay, so if this is Wizarding Chess, then… can we begin?"

The white pieces on the other side of the room stood there impassively.

"Oh, okay then, we don't need to," Harry decided. "Unless I need to be the one playing on the other side?"

Dean shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

Harry walked forwards, but when he got past the middle the pawns all drew their swords. The stone blades raised in unison, pointing at Harry, and Ron snapped his fingers.

"A-ha! So you can move!"

The white king and queen shifted slightly. They had no faces, but it seemed like they were looking at Ron.

"Don't you know the rules?" he asked. "White goes first!"

The white queen put her hands on her hips, then gestured at Harry, and the dragon loped sideways to get off the board. Once that was done, one of the white pawns moved two spaces, and Ron pointed. "King's knight to H3..."

Harry knew that Ron really liked chess, but by the time they were half an hour into the game – with Ron trying to get a bishop into position to checkmate the white king – he was sort of wishing he'd brought a book.

"Wonder what we'll be doing on Monday," Neville was saying. "I'm not sure I'll be very good, I haven't had a chance to practice over the holidays."

"Why not?" Hermione asked. "It seems very short-sighted if they don't allow you to practice. My family had relatives over the whole time, but if they didn't I'd have shown my parents magic just so they could see what I can do as well as to keep in practice."

Neville frowned. "But... I thought we weren't allowed to do magic over the holidays, especially not in Muggle areas."

"Well, I tried out some simple spells after I got my wand, before coming to Hogwarts," Hermione replied. "Everything worked for me, but maybe you just have to be careful not to get noticed?"

"There's no way Gran won't notice," Neville gloomed.

Harry frowned. "I think I remember reading in one of the Wizard novels I got about something called the Trace. They can detect under-age magic, I think? Maybe they didn't stop you before you came to Hogwarts because they thought it was still accidental."

"Well… that hardly seems fair," Hermione huffed.

"I bet they have some kind of special exemption for the rich kids," Dean suggested. "So maybe-"

"Checkmate!" Ron called, interrupting them. "Good game, thanks for playing!"

The white king somehow managed to look contemptuous as he threw his crown to Ron's feet.

"That was fun," Ron added. "Is that Erised mirror thing through that door on the far side?"

Harry checked quickly, locating the scent, then nodded.

"Okay," Ron went on, and opened the door.

He shut the door.

"Guys," he whispered. "There's a really big troll in there."

"Another troll got into the castle?" Neville asked. "Right here where a student could run into it?"

"I think Hogwarts has a troll problem," Dean muttered. "What do we do?"

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her robes. "Right!"

"Uh oh," Ron winced. "I know that look. That's how she looked when Professor Flitwick assigned us a spell she already knew how to do."

"I've spent a lot of the last two months reading about how to stop trolls," Hermione told them. "I have about six different plans for it, but two of them need Harry's help. Harry?"

"Of course I'll help," Harry agreed. "We want to make sure the troll can't hurt anyone."

Five minutes later, Harry was flexing his wing as they walked down the corridor.

"Is that all right?" Hermione asked.

"I said I was sorry," Ron mumbled, and Harry tapped his friend with the other wing.

"Don't be sorry," he told Ron. "That was brilliant."

"Yeah, I never would have thought of dropping the troll's club on its head," Dean nodded. "It's a pity the troll fell on Harry, though."

Harry shrugged. "It just stings a bit, that's all. But I was really impressed with that massive light spell, too… it's a pity these trolls don't turn to stone like the ones in The Hobbit. Maybe it's an Olog-Hai."

"A what?" Ron asked.

"It's like a troll that can walk around in daytime, made by the Dark Lord," Neville said, then went pink. "I mean, um, a different Dark Lord to that one."

"You've been reading the Lord of the Rings?" Hermione asked Neville.

Dean snorted. "I was there when Harry told him about the Ents. He was sold on it."

The conversation was interrupted by a sudden whump of flames lighting up, sealing off the way they'd come and the way ahead. One of the curtains of flame was an odd, sooty black, while the other was purple, and all five Gryffindors looked around in surprise.

"What now?" Ron asked.

"Oh, look!" Hermione said, sounding eager. "This is a logic puzzle!"

"First a troll and now a maths problem," Dean sniggered. "This is Hermione's lucky day."

"Logic and maths are different, though," Hermione muttered, mostly focused on the instructions and on the potions bottles on the wall. "Okay, so, um… wait, there's apparently poison in some of these?"

"That doesn't sound very safe," Harry mused. "Well, unless it doesn't really mean poison."

"Mate, to you nothing is poison," Ron shrugged.

"Okay, so… give me a minute," Hermione asked.

As Harry was examining the fire, wondering if anybody had something they could throw into it to see what happened, Hermione pointed. "Okay, so neither the biggest or the smallest bottles are poison, but the bottles second from the ends are both the same. So that means those two are the wine."

She moved them forwards a bit, then moved the two to their left back a bit. "And those two are poison… so there's one poison left and both the actual potions. One of the poisons is on the far left side, which means that the one opposite it – that one – is the potion to move back, because they're different and neither of them lets you move forwards."

Satisfied with her answer, she picked up the smallest bottle. "And this one is the potion to move onwards. There's not much of it, though."

Harry considered, then picked up the largest bottle and pulled the cork out with a squeaky pop!

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"I'm testing if this is the wine," he answered. "It's the biggest one, so it's safe, right?"

"This should be interesting," Dean muttered, as Harry took a sip.

"I think that's wine, yeah," he agreed. "It tastes like wine smells."

On seeing Dean looking puzzled, he shrugged. "I don't know if I can get drunk, and I'm going to need to fly out of here – I'll find out some other time."

"So how do we all get over the flames?" Neville asked. "There's only one bottle and that's not going to be big enough for all of us."

"Or for us to get back," Hermione agreed.

They thought about it, then Dean pointed. "I know. Harry, you can have half of the bottle, and then you can lie down on top of the flames – that way you can block them and we can go over the top."

"I don't think this is the intended solution," Hermione frowned, passing the small potion bottle to Harry.

Harry was wondering if maybe the intended solution was a Bezoar, but he didn't have one with him. So he drank some of the bottle, which tasted sort of like ice, and lay down on the black flames.

The others crossed over, which was a bit awkward, then Harry followed behind them.

"Well, here it is," he said proudly. "Told you we could find it!"

Hermione took a look first, and blinked. "That's… that would be quite nice..."

"What is it?" Ron asked.

"I'm writing a textbook," Hermione told him. "No, my name is on the textbook… I think I'm teaching here. And… the class seems to have a three-headed dog in it, and at least two dragons."

"That sounds pretty cool," Dean chuckled. "Can I see?"

"That's not how the mirror works," Ron supplied, as Dean looked in it. "We tried."

Dean frowned. "I… okay, I didn't know that about myself."

At Harry's quizzical look, he flushed slightly. "It doesn't matter."

When Neville looked, on the other hand, he gasped.

"Is that a sword?"

"We can't see, Nev," Ron reminded him. "What's the sword doing?"

"I'm holding it in one hand and my wand in the other, and I'm fighting some evil wizards," Neville explained. "And – I think I'm keeping my Gran safe?"

They considered that.

"I think that's the most actiony thing any of us have had," Ron summarized. "Ever thought about using a sword?"

"No," Neville replied. "But now I am… I wonder if I could have one like that sword Aragorn uses."

After Harry had had most of the rest of the bottle, and they'd gone through the black flames again, and then all five of them had had some of the other potion and gone through the purple flames, past the troll, past the chess board (ignoring the rude gestures from the white chess pieces) and cleaned up the bluebell flames in the plant room, each of Harry's friends flew up with one of the brooms from the key room and then Harry took them and put them back before flying up and out of the hole himself.

"How did it go?" Fluffy's middle head asked. "Did you get on all right?"

"We got to see the mirror, so yeah," Harry agreed. "There's a lot of weird stuff down there though. You know there's actually a troll?"

"Oh, dear..." the left head sighed. "I did hear about your troubles with that troll that got into the castle last year, Hagrid was very distressed."

Fluffy carefully lowered the trap door back into place. "There we go. And do pop by again some time. It seems like half the students have at some point, though normally I simply roar at them and off they go."

"We'll have to visit some time," Harry agreed, pleased to have met another not-a-human who was such good conversation. "Can you read? I might ask Percy to enlarge a book for you."

"Hmm… we'd better not," said the left head, thinking about it. "It might undermine the menace slightly. But thank you so much for the offer."

Harry waved, pleased with how the afternoon had gone.

Then the door opened, and Professor Dumbledore came in.

When he saw the five young Gryffindors, he blinked. Then he asked Harry to move back a little to make room, and came in before shutting the door behind him.

"Good day to you all," he said politely, drawing up a chair – using his wand to make it out of thin air. "I must admit to being quite surprised to see you all – Miss Granger, Misters Weasley, Potter, Thomas, Longbottom."

"Good afternoon, Headmaster," Fluffy added.

"Is something wrong, Professor?" Harry asked, suddenly worried.

"Perhaps, perhaps, Mr. Potter," Professor Dumbledore said calmly. "Mr. Fluffy. Has anyone gone down the trapdoor?"

"Just these five," the right head said. "Said they were able to go through any doors that weren't locked."

"Well… we did sort of go through a locked door," Harry admitted. "But the key was right there, so it seemed more like a puzzle than anything."

"Dear me," Professor Dumbledore said, adjusting his glasses, and looked at the door. "I would have thought that my warning that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side was out of bounds was adequate warning. And it was locked, I must add."

"It wasn't," Ron protested. "The door opened really-"

"We're on the third floor?" Hermione interrupted, going pale. "I didn't realize!"

Dumbledore chuckled. "I must admit that it is a little easy to get lost in good old Hogwarts… Mr. Fluffy, is Mr. Weasley correct that the door was not locked?"

"I fear he is," Fluffy's left head said. "People have been opening the door to look at me and then running away all last term. A few have done it so far today, as well."

"Dear me, it seems that the door really should be better locked," Professor Dumbledore mused. "Perhaps it is the problem with teaching a lock-opening spell here. Well, you mentioned the door with the flying keys… I assume then that you turned back at the chess set?"

"No, Ron got through that," Dean supplied.

"...oh, no, hold on," Neville groaned, sounding very much like he'd worked something out that he'd rather not. "This is all to try and stop people getting in, isn't it? The Devil's Snare is to catch anyone who gets past Fluffy, and the keys… I bet the troll was a guard, as well..."

"They're not very good at it, though," Harry said. "And why would you want to keep the Mirror away from people?"

"The Mirror of Erised is dangerous indeed, Mr. Potter," Professor Dumbledore said. "Many have spent all their time staring into it, wasting away and tantalized by visions of a world they cannot have."

"Mine didn't really look impossible," Dean said. "It'd just be a bit embarrassing to ask."

"Mr. Thomas?" Professor Dumbledore asked. "I believe you went back to your home for Christmas? Does that mean that you made your way all the way to the end, if you have seen the Mirror?"

"Well… yeah," Dean agreed. "Most of them weren't even that hard. Ron dropped the troll's own club on top of its head."

"We did use up all the flame freezing potions," Harry added. "Is that okay, Professor?"

Professor Dumbledore chuckled. "Perhaps… but what would you suggest, Mr. Thomas?"

"...make sure that only someone who's actually meant to be there can get past it," Dean went on. "That's the whole point, you put the dangerous stuff afterwards."

"My goodness," Professor Dumbledore said with a smile. "I fear I will be up for hours tonight making those changes; I may even need to be out of bounds after curfew, and I hope that Mr. Filch won't complain to the headmaster about it. What would you say is the most important?"

"Easy," Dean said. "Password on the door that only teachers get. Then for the potions room, just fill them all with… with… what was that special really powerful sleeping potion?"

"Draught of Living Death," Hermione supplied.

"Right, that," Dean agreed. "Nobody said the instructions had to lead you to the right bottle… you could just keep the right potions in your office or something, and if someone tries drinking it they'll just get frozen until you can go and look. Then there's all the other stuff, like making the Devil's Snare fireproof or something – oh! And there's one more thing I just thought of."

"What might that be, Mr. Thomas?" the Headmaster asked.

"Put the mirror in your office," Dean replied. "If someone tries to steal the mirror, and they can get all the way to the end, they'll be stuck there."

Professor Dumbledore stared for a moment, then laughed.

"An excellent idea!" he pronounced. "My, Mr. Thomas, you do have a quick wit indeed…"

"I think it's because of Monty Python," Dean said, which made Hermione stifle a giggle. Harry wasn't at all sure what she meant, and she told him she'd explain a bit later.

"So just to make sure I understand?" Fluffy asked with his middle head, raising a paw. "I'm to growl and try to scare off anyone who comes in, same as before?"

"Excepting myself and Hagrid only, yes," Professor Dumbledore replied. "And Minty, of course."

"Well, of course Minty!" Fluffy's left head agreed. "She's such a good cook!"

It was later than they expected when they made it back to the Gryffindor Common Room, and after a bit of discussion the five of them dispersed to get used to living back in Hogwarts again (or, for Ron and Harry himself, to get ready for the beginning of term).

The book club book had been longer than normal over the winter, and Harry decided he should give it a bit of a skim-read through his favourite bits. As he picked up the book from his trunk, though, something fell out of his robe pocket.

Harry examined the odd, red-coloured rock, shrugged, and stuffed it in the bottom of his trunk with the stuff he'd mentally labelled as 'snacks'.

Chapter Text

The spring term began, and it was right back into the regular routine of a magical education at Hogwarts. Snow still covered the ground, and the only thing which made the outdoors lessons like Astronomy endurable was the Warming Charms that most of the staff members distributed on request.

(Or, at least, that was what Harry was told. Even being buried in the snow for an hour or more only felt vaguely uncomfortable to him, so he just trusted that his friends knew what they were talking about when they said what humans were able to cope with.)

In Charms they were dealing with the theory of casting a spell that affected only part of an object instead of all of it, and Professor Flitwick demonstrated by using a levitation spell on just one page of a book (which turned it over) and comparing it with levitating the whole book (which was certainly useful for other things but which didn't actually turn the page).

Harry put his paw up, and asked what would happen if you levitated only the cover of the book or only the pages, and the Charms Professor thanked him for a good question before demonstrating. Either option caused the pages of the book to snap shut, though lifting the pages meant that the book rose spine-down with the covers hanging open and levitating the cover made it slowly turn so it was spine-up, and Professor Flitwick took the chance to explain that when a charm affected only part of an object you had to think carefully about how that could affect the rest of it.

It was a really interesting topic, and Harry was coming up with ideas for altered Charms effects for the rest of the day and quite a lot of the next. His friends were as well, and one of the ones Dean came up with was the one they all thought was the best – enchanting the feather end of a quill with a charm to clean away ink, so you could use it like a pencil eraser.

"...actually, why don't they do that?" Ron asked. "It's a real pain to cross stuff out or rewrite a whole essay if I make a mistake and don't catch it in time."

"Maybe it's to teach you to take care the first time?" Hermione suggested.

Ron protested, and Hermione laughed. "No, don't worry, I agree. I think I might need to research one like that for us – but you'll have to cast it yourself if you want it, Ron!"

The promise of actually having access to a charm like that seemed to mollify Ron, and Harry had to admit he'd like something like that as well.

"Today's subject is the constellation of Andromeda," Professor Sinistra told her first-year students. "Locate the W shape of Cassiopeia, like we were looking at last week."

Harry looked up at the sky, glad that there never seemed to be any clouds when he was at the top of the Astronomy tower.

He frowned, suddenly, wondering why that was, then shrugged it off and located the W-shape.

"You all have it?" the Professor asked, and got a number of muttered agreements. "Good. Now, the stars Almach, Alphertaz and Mirach are the three brightest stars in Andromeda, and they are below the W shape. They form a rough line… now, direct your telescope towards the one on the left."

That took several minutes of looking at the sky, then through the telescope, adjusting it to be looking in roughly the right direction and then correcting it with quick glances between the sky and the eyepiece. Harry felt like it was a bit harder for him than it was for most of the rest of the class, because he wasn't quite shaped right and his muzzle kept bumping into the telescope's main body, but at least it wasn't as bad as for the few other first-years who had glasses – he could take his off, after all.

"Who has their telescope in place?" Professor Sinistra asked, and plenty of hands went up. "Good. And who still needs help?"

Neville's hand was one of the few which went up, this time, and the Astronomy Professor aligned his telescope properly before helping Vincent and one of the Hufflepuffs.

"Now, who can tell me what is unusual about this star?" Professor Sinistra went on. "Let's see… Mr. Weasley, you're a new hand."

"It's at least a double star, Professor," Ron answered. "You can tell because it's got more than one colour… I think I can see three?"

"Very good, Mr. Weasley!" Professor Sinistra smiled. "Almach, or Gamma Andromedae, is actually a quadruple star, but to see three of them is very good. A point to Gryffindor, I think. Now, move your telescopes down away from Polaris, and you should find an open cluster..."

Harry was really impressed with Ron by the end of the lesson. He put his hand up for most of the questions, and while he got two or three of them wrong that didn't stop him from trying to answer the next one along either. Professor Sinistra seemed impressed as well, especially by the mention of the Andromeda Galaxy, and his question about whether they could look at the pictures from the Hubble had led to a ten minute interruption while Hermione and Justin from Hufflepuff tried to explain to the Professor what the Hubble was.

After another one of the odd late-to-bed late-starts that followed Astronomy class, and the day's classroom classes, it was time for their Flying lessons.

A lot of the pupils who had been doing especially well before Christmas were put through some particularly punishing testing, making sure they could climb and dive and turn and stop suddenly when Madam Hooch fired off a cannon-blast from her wand. While Harry and the others watched, the young flyers in question got asked to hover straight up and straight down, to reverse, to demonstrate that they could cling on when their broom went upside-down and then to do all the same thing while holding a conversation with the flying instructor.

"Congratulations," she announced, at the end of that. "Mr. Finnegan, Mr. Zabini, Miss Parkinson, Miss Patil, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Davis. I am pleased to inform you that you will not be required to attend future flying lessons, as you are qualified to use a broomstick with competence."

Harry applauded, and that spread to most of the rest of the flying class, and as Ron flushed with happiness and Hermione examined her broom suspiciously most of Harry's attention was on the tests he'd just seen.

Doing some of them would be quite tricky for him without a broom, especially reversing. Maybe he'd have to stick to using two brooms whenever he needed to do any serious flying…

Professor Quirrell's Defence lessons seemed to be deteriorating. Harry's headache in them was worse, and so was the Professor's stammer, and he spent the whole of the lesson one Thursday talking about how dangerous the forests were in Albania instead of the expected lesson topic (which was the Dancing Legs jinx).

It was puzzling, but there was still a textbook to read and there was still homework to do, and half the school was starting to get really excited about the next Quidditch game. After Hufflepuff had done horrible, horrible things to the points totals of Ravenclaw in December the first game of the Spring Term was Gryffindor against that very same Hufflepuff team.

"Fred and George are really tense," Ron said, looking across the room at his twin brothers one evening.

"Really?" Neville asked. "How can you tell?"

He looked back down at his essay, where his discussion of the Goblin Rebellion of 1771 had been impaired by his absently writing 'how can you tell' in the middle of a line, and flipped his quill over to stroke away the offending ink.

"Now that's not fair," Ron grumbled good-naturedly. "Hermione's refused to do it for me and I really need to work out how to enchant a quill to do that myself… I'd get it done by now if it wasn't for all those essays."

"It is helpful for the essays, though," Harry supplied.

He was checking the history book for some of the things before and after the 1771 rebellion, trying to work out just why it was that that particular rebellion was viewed so favourably compared to the others. Maybe it would help if he had a Muggle history book as well, but that wasn't the sort of thing there was in the Hogwarts library.

"Fred and George?" Neville prompted, putting his quill down. "I'm really curious now. They're just laughing and joking like normal."

"Not like normal," Ron replied. "It's hard to explain, but if you'd grown up with them you'd know. Their timing's off."

Harry couldn't see a difference, but trusted Ron enough to know.

"So that's going to be… because of the Seeker, right?" Harry guessed.

"Well, Hufflepuff's Seeker is pretty good, but it's more about the Chaser team," Ron explained. "The girls haven't really got it together yet, and if you've got a good enough Seeker you can sort of power through it based on that because you can make the game short enough that the Chasers don't really count. But given what Diggory is like as a Seeker he'll probably be the one getting it."

Harry nodded at that. "Okay, so if we had a really good Seeker then we might be able to win, but we don't."

"Well, we might win anyway," Ron said, and Harry almost laughed as he remembered Ron's unstinting loyalty to a team which was arguably only slightly better than not fielding a side at all. "But it'll mean Fred and George have a lot of work to do keeping the Bludgers interfering with Hufflepuff play."

He frowned back down at his own History homework. "What's the name of that goblin who went on a Chocolate Frog card, again?"

"Urg the Unclean," Harry supplied. "That was 1771. He got publicly dunked in the village pond… and I'm pretty sure that was after the Statute of Secrecy, so it must have been Hogsmeade pond."

He frowned, then dug his History of Magic out. "Unless the Statute was actually broken, that might be why people think it was justified in the first place, hold on..."

Using a wing to keep his place in the book he'd been reading, he flicked through and then nodded. "There we go."

"Great," Ron smiled. "Thanks."

He looked around. "Where's Hermione?"

"I think she said something about wanting to learn another new spell," Harry supplied. "About how she could do the History homework later."

"Blimey," Neville said. "Is she ill?"

Harry considered that, thinking about Hermione's behaviour and how she'd looked at dinner, then shook his head. "I don't think so, I think it's just that you can't work in the library after curfew but you're allowed to work in the common room."

"Oh," Neville realized. "Um… that does make sense..."

"Actually, that does make me think," Ron said, finishing a paragraph and putting his own quill down. "Why exactly is it that only Ravenclaw has a library?"

He waved. "We could do with a library for doing homework after curfew. I don't know if Hufflepuff has anything special, but I bet Slytherin has… a torture chamber or something."

"A what?" Dean asked, looking up from his West Ham football annual – a present from his dad, Harry remembered. "Why would Slytherin have a torture chamber?"

"For torturing people," Ron answered, shrugging. "Obviously."

"Who would they be torturing, then?" Harry asked. "Other Slytherins?"

"Nah," Ron shrugged. "Think about it. Hufflepuffs."

Neville began mumbling under his breath, and Harry shook his head.

"Do you really think that they'd be, what, sneaking out after dark and taking Hufflepuffs to torture?" the dragon asked. "Doesn't that sound a bit unbelievable?"

"If it's Slytherin, you can't trust them," Ron said firmly. "Look at Malfoy."

"Draco's not untrustworthy because he's a Slytherin," Dean replied. "He's untrustworthy because he's a git."

"Did you say Hufflepuffs just because they're the only group you don't know many people from?" Neville asked. "Is that because you're always paired with Hermione or Dean in Herbology? I think everyone's really nice there."

"Yeah, but they're so nice they don't want to complain about being tortured in the Slytherin torture dungeon," Ron insisted. "They're just too brave to make a fuss."

"That doesn't even begin to make sense," Dean began, then stopped. "You're having us on, aren't you?"

Ron nodded, trying not to laugh.

"Prat," Dean grumbled.

Harry smiled, twitching his tail as he enjoyed the company. Then he read back over his essay so far, checking it against the little four-point plan he'd sketched out.

Just one bit to go, this one about how the rebellion had worked out. That was a bit he remembered, and he dipped his quill in the ink before beginning – only to look up only three words in as Hermione joined them.

"Harry, good news!" she announced. "I'm certain I've got the book-duplication charm working!"

That sounded like very good news to Harry, but he had to ask the obvious question. "Is that a charm that duplicates books?"

"What – yes, of course it is," Hermione answered. "It doesn't work on magical books because of how they're made, but – Dean, can I borrow your book?"

"It won't hurt it, will it?" Dean asked.

"...probably not," Hermione replied.

"Do it on your own book, then," Dean answered.

"All right!" Hermione said, putting a book down on the table. "Watch this!"

Neville looked at the clock. "It's been twenty minutes… how long did it take you to find the book to use?"

"Twenty minutes, obviously," Hermione replied. "It was quite a hard choice, I wanted one which would show off the capabilities of the spell without… well, without being too big a loss if I got it wrong."

"Now I'm really glad I didn't lend you my annual," Dean said. "Okay, let's see this."

Harry leaned over to watch as well, and Hermione raised her wand over the book she'd selected – a copy of The Winter's Tale.

"So you flick your wand back and forth between the book you want to copy and where you want the copy to go," Hermione explained. "And the incantation is Xerographia."

The book flashed, and suddenly there were two copies of it.

"That is pretty neat," Dean admitted, picking up the duplicate. "Er… are you sure you did this right?"

"I'm fairly sure," Hermione replied. "Why?"

"It looks like it's all misspelled," Dean replied.

As Hermione took it from Dean, the boy went on. "And your name's in it, look."

Hermione giggled. "No, that's right. That's where my parents got my name from. And the rest of it's because it was written in the seventeenth century."

She smiled. "So! My idea is, Harry, you just take books out from the public library, duplicate them, and then you return them. That way you have them to read more than once."

"Are you sure that isn't stealing or something?" Ron asked. "I'm sure that's why magic books can't be duplicated."

"Well, it probably is in the magical world," Hermione replied. "But in the Muggle world I'm pretty sure they don't have laws about this sort of thing for books – and in the Muggle world they have photocopiers which can copy books a page at a time. This is just doing things faster – and, besides, if you lose a book from the library you have to buy a replacement. This is just like that."

Harry did like the sound of that. If he wanted to share a book with his friends – or a Muggle book at least, like Equal Rites or Dragonsong – he could copy it, so they could have one and he could have one as well! It sounded like an excellent idea, and he was already thinking about which book to duplicate first.

"Can you duplicate books that have already been duplicated?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Hermione replied, seeming surprised that he'd have to ask a question like that. "That's why magic books have to be spelled against duplication, as they're all made by duplicating anyway."

That seemed all right to Harry, so he watched very closely as Hermione cast the spell a second time – giving them a third copy of The Winter's Tale. Then he tried the same spell, and the third copy caught fire.

"It's Xerographia, not Xerographica," Hermione corrected him, as he used his wing to smother the flames. "And I think your wand movement wasn't right. It's movement six, not movement eight."

Harry's next attempt did produce a book, but it was all in Greek. Hermione opened it to the first page of the script and compared it to the original, looking back and forth.

"I think this is actually properly translated," she said slowly. "I can't read much Greek, but I think that the names have been transliterated – Greek letters are all kind of odd – and the rest of it has some proper Greek words in it."

She looked up at Harry. "What did you cast?"

Harry frowned, thinking about it, then clicked his talons together to make a sound like a fingersnap. "I think I said Xenographia."

"...did you just invent a translation spell, mate?" Ron asked. "That's pretty cool."

"I've got no idea if I can do it again," Harry admitted. "Let's try and get the book copying spell down."

Five attempts later, they had a copy of The Winter's Tale with all the words backwards, one which was in white letters on black pages, two with blank pages, and one that looked just like the original.

"I'll keep working on it," Harry decided. "I really want to make sure I've got it right before I start trying it on library books."

"That's probably a good idea," Hermione agreed, as Harry ate the smouldering remnants of one of the duplicates. "Now, what was it I was forgetting..."

"The history homework?" Dean suggested.

"Oh, that's right!" Hermione realized. "Well, I'll do it now."

She went upstairs to get her parchment and quills, and Ron looked at his wand and then at the books on the table.

"Xerographia," he tried, and Harry stared as a bright orange copy of The Winter's Tale appeared.

"Did you mean to do that?" he asked, remembering that Ron's favourite team used that as their colours, and Ron nodded proudly.

The next day was the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, which took place in light rain with ominous clouds hovering in the background.

Harry spread both his wings out, letting his friends take cover under them, and they watched as Hufflepuff's well-coordinated team got to work – their Beater captain giving terse instructions one way and then another as the Badgers' Chaser team pressed up the field. Katie, Angelina and Alicia were doing their best to keep things under control, but the Hufflepuff players seemed to be really good at passing the Quaffle back when their in-possession player was in danger.

There was one move which made everyone gasp, when one of the Weasley Twins bounced a Bludger off the Quaffle to send it back upfield for Katie to catch, but that just earned them a single goal for ten points – the Gryffindor Keeper, Oliver, was doing his best but Hufflepuff was racking up the goals, one after another, with the relentless precision of a highly drilled team and outscoring Gryffindor perhaps two to one.

The game dragged on, and when Neville began to shiver slightly Harry drew his wings in a bit to bring all his friends closer to his body heat. Then Dean deluged them all with bluebell flames, which sort of made that problem moot, though being rained on was still a bit uncomfortable even if they were now all toasty-warm.

Finally, after over three hours and something like a four hundred point deficit for the embattled Gryffindor side, Cedric Diggory held up his hand in victory with the Snitch firmly clasped within.

"That was awful," Fred groaned, that evening.

"Yeah," Other Fred agreed. "We found Oliver Wood trying to drown himself in the shower."

Harry wondered how that would work.

"We haven't won since Charlie left," First Fred agreed.

Ron blinked. "What?"

He pointed at his twin brothers. "What are you talking about? Charlie left last year. He's only seven years older than me and only five years older than you. You won last year! You're the reigning champions!"

"...so we are," Second Fred realized. "I'd completely forgotten that. Why do you think that is, Fred?"

George put his hand to his chin. "I daresay that it's because Wood's completely round the bend and complains about it constantly."

"So he is, Fred," Fred agreed. "That makes perfect sense. I don't know why I didn't think of it."

"That's because your mind is too highly trained, George," George said. "Our simple brother thinks of the simple solutions."

They exchanged glances.

"Which of us should go and get Wood out of the shower?" Fred asked.

"You left him there?" Dean said, surprised.

"He was very insistent," George shrugged.

"Totally inconsolable."

"Also totally insoluble," George added. "With how long he's been under the shower he'd have to be."

"I wonder how he'd react to being told he's still technically the reigning champion Keeper?" Fred asked.

"Probably try to commit ritual suicide with a bar of soap."

Despite the best efforts of Oliver Wood, the calendar continued to march on. January became February, and Harry noticed on his way back from the library that Neville was running up the stairs and huffing alarmingly.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned. "Are you late for something? I thought our schedules were the same."

"Oh, hah… no," Neville replied, stopping and leaning on his knees. "I decided… to try… and exercise."

Harry frowned, thinking about that a bit.

At first he wondered why Neville might want to exercise, because he certainly hadn't enjoyed it much. Then he remembered that flying was sort of just a different form of exercise, and so was going up and down the stairs all the time, both things he did a lot more than Neville.

And there was that Neville didn't fly by waving things around very fast, as well. So even if Neville flew a lot it wouldn't necessarily help.

"That sounds like a good idea," he said instead. "Are you planning anything to exercise your arms?"

"You have to exercise different bits?" Neville asked, now with more of his breath back.

"I think so," Harry replied, thinking about it. "I'm almost sure of it, yes, that's why you can have someone who's good at running but can't carry a really heavy weight."

He flicked his tail. "But maybe what you should do is just start by getting your legs fit, and you can do your arms after that?"

"It's hard enough to do this," Neville admitted.

"Maybe you should ask Dean?" Harry suggested. "I know Muggle schools have a lot of sports, and I think he did more than me."

Neville looked thoughtful, then turned to look up the stairs. A few deep breaths, and he was on his way up again.

The next morning, Harry was off to Fort William. While there he asked for a library card, but was nonplussed when he was told that he'd need to bring in a photograph and also his address.

Somehow he thought that giving an address in Surrey wouldn't work very well for a librarian in Fort William, and then there was that if he did make a mistake and they sent a bill for late fees to Number Four Privet Drive he didn't know what Uncle Vernon would do. (Apart from turning a funny colour, which Uncle Vernon did a lot. It was like Pernese dragon eyes, except mostly colours like 'puce' and 'magenta'.)

Oddly enough, on the way back he spotted what looked a lot like a football game going on on one of the Hogwarts lawns. But it didn't seem like it was a big deal, so he shrugged and flew on.

Book Club was coming up, and he wanted to be ready for it – and to put his latest purchase in his collection, a book called Expecting Someone Taller which sounded sort of like Terry Pratchett's books to him.

Landing in the Owlery, Harry said hello to Hedwig (who gave him an affectionate nibble on one of his talons) then made his way down through the stairs to cut across to Gryffindor Tower. Then it was right back up the stairs, seven flights this time, and he put his book with the rest of his collection.

Seeing it, however, made him frown.

It was quite a big collection by now, with several new books on top of what he'd brought from home at the start of the school year, and it really was too big to all go back in his trunk without squashing everything.

Sitting down on his bed, tearing a hole in one of the sheets with an accidental talon but barely even noticing any more, Harry thought about his problem.

It was a nice sort of problem, the sort of problem that gave him a happy feeling to think about – last year the idea of having too many things of his own would have been quite alien – but it was still a problem, and it wasn't until he thought about the book club book that he realized the solution.

Around Africa By Broom had made it quite clear that Wizarding tents were bigger on the inside than they were on the outside (and Hermione had said it was like a 'Tahdis' but he didn't really understand what she meant by that) and also that they were fully furnished, and stayed that way if you packed up the tent. So Harry could buy a magical tent, carry it about easily, and keep his whole collection of things inside it nicely laid out the way he liked it.

He could even set it up back home in the Dursleys' loft. It really did sound like an excellent idea, if Harry said so himself.

One blustery morning in the middle of February, Harry took his usual place in Transfiguration class.

Professor McGonagall gave him a small smile, which she extended to the other students as well, and Harry got ready to take some notes.

"Good morning," the Professor announced, once everyone had arrived. "Today we will be dealing with one of the more subtle and complex arts of Transfiguration. While it is expected for your O. that you get reasonably good at Free Transfiguration, it is only at the N.E.W.T level that we approach this topic in a way that does not involve prescribed spells."

She pointed her wand at a piece of wood on her desk, and it changed shape into a kind of wooden hummingbird shape – a hummingbird which took off, picking up the chalk in its beak before slowly writing a word on the board.

The word was ANIMATION.

"Animation is when an object is Transfigured such that it can move, if it would normally not be able to do so," Professor McGonagall explained. "It is difficult because it is a blend of Transfiguration and Enchantment, so you will also be seeing it in Charms, and because there is no spell which exists which has sufficient details in the casting to completely control what the targeted object will do – you must specify these details yourself. It is dangerous because if you make a mistake in Transfiguring an object you will generally just not get the right object, which is bad enough; if you make a mistake in Animating an object you may well end up with an object doing something you would not like it to do, with great enthusiasm!"

After that dire warning, the Transfiguration Professor explained how they would be starting – with a spell to make an object, specifically a light wooden ball, move back and forth. The balls were enchanted with Cushioning Charms to ensure that they wouldn't do any damage if they went flying across the room, and all they were to do was to make the ball turn in some kind of circle on the desk.

It was much harder than Harry expected to keep it moving the way he was supposed to, and at least three other people somehow bounced their balls off his forehead, left wing or tail during the class.

It was also vaguely tempting to set one on fire after it barely missed his glasses, but that wasn't a nice thought so he ignored it.

After that lesson, Harry – and the rest of the remaining flying students – found that they were doing better in flying lessons. For some of them it was only a little better, and Vincent Crabbe nearly ran Neville down in what Harry guessed was a genuine accident, but Harry found that the same sort of mental focus involved with setting up what an animated object was going to do was helpful in controlling how fast a broomstick was supposed to go.

"Very good, Mr. Potter," Madam Hooch said, as he landed properly – having managed to use his wings for control and his two brooms for power. "Now we will make it a step harder, I'm afraid."

She commanded both brooms to 'unstick', and Harry watched with interest as she picked them up – moving them closer in to the centreline of Harry's body, putting them against his belly on the inside of his legs. The bristles almost touched, and it felt like it would make his neck a bit uncomfortable if he bent down by mistake.

"This is so that you get used to dealing with two brooms close together," Madam Hooch explained. "Once you're fine with this, we'll try a single broom again. Now, up you go."

Thanks to all the practice, Harry was better at flying with the two-brooms-close-together than he'd been when he started with the two-brooms-separated. It really felt like he was starting to get towards where he'd be able to fly with just one broom, if he wanted to.

Harry wasn't quite sure if he would do that, but it'd be nice to have the option. And it was what the lesson was, besides, so there was no real point in not putting in effort.

After the flying lesson, however, Harry found himself at a bit of a loose end. He considered going back and reading a book in his room, or in the common room, but almost as soon as he took off he spotted a group of first- and second-year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors making their way down to one of the lawns.

Curious, he banked around to see what was going on, and alighted next to some familiar faces – Daphne, Tracy and Blaise, who had set up a large and multicoloured carpet on a small hill overlooking the lawn.

"Harry, good to see you," Blaise greeted. "Read any good books lately?"

Harry nodded. "Hermione finished the book I got her for Christmas, so I've been reading it. There's a lot of really complicated court politics going on in it."

"That sounds like your house, Blaise," Tracey said.

"I don't see at all what you mean," Blaise replied. "On an unrelated note, want some hors d'oeuvres? Mother sent them."

Harry took one, which seemed to be made of cheese inside pastry. "Why did she send you these? I thought chocolate was more normal?"

"Probably, but she had them lying around," Blaise told him. "Leftover finger food from the wedding, I think."

"You mean this is three months old?" Harry asked, biting into it. "It doesn't feel stale."

"Well, no, there are spells for that," Daphne shrugged. "But I think you're thinking of a different wedding."

"Yes, my previous stepfather decided that Mother wasn't the woman for him," Blaise agreed. "Something about not liking her cooking, but Mother's always been very good with bitter almonds."

He waved his hand. "Anyway, that's not important. What is important is that we're going to watch the Lions and the Badgers run around until we're bored. Or until it starts raining."

Daphne put a Wizarding Wireless down on the carpet next to them. "And we're going to listen to this, as well. And we're going to keep listening to it, even if we do have to go indoors, aren't we?"

"I don't see why you're so interested in how that ends," Blaise said with a shrug. "It's obviously based off-"

"Shut up, Blaise," Tracey interrupted him. "We know you know how it ends, but the rest of us actually want the surprise."

She turned a dial, and the last minute or so of a musical performance by a Spanish band called Variety Mágical played as Dean and Justin reiterated the rules of football for their… it looked like eight a side… football game.

Dean had got hold of a spare Quaffle from somewhere, and the game that resulted did look a lot more dramatic. Harry lay down on his front in the wet grass, watching, and listening as the thing Daphne and Tracey wanted to listen to came on the Wireless.

It was a radio drama about two magical families who'd both moved to Australia in the late 1800s, and how they were getting on with living in a new environment where it was too far from their new homes out in the Outback to Apparate to just about anywhere important. Harry wasn't sure quite what was going on, plot-wise, and there seemed to be a lot of impassioned arguments involved, but it was a nice audio background to the floaty football game going on down the hill.

It was the morning of Valentine's Day – a Friday, which meant Potions, and which also meant plenty of speculation about whether Professor Snape would have them making love potions – when Draco came over to the Gryffindor table with Vincent and Gregory flanking him.

"I knew you'd get in trouble sooner or later, Potter," he said, holding up a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Good morning," Harry replied, determined to be polite even if Draco wasn't. "Is there something in the news? I'm afraid I don't get the paper, though maybe I should."

"You're not even supposed to be here, Potter," Draco insisted. "You're not human, and it's only humans who are allowed wands."

Harry heard a ruffling sound behind him, and then Hermione tapped him on the shoulder.

"I think it's this," she said, handing him a borrowed copy of the Prophet folded open to one of the inside pages. Harry took it, and saw that there was a half-page letter by someone called 'Disgusted of Uxbridge'.

It described Professor Dumbledore as 'bowing to the demands of inclusivity', mentioned Hagrid as a 'tragic example of the results of a short-sighted process' and noted that the law was clear that 'Harry Potter is clearly not a human, and the Wand Ban restricts the ownership of wands to humans, so it is clear that Harry Potter should not have a wand or be attending Hogwarts".

Draco was looking delighted by the time Harry finished the letter, and Harry raised a talon.

"Draco," he began. "How does the law define a human?"

The Slytherin blinked, looking confused. "Pardon?"

"I definitely had human parents," Harry went on. "So if that's what makes you human or not, I'm human."

"But you're clearly not!" Draco insisted. "Humans don't have wings! Or scales! Or – or – paws!"

"Mr. Malfoy," Percy said. "Please allow Mr. Potter to finish his breakfast in peace."

Draco's fists clenched, then he stepped back a pace. "This isn't over, Potter," he added, turning to leave.

After he was gone, Harry wondered if Draco could prove that Draco was human.

How exactly did you test that sort of thing in the magical world? Couldn't you just transfigure a cat into a human, and end up with a human who remembered being a cat? Their Transfiguration textbook warned that permanent human transfiguration was dangerous because the resulting animal would be only as smart as what they'd been turned into should be, but in that case, if you turned a Sphinx into a human and a human into a Sphinx, which one of them was allowed a wand?

Of course, when he asked Ron that question, Ron decided that the Malfoy family had come about because of a Transfiguration on a particularly sleek-looking long-haired dog a few generations ago.

Chapter Text

It wasn't one of the better Potions classes Harry had gone through. About two thirds of the Slytherins in the classroom kept making snide comments about Harry, mostly quotes from the letter in the Daily Prophet, and Harry wondered vaguely if any of them knew who 'Disgusted' actually was.

The actual potion they were making, however, was the bigger problem – an antidote to love potions, it required the slow addition of petals from six different flowers over the course of half an hour with continuous stirring. That was too long for Daphne to keep up the stirring by herself, so she and Harry traded off the stirring process while the one who wasn't stirring rested their hand for a minute or so and then got onto the rest of the preparations work.

Then there was the fact that they'd nearly chopped up and added forget-me-nots too early in the process. That was one of the things the instructions specifically stated not to do, and Harry had only realized just how much what Draco said had been getting to him when he was halfway through doing the forget-me-nots twenty minutes early instead of the maple shavings the potion actually called for at that stage.

Professor Snape's only comment on it, when he saw Harry dumping the half-cut flowers and starting again, was that the potion could well have exploded and rendered everyone doused by it unattractive to all members of their preferred gender for six hours. (Harry wondered if he'd forgotten that they were all still eleven or twelve.)

The whole idea of a love potion made him sort of uncomfortable, but a 'hate potion' – if it could be called that – was hardly any better.

Before lunch, Harry had enough time to look something up he'd been meaning to get around to, and which the letter in the paper had reminded him of – the oft-mentioned rumour that there were Werewolves in the Forbidden Forest.

At first that had simply sounded silly, as Werewolves were normal people – usually witches and wizards – who turned into vicious creatures every full moon. So how could you say there were some in the Forbidden Forest?

But a bit of searching found the answer, in a mention of a unique event that took place in Germany in the sixteenth century. Apparently a werewolf had become involved with a female wolf during the full moon (and Harry didn't really want to know the details of that) and the resultant litter had been magically affected by having a wizard for a parent. Fully as smart as the average human, they lived to this day in the Black Forest, though the book noted that the specific section of the forest in which they lived had been made Unplottable.

After reading that, Harry thought it was a pity that the Forbidden Forest was – well – Forbidden. It would be interesting to meet fully-intelligent wolves with Werewolf ancestry, sort of like the Werewolves in the Silmarillion, and maybe find out if they could cast spells.

Of course, he'd have to be sure they actually were this kind of wolf first. Maybe he'd need to learn German, unless this whole thing had happened a second time?

Or maybe all wolves were intelligent and wizards had only checked that one time. Like the wolves in the Belgariad, which were all perfectly able to hold conversations as long as you could speak wolf. Maybe most animals were able to speak normally so long as you knew their language, though if that was the case Harry had to admit he wasn't sure how to speak those languages unless he found a way to turn into one – and perhaps not even then.

Naturally, finding the answer was easier than that.

"Oh, them," Hagrid nodded, once Harry had asked. "Yep. They're a neighbourly lot, moved here 'bout five years after I got taken on as keeper of keys and grounds. Only a couple of 'em speak any English, and not much of it, but they wouldn't hurt anyone who didn't deserve it."

"You mean there's actual Werewolves in the Forest?" Dean asked.

"Weren't you paying attention?" Hermione chided him. "They're not Werewolves, they're something else."

"What do you call them, then?" Dean shrugged. "Wolves? But they're not wolves, they're something else from that as well. Maybe… um… lupines?"

"I know a feller name of Lupin," Hagrid shrugged. "He's not – well, best I don't say, to be honest, not mine to say."

"Maybe if I meet one I'll ask what they want to be called," Harry decided. "That seems like the only way to be polite."

He frowned, tapping a claw against his chin. "Why exactly is there a big magical forest next to Hogwarts that we're not allowed into? It sounds dangerous."

"Well, it's not dangerous so long as you don't go in," Hagrid replied.

"But what stops the dangerous animals from leaving it?" Neville pressed. "It's a forest, there isn't a fence or anything..."

"Don't rightly know," Hagrid admitted. "But it can't be all that dangerous, or Dumbledore'd have done something. He's a great man, really is."

"I suppose so," Harry said, still frowning. "It just seems like it'd be safer to have the forest somewhere much further away."

"It is a bit like Mirkwood or Fangorn, isn't it?" Neville asked.

"What?" Ron, Dean and Hagrid asked.

"Are either of you boys going to at least read The Hobbit at some point?" Hermione asked. "We duplicated you a copy each!"

On Monday, Neville showed them a copy of the latest Daily Prophet – he'd apparently decided to subscribe and sent off to do so by owl – in which there was a letter by a 'Concerned of Godric's Hollow' asking why, exactly, everyone was convinced that Harry Potter was a dragon instead of being an animagus with the form of a dragon. The letter pointed out that any Animagus was quite capable of adopting an animal form without the least bit of worry to their faculties, and that by all accounts Harry Potter was quite bright, while a human transfigured into a dragon (or a dragon who hadn't started off as a human) would presumably tend to be not much brighter than the typical dragon.

Harry did wonder why these people weren't writing in using their real names. He also wasn't sure if he was an Animagus or not, but what little he'd read about the process made it sound very complicated indeed and he was sure he'd remember it if he'd done any of those things.

It seemed like 'Disgusted' had set off quite a discussion, because over the next few days there were letters from 'Confused of Diagon Alley', 'Fuming of Saint-Mary-le-Bow', 'Lost of Outer Mongolia' and 'Elphias Doge' all expressing their own opinions on the fact that Harry was a dragon.

Confused wondered why exactly they thought there was a problem that the Boy-Who-Lived had a little physical peculiarity, since he was still the Boy-Who-Lived who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – a line of argument that left Harry wondering what exactly the name of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was as he still hadn't learned it. Then Fuming asked why exactly anyone was considering giving a non-human creature special treatment no matter the reason.

Harry didn't like that letter – not because of that sentiment, which he thought was probably sensible, but because it described him as 'insidious' which wasn't a nice thing to call anyone.

The letter from Lost took Harry four readings to fully understand, and eventually he decided that the author probably liked him. The letter took a view that was entirely against anything unnatural, but in the process of giving examples it moved from 'dragons with wands' smoothly through 'people who make house-elves do all the work' until it eventually reached 'and anyone who waves a wooden stick around to lift things into the air'.

It was probably a parody or something.

Then Elphias Doge asked why everybody was using all these puffed-up self-satisfied names instead of just saying who they were and what they thought.

While the debate was simmering away in the background, however, Harry still had classes to do and spells to learn. History of Magic was still dry, but Harry took notes wherever something was mentioned that didn't match up exactly to the textbook (which was fairly often, since the textbook was for most of their time at Hogwarts instead of just being for first-year and so wasn't all that detailed).

That did make Harry wonder if it would make sense to read a book about their current topic, to get a more detailed view.

Meanwhile in Transfiguration they continued slowly progressing in the field of Animation. There was a lot of work on the theory, and on different ways of making an animated object move – there were spells in Charms which specified what the object should have, like a pineapple gaining feet or a letter developing wings, but without a specific spell for it using Transfiguration to animate an object could mean making a choice.

Then the Professor used Transfiguration on five draughts pieces to turn them into wooden birds, and animated each one to demonstrate another aspect of animation – decision making.

The first bird just pecked at the ground every second or so. The second one sang a loud and complex song, but all it did was do that over and over until Professor McGonagall untransfigured it back to a draughts piece.

The third one would start singing when she tapped it on the back, then stop when she did it again.

"Simple instruction, complex instruction, simple reaction," their teacher explained, and tapped the fourth.

This one rose up into the air, flying about and circling her head, and when she moved it moved with her (she walked all around the class, letting everyone get a close look and listen at the singing, chirping bird) before finally stopping again when it was untransfigured.

"That one reacted to my movements," she explained. "And this one..."

Another tap, and the final bird started moving.

Rather than start singing straight away, though, it looked around – head moving from side to side in quick, jerking motions, a lot like a real bird.

Harry watched with interest as it chirped, took off, then landed on Parvati's desk. It began to sing, then stopped suddenly when the applause began.

"This kind of animation is a difficult art to master, because you have to think of how you want the result to act in any situation," Professor McGonagall explained, as the bird began singing again now the noise level was lower.

Ron raised his hand, and she called on him.

"Professor, I got something in a cracker last Christmas," Ron began. "It's sort of like a little stone griffin, and when I tap it with my wand it flies around and acts sort of like a pet. That's Animation of that last type, right?"

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," the Professor confirmed. "I know the sort. Bestiary Frakes of Diagon Alley makes them, he's really very good at making a long-lasting animated statuette of a magical creature or beast."

Seamus raised his hand. "Does that mean he could do a human?"

"Perhaps, but it would not act like a human," the Professor said. "Bestiary has a certain type of personality he gives all his creations, modified a little if they can fly, breathe fire and so on. But no, Mr. Finnegan, it could not do your homework for you."

"Darn," Seamus said. "Um, I mean, I never thought of that until you said it, Professor!"

Professor McGonagall just gave him a look.

"Professor?" Harry asked, next Friday.

"What is it, Potter?" Professor Snape asked. "I'm quite busy enough cleaning up before the next lesson, which will be the fourth-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Some of them have a modicum of talent, and I will not see your demand for attention ruining their lesson."

Mentally translating that into 'go ahead and ask but be quick about it', Harry nodded. "I was wondering if you had any advice about what to do about what's in the papers."

Professor Snape stopped halfway through getting out some scarab beetles.

"I would have thought you'd be delighted to be in the newspaper, Potter," he said, silkily.

"Not really," Harry replied. "I'm a bit uncomfortable with all of it… I asked Professor McGonagall and she told me to not worry about it because Professor Dumbledore was dealing with it, but that didn't really help."

The Potions Professor looked at Harry for a long time, without blinking, and Harry was glad to see that his teacher was thinking carefully about what to do.

After about a minute Professor Snape rubbed his head with his hand.

"Professor McGonagall is correct," he said. "The Headmaster will doubtless be doing what he can in his own way. Aside from that, perhaps you could cancel your newspaper subscription?"

"I don't have one," Harry replied.

Professor Snape did the looking-at-Harry-carefully thing for about another thirty seconds. "You… don't have a subscription? Then what is the problem, boy?"

"Well, Draco pointed it out to me," Harry explained. "And now Neville has a subscription to keep track of what's going on, and it all makes me really uncomfortable. I'd much rather graduate Hogwarts without being noticed much."

He shrugged his wings, and Professor Snape's eyes slid to them before going back to Harry's.

"You'd rather… not be noticed," he asked. "You. Harry Potter. The dragon. Would rather not be noticed."

"Exactly!" Harry agreed, glad that Professor Snape understood so well.

His Potions teacher sat down a little heavily, and took some potion from under his desk. Harry recognized it as the headache-relieving potion they'd made in the previous two periods, though he wasn't sure whose brew it actually was.

"Subscribe to the Quibbler," Professor Snape told him bluntly. "Doubtless if you use that paper as your source of information you will soon forget all about this whole business."

Harry smiled, thanking him for the advice, and turned to leave as his Professor had a quick swallow of the potion. The first of the next class was just arriving as he left.

It took Harry a while to work out how to subscribe to the Quibbler, because the information he could get hold of on it all seemed terribly contradictory. Everybody said it was complete nonsense, though Harry wasn't really sure yet how to tell that apart from the normal nonsense of the Wizarding World as a whole, but he hadn't realized that that included simply getting hold of it.

Asking around got him some odd looks and eventually pointed at a fifth-year who read it, and there were subscription coupons on the back, but they asked whether he wanted to subscribe for one week, twenty-six weeks or fifty-two weeks.

As it was a monthly paper, that was odd enough, but the price per issue was a quarter of a Sickle (which Harry was pretty sure meant seven and a quarter Knuts). Maybe it was like old money where you had to cut up pennies to get half pennies?

Ultimately Harry decided to just ask for a whole year, and sent three Sickles in the envelope with his coupon. It looked like that would mean he'd be getting his first paper at the end of the month, unless subscribing for a year included the one for February if you did it during February.

With that done, Harry decided to spend the rest of Friday afternoon reading Mossflower. Dean had lent it to him, and it was fun seeing what the distant past of Redwall was like – seeing Martin the Warrior as a mouse, rather than as a heroic figure.

Sometimes he read a bit out loud, even though the only other living thing in the room was Ron's rat. Scabbers had been pretty timid of him in the previous term, though it seemed like months of exposure had dulled that a bit, and Harry thought talking to him might be helping as well.

Over the weekend, Neville showed him another letter in the Prophet, promising that Harry would like this one.

As it turned out, Neville was absolutely right. This one was from a Mr. Lupin (who sounded like the same Mr. Lupin that Hagrid had mentioned) and Mr. Lupin explained in so many words how he had known James Potter and Lily Potter (neé Evans) and had met their infant son more than once. After that opening piece, though, he said that he would have had the same opinion had he never known his good friend James Potter – which was that the Wand Ban itself was short-sighted and poorly formed.

The proximate cause of the Wand Ban, enacted in 1631 before even the Statute of Secrecy, was that there had been a Goblin rebellion over the lack of representation that race had on the Wizengamot; in response, all Goblins were banned from owning wands in perpetuity, along with all other non-human magical races. The Centaurs were not involved in the rebellion, certainly, and no Veela or Kitsune was in the country at the time – and yet they were all punished as if they had been among the organizers, as are all their descendants and all Goblins to this day.

If your readers compare this to the reign of terror of the self-proclaimed Dark Lord, then one sees the problem – would we really suggest that all wizards should be banned from possessing wands as the result of the actions of You-Know-Who and his followers? But how much worse would it be if we suggested that the one who delivered us from the terror should be stripped of his ability to hold a wand?

It was all very poetic, and quite moving, and only slightly spoiled by the short letter from an 'Odd of Ottery St' Catchpole' underneath which suggested that in fact Harry was only pretending to be a dragon, and was in fact a perfectly normal dwarf wearing an elaborate costume.

That one was probably some kind of joke, or at least Harry very much hoped so.

Over the rest of February what passed for a normal routine at Hogwarts tried determinedly to assert itself. A few of the more unpleasant Slytherins tried to insult Harry, but he discovered that if they asked whether he was human it was usually sufficient to politely ask them if they were human, and if so to please explain how to prove it. (He still hadn't found an official, legal definition, and while he hoped that one or another of the people who said things like that would actually have researched it there didn't seem to be any sign of it yet.)

Aside from that, Harry attended his lessons, and did his homework fairly soon afterwards. Depending on club activities or how his close friends interacted with their other friends he sometimes spent time reading in the Ravenclaw Library, sometimes in the main Hogwarts library, sometimes in the Fort William Library and sometimes in the Gryffindor Common Room; at other times he practiced flying, both with and without his twin-broomsticks, and even on one occasion helped Professor Kettleburn catch an Aethonan flying horse which decided to try and escape.

He also wrote a tentative letter to Remus Lupin, and a few days later Hedwig brought a reply in which Mr. Lupin had enclosed a wizarding photograph of his mother and father.

They looked exactly like they had in the Mirror of Erised, except for being slightly younger than the versions in the mirror (and less able to turn into dragons, presumably), and Harry couldn't thank him fast enough.

Really, the only thing that was any kind of problem for Harry during the first school term of 1992 – apart from the odd knowledge that his presence at the school had sparked off a political debate – was that he still couldn't get himself a proper library card and thus take books back to Hogwarts from Fort William. It was especially a pity because he'd found a new author who he liked, with a main character who was a wizard called 'Pug', but it was taking him weeks to read even the first book because he could only do it while he was actually at the Fort William library.

Then, on the first of March, his first Quibbler arrived.

The Quibbler was… odd.

The cover illustration was quite remarkable, showing a dragon (which looked like a Swedish Short-Snout, but with glasses) eating an indistinct figure labelled as 'Prejudice'. It all looked very strange, and Harry opened the cover with some trepidation.

Inside there was a contents page, which included a section on Runes and two dozen articles as well as several double-page spreads which apparently consisted of nothing but pictures. Picking one at random, Harry turned over a dozen pages to see what the first article was like.

It was all about something called the Rotfang conspiracy, which was supposed to be a secret organization working within the Ministry of Magic to destroy it… by both Dark Magic and gum disease.

That didn't sound all that likely, but then eight months ago Harry hadn't known you could do magic at all. So he tried another one, which actually sounded much more reasonable.

This time it was accompanied by a picture labelled as being that of the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, buying an Invisibility Cloak in Knockturn Alley.

The article asserted that this was the fifth Invisibility Cloak that Mr. Crouch had purchased in ten years, and asked what it was that he had to hide. It seemed a bit bombastic, but it did sound to Harry like there was sort of a point to it.

"What are you reading?" Hermione asked, and Harry shifted the Quibbler to the side so Hermione could look at it as well.

She scanned the page, frowning, then turned it to see the cover. "That looks a lot like a tabloid, to me. My parents don't like tabloids – they're so full of nonsense."

"Maybe," Harry admitted. "The first story was about trying to destroy the Ministry of Magic by gum disease. But this one looks good enough."

"I suppose," Hermione admitted. "And it is good there isn't just one paper."

Harry turned to the next one, and they both stared.

"...that's saying that the Daily Prophet is trying to get you out of Hogwarts because you'd be able to stop the Rotfang Conspiracy," Hermione said slowly.

Harry turned another page, and found one which said that the hero Peter Pettigrew – posthumous winner of an Order of Merlin – was actually alive and living secretly at Beauxbatons.

"Maybe he's a dragon," Hermione suggested, and Harry snorted. "But really, Harry, why are you reading this? If any of it's true that's probably by accident."

"Professor Snape suggested it," Harry answered, tail flicking idly. "He said it would take my mind off the news."

He shrugged. "And it is kind of working."

Hermione looked conflicted. "How much was it?"

"I got a year's subscription for… about a pound," Harry said, converting the sickles into Muggle money in his head. "Maybe a bit less. So each one is about eight p."

Hermione still didn't seem to approve, as such, but she eventually left Harry with his paper – after reminding him not to believe everything he read in it.

Harry didn't think there was much chance of him believing everything in the Quibbler, not when it asserted in one article that he was actually secretly a Sphinx who was disguising himself as a dragon and in another that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had survived but had changed careers and become an actor in Muggle performances in London.

Even if that latter article had some surprisingly convincing photographs.

It was during the following week that the end-of-year exams first came up as a serious topic.

Oddly, it seemed almost like there was some kind of coordinated plan involved. Mr. Lupin asked how Harry was doing with revising for his exams, reminding him kindly that he needed to make sure he knew the material from the whole year, while Ron asked Professor Sinistra how much extra credit he could get in exams for knowing about Muggle astronomy and space travel (a question she actually didn't know the answer to, though she said she'd ask).

Professor McGonagall warned them all in dire terms that they would not be able to advance to the next year if their exams were failed, and that they would have to repeat the year, while Professor Snape seemed delighted by the same idea (though Harry was sure it was a way to make sure his students paid attention). Apparently it was even possible to fail sixth-year exams so badly that you had to do sixth-year again, and Harry didn't like the sound of failing a year – not for him, and not for any of his friends.

Professor Binns didn't mention it, but then again Professor Binns didn't seem especially motivated to interact with any of his students except for marking their papers. So to help out, Harry did his best to summarize the important bits of the events for his friends (though it took a while, and he thought he wasn't doing nearly as good a job as the textbook did).

"Are you staying here for Easter, Hermione?" Dean asked, as March progressed towards April.

Harry listened with one ear, the rest of his attention on keeping track of the sixteen basic wand movements. He'd heard that one of the things in the exams might be asking them to cast a spell they'd never seen before, just based on the wand movements and the incantation, and he wanted to make sure that he'd got them all exactly right.

"Why would I not?" their friend asked.

"To see your family?" Dean suggested, and Hermione paused.

"Well… you're right," she agreed. "Sorry. But I really want to make sure I do well on the exams, so I was thinking of staying here. I'm sure my parents will understand – they've both been to university, so they know what it's like to have a lot of studying to do."

"What's university?" Neville asked.

Hermione dropped her book, which clattered to the floor.

"What do you mean, 'what's university'?" she demanded. "Are there no magical universities?"

"I don't think there is," Ron supplied, from where he was looking through magically duplicated copies of Harry and Hermione's History of Magic notes. "You're supposed to learn most stuff at school, then after that you become someone's apprentice. That's why Bill went straight into being a cursebreaker, he's apprenticing under someone called… Rakepick, I think. Not sure if they're a Goblin or not."

"You mean there's no higher education?" Hermione repeated. "That's…"

She huffed. "Well! It's certainly not what I expected."

"Excuse me," Madam Pince said stiffly. "Please be quiet in the library for the benefit of other library users."

She inspected the book Hermione had dropped on the floor, finding that it was one of Hermione's own and not one of the library ones, and gave her a level glare before striding off into the stacks.

Once she was out of sight, Dean spoke up again – his voice lower this time. "I just really want to… you know, remind myself what the Muggle world is like. I've got no idea at all how West Ham is doing, last I heard was just after Christmas."

"It's a pity there aren't Muggle sports on the Wizarding Wireless," Harry said out loud. "Just for you and the other people who like them. I know there's Quidditch, but Blaise told me yesterday that the game between the Holyhead Harpies and the Montrose Magpies has been going since February. So I imagine that one's kind of boring."

"...actually, I kind of want to hear about that one," Dean snorted. "What's the score?"

Harry frowned, trying to remember. "I think Blaise said it was Too Much for the Harpies, Not Enough for the Magpies, and that both sides were advertising for new Seekers during the breaks of play."

On the last day of term before the holiday, Hedwig flew down to Harry's table.

She deposited a letter from Mr. Lupin, accepted some bacon in tribute, politely declined Harry's offer of a fork, and took wing.

Harry started opening the letter, but he'd barely unfolded it when Hedwig arrived right back at his place – this time with a second letter.

"Where did you get this, girl?" Harry asked, as she took some more bacon. "And, come to think of it, how do you always know when Mr. Lupin or Hagrid want to send me a letter?"

His owl clicked her beak, then took off again, and Harry smiled – deciding it was probably an owl thing – before opening the second letter as well.

It was from Professor Dumbledore (Harry quickly checked, and the Professor was indeed sitting right there at the high table) and it told him that in three days' time the two of them would be going to London for a hearing at the Ministry of Magic.

It was scheduled for the middle of the afternoon, but the Headmaster also told Harry that they would be leaving at 8 o'clock sharp to make sure they weren't late.

The password for the Professor's office was apparently 'Tim Tams'. Harry didn't have the least idea what a Tim Tam was, but he was fairly sure based on guesswork that it was a sweet of some description.

Chapter Text

Harry had heard that one of the worst things to do when you were going to be having an important meeting was to be nervous about it.

Admittedly the one who'd given him the advice had been Draco, and it had been a bit uncharacteristic of the Slytherin boy, but it sounded reasonable.

Accordingly, Harry got a large chunk of his Easter Holidays homework done over the weekend. He skipped going to Fort William, enjoyed the Book Club, then after dinner on Sunday he re-read most of All The Weyrs Of Pern and turned in at about ten in the evening.

Bright and early the next morning, Harry made his way to Professor Dumbledore's office. The gargoyle moved aside at the password, just as he'd expected, but by the time the moving staircase had taken him to the top Harry had a question.

Professor Dumbledore opened the door, and smiled. "Good morning, Harry. Very punctual, I see."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry answered, stepping in. "Um… if we have a minute, I'd like to ask something."

"We have many minutes, Harry, some of them even available for free," Dumbledore replied. "Though I must commend you in not asking the question of whether you may ask a question, which has tripped up many before you."

"Well… why is it that so many things in Hogwarts are handled with passwords?" Harry asked. "Like the door to your office, instead of just having it ask you. Or the Prefects' bathroom – Penelope told me that there's a password to get into that."

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore smiled. "I think it's because it's just more fun that way. I admit that I do not recall when the idea first came in, but it lends a little entertainment to getting around, don't you think?"

That did sound like the sort of thing Wizards would do to Harry, and he nodded.

"Excellent," Dumbledore pronounced. "I'm glad we've had such a productive discussion. Now, I'm afraid Fawkes is a little poorly today on account of bursting violently into flames last night, so we'll be travelling by Floo."

He waved his wand at the fireplace, and it sprang into roaring life.

"I believe you've used the Floo, Harry?" Dumbledore added.

"Yes, Sir," Harry confirmed. "I've been wondering if I could make my flame breath do the same thing."

"A fine project, though perhaps a little advanced for first year," Dumbledore told him, and waved Harry forwards. "We will be going to Diagon Alley, and I believe from there we shall walk to the Ministry of Magic."

Harry nodded, then paused and looked at Dumbledore's clothes. "Sir, do you mean we'll be going out on the streets?"

"Most likely," Dumbledore mused. "I suppose it is possible that we could walk through the London Underground instead, but I fear the trains would get in the way."

Harry shook his head. "That's not what I mean, Sir. I mean that I think that Muggles will probably notice you when you're wearing robes, a purple cloak, and high-heeled boots."

"Goodness, is that so?" Dumbledore asked, sounding delighted for the advice. "Do you mean they will see me as dashing, or simply as obviously strange?"

"I'm afraid it's the second one, Sir," Harry explained. "I think if you had a long coat that would work better, and maybe if it was mostly brown or black."

"Ah, brown and black," Dumbledore said, considering, and waved his wand to conjure a mirror. "I do wonder why it is that so many people prefer dark colours..."

Another spell, again without any spoken words (Harry was very impressed) and Professor Dumbledore's purple cloak changed into a dark brown raincoat.

It was much better, and while Harry would have noticed the Headmaster walking down a street in London he wouldn't have done more than that.

Then they went through the Floo. Harry flared his wings as wide as he could as he arrived in the Leaky Cauldron, and that helped stabilize him – so he only stumbled a little on landing.

After a quick breakfast at the pub – Harry had a large pile of waffles, which was something he hadn't tried before – they went out into Diagon Alley.

"Why did we come here hours early, Sir?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I just thought it would be nice to have a day out," Dumbledore explained pleasantly. "And do some shopping. Do you have any shopping to do, Harry?"

"I do want to get a tent," Harry said. "And probably some more books."

"A tent?" Dumbledore repeated. "Goodness, I didn't take you for a fan of camping, Harry. But then I suppose everyone has a hobby."

"It's not really for camping, Sir," Harry explained. "It's more to keep my things in. I've already got a lot, and my trunk's too big and heavy to fly with. But if I could put everything in a tent, or in a backpack, then I could carry the tent and it'd be easier for me to get to and from the station without troubling my aunt and uncle – and it would mean I'd have more space."

"That all sounds very sensible of you, Harry," Dumbledore told him, and Harry tried not to preen. "And do you have any other shopping to do? I myself would like to pick up a brand-new astrolabe, along with an orrery I have had my eye on for quite some time, but since nobody has got me one for my birthday for the last eighty years I decided to treat myself."

"I didn't know it was your birthday, Sir," Harry apologized.

"Oh, no, it's not," Dumbledore chuckled. "But I don't see why I should wait until August to treat myself once I decided to."

That sounded sensible enough to Harry.

"I was thinking of getting some books," he added. "And some Muggle money from Gringotts as well, so I could buy more."

"Of course," Dumbledore agreed pleasantly. "Though I might warn you that, when you have too many books, you will long for the simple delights of socks instead."

"I really don't think that will happen, Sir," Harry politely disagreed. "I don't think there's such a thing as too many books. I can always use the ones I don't want to read to lie on."

Harry quite enjoyed the morning he spent with Professor Dumbledore, both because it was a chance to do some shopping in Diagon Alley and because the Professor was quite amazingly knowledgeable on just about all aspects of magic – from Alchemy to something beginning with Z.

It could have turned into a lecture, during the time they spent not in Gringotts or in the book shop, or in the various other shops they visited, but Dumbledore spent as much time asking Harry about things Harry could tell him as the opposite.

He wasn't really sure whether or not Dumbledore already knew all the things he was asking about, but it was quite fun anyway to explain to the headmaster about why Reaper Man was funny or how Belgarath the Sorceror's wife was who he described as a reverse wolf animagus.

The time really did pass quickly, and Harry had to admit that he enjoyed how more people came to say hello to Dumbledore than came to say hello to him.

He might be a dragon, but Dumbledore was Albus Dumbledore.

"Sir?" Harry asked, suddenly remembering something he'd wondered about a while ago. "I wanted to ask – what's a Grand Sorc?"

Dumbledore put down the glass ball he'd been looking at, which contained a model of Saturn and all its rings, and smiled down at Harry. "Well, as you are doubtless aware, though may wish to confirm, it means Grand Sorcerer. As to what a Grand Sorcerer is, I confess that I have no idea."

"You don't?" Harry blinked. "But… you are one."

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "And I wish to this day that when I was told that I was one I had asked precisely what it was."

Harry had to hastily swallow a giggle, and Dumbledore twinkled.

"So it's just something you were told you were one day?" Harry added, once he was sure he wouldn't laugh.

"Well… I do have an idea or two, I would say," Dumbledore said, raising a finger to his extravagantly bearded chin.

Harry tilted his head in anticipation, and Dumbledore winked at him before continuing. "One possibility is that it simply means that I am quite good at magic. While another is that it means I have created a Sorcerer's Stone."

"What's a Sorcerer's Stone?" Harry asked.

"I don't have the faintest idea," Dumbledore replied. "I believe that our cousins across the Atlantic may know, but I would not care to guess – that is surely for them to tell."

He smiled. "Though I believe that in the tale of Babbity Rabbity, a fine old Wizarding fairytale, the Muggle pretending to be a Wizard is called a Grand Sorceror. So perhaps it means I am no good at magic after all."

"That's a lot stranger than how it works at Unseen University," Harry said, thinking about it. "People there have all kinds of titles, and they organize Wizards into levels. But Witches don't have any titles except for things like 'Granny' or 'Nanny', they're all equal."

He paused. "And they all know Granny Weatherwax is in charge."

Harry was delighted when that made Dumbledore laugh out loud. It wasn't really his joke, it was definitely one of Mr. Pratchett's ones, but he was sure he'd told it quite well.

After Professor Dumbledore was loaded down with astronomy equipment – which all seemed to vanish into his pockets a bit at a time after he'd paid for it – they moved on to getting Harry's tent.

There was a quite amazing variety of tents, ranging from a very simple 'Muggle-safe' tent which was just a tent charmed impervious to the cold or to rain, all the way to a fifteen foot castle which looked like it was larger on the inside than Harry's primary school.

He didn't want anything nearly as complicated as that, and it wouldn't fit in the attic at Privet Drive anyway, but that still left a lot of choice. Several of them had kitchens with ovens and fridges installed, living rooms were common, and there was even plumbing (though that left Harry very confused as to where all the results would actually go).

"You'll need to provide water for those yourself," the shop owner explained, pointing out where the water could be put. "Normally you'd be able to use a spell, of course, but you're still in school so that's not an option when you're out and about I suppose."

"You can make water with a spell but not food?" Harry asked.

"Quite," Professor Dumbledore was happy to explain, and the shop owner jumped a little as if he'd forgotten his old headmaster was right there. "Water is simple enough, you see, and there's a spell for it, though the water one conjures is never quite so tasty as water from another source."

"I should be okay," Harry decided after a bit, thinking about the taps at Privet Drive (not to mention the kitchen there). "Is there one with a big storeroom?"

"Ah, um, yes," the shop owner confirmed. "There's two in the back. Got a lot of stuff, I suppose?"

"I want to make sure I don't run out of space," Harry clarified.

"Well, then, let's have a look," the shop owner decided. "Let's see… here's one of them..."

He waved his wand, incanting 'Erecto!' and the tent was up in moments.

Harry found himself presented with a choice of décor, which was the main difference between the two tents when all was said and done. They both had two conventional bedrooms, a bathroom, a sitting room, a kitchen with a small table, and a large storeroom with shelves lining the walls. (Harry mentally labelled that particular room the library in both cases.)

As for the differences, one of them was… certainly consistent. It was all patterned in various shades of beige, on the carpets and walls and the worktops, though the beds and chairs were thankfully more of a deep brown so they could be discerned.

The other had wooden floorboards everywhere except the bedrooms, which were carpeted in a rich blue, and all the furniture was plain pine and mahogany (though the sofas had plump green cushions on them).

Harry found himself preferring the second one, not least because he felt like it was easier to tell where the wooden floors met the white-wallpapered walls than to tell where beige met beige. The idea of lying there over the summer months, reading through his library, was deeply pleasant, and if he left the door open Hedwig could fly in and out – the opening wasn't enormous, but it was big enough to fit her wings through.

The unfortunate thing was that he couldn't really explain it all to the Dursleys, but this would probably make it a lot easier for them to handle having him in the house.

Thoughts of the Dursleys led Harry to ask what other charms there were on the tent, and the shop owner explained proudly that it was charmed Unbreakable, as well as having a lock that only responded to a specific key, then added pointedly that none of it was flammable.

Pleased by that extra point, Harry decided to go ahead and buy the wooden-floored tent. It cost a little more than he'd been expecting, but it was manageable, and Harry finally walked out of Accoutrements For The Wand-Ering Wizard with his new summer home packed up to about the size of a dinner plate.

He'd want to try putting it up a few times at Hogwarts, just to make sure he could do it, though. Even if that meant 'indoors'.

All too soon, however, it was time for lunch.

Dumbledore got them both expansive triple-tip sundaes from an ice cream bar, Florean Fortescue's, which was the first time Harry had actually had any ice cream – Dudley had had it a lot, but he'd never been got any.

It was very nice, cool and refreshing, and though perhaps that might have been a better fit on a hot day instead of the slightly dreary weather of a typical British Spring Harry couldn't bring himself to mind that much.

"Something I was wondering about, Sir," he said, after biting off some of the caramel-swirled tip of his sundae. "I can see the sky overhead, but what would happen if I flew up there?"

The Professor smiled. "Ah, an incisive question, Harry."

He negligently waved his hand at his own sundae, leaving his spoon sticking out of it. "You see, if you took off you could certainly leave – I do believe you'd come out over the Embankment Gardens – but you would need to turn around and trouble Tom at the Leaky Cauldron to come back in again. The charms involved are a little complex, I am afraid, but the idea is that it's… sort of a trade, you see. Light and rain and so on, they can come in, but it cannot be seen from the outside and it cannot be entered either."

Taking his spoon again, he took a mouthful of his peanut-butter tip as Harry absorbed that.

"Of course, we do quite well from both sides of the trade, you see," he added cheerfully. "And I must say, the wizards who put the spellwork over it did a truly marvellous job. It's been hidden entirely since Sixteen Eighty-Nine, and not once have the charms shown the slightest sign of intermittency."

"Is a lot of magic like that?" Harry asked. "Swapping things, I mean."

"Oh, some things, some things," Dumbledore told him. "Such as the Fidelius Charm. You can hide yourself from the world, but not from one person… and that is the person in whom you place your trust."

That topic seemed to make Dumbledore a little sad, so Harry decided to change topics. "What's the Ministry of Magic like?"

"Well, I might say it is a collection of Witches and Wizards," Dumbledore mused. "And one in which most of those involved do quite a lot of paperwork. So I would venture to say that it is quite an odd place indeed."

He produced his wand, and cast a wordless spell which caused numbers to float in the air for a moment. "And I see that if we are to be on time, we should perhaps not take too long on our lunch."

Harry was about to swallow the rest of his ice cream in one go, but Dumbledore held up a hand. "You misunderstand, Harry. I meant we should take no more than another hour."

"I don't think I've ever had a lunch that lasted more than an hour," Harry replied.

"It can be quite a pleasant experience," Dumbledore told him. "I recommend it one day."

They finished their sundaes, and made their way out onto the streets of Muggle London. Harry had taken the precaution of putting on his weather cloak, as well as his robes, and so he looked like he was perhaps a little overdressed for the weather but nothing more.

Professor Dumbledore stood out a little more than Harry had expected, even with his more drab clothing, but it wasn't too bad – and it wasn't all that far to walk, either, taking them perhaps twenty minutes of actually walking and another five minutes waiting to cross roads. It was a bit further than anything was in Hogwarts, perhaps, but it was also a lot less 'up'.

"There is an awful lot of traffic, isn't there?" Dumbledore commented to Harry, as they waited to get across the complicated roundabout where Charing Cross and Whitehall met. "I do sometimes forget just how many people there are in London."

"It's a lot busier than Surrey," Harry had to agree.

They took a few minutes to admire the Admiralty Arch, because they were in no hurry, and then Dumbledore led him to a small and out-of-the-way alley which looked like it was the most run-down place anywhere near Whitehall.

"This is the visitors' entrance," he explained, indicating a battered old red telephone box. "Shall we see if we both fit?"

Harry agreed, not sure if they could, but after a bit of squeezing they managed to sort of get themselves both inside. Harry's face was up against the door, and Dumbledore opposite him was facing the telephone.

"This is a bit awkward, Sir," he winced.

"So it seems," Dumbledore agreed, starting to dial the telephone. "Not to worry, we shan't be in here long. Ah… six, two, four, four, two..."

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," said a pleasant female voice which filled the whole telephone box. "Please state your name and business."

"Albus Dumbledore," Dumbledore said clearly. "Chief Warlock. Here to escort Harry Potter, who has a hearing before the Wizengamot to help determine whether he should be allowed to carry a wand."

"Thank you," said the invisible woman (?). "Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."

There was a clatter, and Dumbledore used his free hand to pass Harry the badge. It was shiny and silver, and Harry stared at it in surprise.

Harry Potter, Philosophical Conundrum.

"It is always rather interesting to see what it comes up with," Dumbledore chuckled. "I remember I once came by this entrance – oh, it must be twenty years ago now – to talk with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and my visitor's pass said that I was 'Albus Dumbledore, Probably Responsible'."

That made Harry snort, and he pinned the badge to his robes as the female voice told him that he had to be searched and present his wand for registration. Then the telephone box ground slowly into the ground, going down like a lift for about a minute.

Then Harry saw the Ministry of Magic for the first time, though it was spoiled a bit by the fact that when the phone box door opened he promptly fell flat on his face.

It didn't hurt, though he did have to wave off an offer of help from Professor Dumbledore.

Harry wasn't sure quite what he expected there to be in the Ministry of Magic. What little news he'd seen on the television had suggested that government buildings were all full of serious people in serious offices doing serious things very seriously, while what he'd heard from Professor Dumbledore and seen of the magical world made it seem more likely to be a bit mad.

What there actually was on the entrance floor was a hall with dozens of fireplaces, all seeming constantly in use as people used the Floo to go back and forth, and a marvellous-looking fountain made of gold.

On a second look, though, the fountain seemed a little bit odd. It had three kinds of non-human Being, all of them looking with adoration at the wizard and the witch they surrounded, but from that Harry understood from his History of Magic classes – and his textbooks – that was only really accurate for the house-elf. Centaurs didn't like anyone who wasn't a centaur much, and he wasn't entirely certain that goblins liked anyone who wasn't currently paying them.

Though admittedly that might just be that most of the goblins people met were bankers, and most of the ones they read about were trying to rebel.

As Harry and Dumbledore made their way up to the main desk, the bustle of the Ministry slowly quietened down. People were still walking, but more slowly, turning to look.

Harry heard at least one muffled 'Ow!' from behind him, which sounded like someone hadn't got out of the fireplace in time and someone else had run into them.

It reminded Harry a bit of the first few weeks at Hogwarts, not knowing quite where to go and with people looking at him, though it did help that they were also still quite early.

He got his wand registered, which turned out to mean they checked what it was made of and how long it had been used, and then Professor Dumbledore led him through the crowds to one of the lifts.

"If it helps, Harry," Dumbledore said, as Harry sighed in relief, "I prefer to remember that, while for you and I to go outside and have people wishing to meet us is quite common, for the people who are meeting us it is not common at all."

Harry thought about that as the lift descended, and nodded – realizing it was certainly true.

He hadn't really thought about it that way before.

It turned out, when they reached the floor on which the Wizengamot met, that they were still over half an hour early.

Fortunately, there was a waiting room, and Professor Dumbledore took a seat while Harry sat on his haunches.

"Would you like something to eat, while we wait, Harry?" Dumbledore suggested. "Sherbet lemon?"

"Probably not a good idea, Sir," Harry replied. "I don't think a sneezing fit would help my case."

"Quite, quite," Dumbledore agreed, and rummaged around in his pockets. "Marble?"

The bag he produced was full of half a dozen round glass balls with little flecks of colour in them, and they were so like Muggle marbles that Harry paused and looked at them.

"Are they some kind of Wizard sweet I haven't met yet, Sir?" he asked.

"No, not at all," Dumbledore replied. "They're Muggle marbles."

Harry supposed that did explain why they looked like Muggle marbles.

"I noticed a few weeks ago that you accidentally ate your glass of Pumpkin juice," Dumbledore explained. "So I thought I would get a bag of these, to see if you enjoyed them."

Quite willing to try, Harry took one in his talons and then popped it in his mouth. It shattered with a crunch, and he swallowed down the result before nodding.

"Ah, a success," Dumbledore smiled.

When they were called in, Harry was sucking on a marble to see if it would go the way of a gobstopper or something like that. He crunched it down, then followed the wizard who'd come to get them, and came out onto the floor of a large square room with wooden benches around three of the walls.

Dumbledore walked up to a podium, and announced in a cheerful way that by order of the Chief Warlock the Wizengamot session was begun.

Harry looked around at all the people sitting on the benches, noticing how they were all wearing plum-coloured robes with a silver W on the left side of the chest.

One or two of them looked sort of familiar, like he'd met their relatives – which probably meant they had children at Hogwarts.

"Ah, er, Harry Potter," began a portly man. "You are Harry Potter, yes?"

"Yes, Sir," Harry answered. "Is it Sir? I'm afraid I haven't done one of these before."

"Oh, that's quite all right, my boy," the portly man replied. "This is all to sort out a misunderstanding."

"A-hem," coughed a woman who sort of reminded Harry of Trevor, a little way around the row of benches. "Surely I must have misheard, Minister. A knowing violation of the Code of Wand Use is far more than a simple misunderstanding!"

She gave a silvery laugh, and Harry tilted his head slightly.

"You're the Minister of Magic?" he asked the portly man. "It's nice to meet you."

The toadish-looking woman seemed a little annoyed by Harry's reaction, and more annoyed by the way the Minister said the pleasure was all his. Then a woman about halfway around the row of seats inquired as to why exactly Harry was a dragon, and the best he could say was that it happened when he was very young.

"How did you stop He Who Must Not Be Named?" said a completely different wizard, and Harry had the strangest feeling of deja vu about these questions so far.

"I don't remember that, either, Sir," he had to answer. "It happened when I was only one year old."

The unpleasant-looking woman from before coughed. "I'm sorry if you don't know this," she said, her voice high and sweet. "But the Wizengamot is made up of very important people! It's not polite to boast, because their time is very important!"

Harry didn't think he'd been boasting.

"Ah, Mr. Potter – can I call you Harry?" the Minister asked, and Harry nodded. "Harry, do you remember not being a dragon?"

"Yes, Minister," Harry answered. "Not very well, but I know I'd started school. I remember being very confused, but nobody noticed."

"Nobody noticed?" asked one of the people on a back bench. "How in the world could nobody notice?"

"I believe that is because they are Muggles," Dumbledore explained for Harry. "For some unknown reason, it seems that Mr. Potter appears unremarkable to anyone who is not blessed with magic."

"That's right," Harry agreed. "And I just sort of assumed… that was something that happened sometimes and nobody much cared. Because everyone was okay with it."

"This all seems quite unbelievable to me," someone muttered.

"Are you an Animagus, Mr. Potter?" one of the other Wizengamot members asked.

That question made Harry frown, as he thought about what he'd read.

"I don't think so, Sir," he answered. "I've never brewed a potion anything like that complicated, especially not when I was about five years old, and I didn't carry a leaf in my mouth for months either. And I didn't have a wand."

The woman with the high voice looked like she was about to say something, but another Wizengamot member asked a question instead, and then another.

The questioning went on for at least half an hour, and it seemed as though every member of the Wizengamot wanted their turn.

Some of them asked Harry half-a-dozen questions, including Bartemius Crouch (from the Quibbler, though Harry didn't talk about that) and one Elphias Doge who Harry remembered from the letter in the paper.

"...quite capable of using your wand to full effect?" Elphias asked, following up. "For detail work?"

"Yes, Sir," Harry said. "Or, well, I'm still learning, but I've been able to cast all the spells I've tried so far – it sometimes takes a lot of work, though."

"Mr. Potter's marks at school are quite good," Dumbledore provided cheerfully. "His friends have a habit of making wonderful use of the spell to conjure bluebell flames."

"Most impressive," Elphias said, and sat down. Harry thought he heard the man say something like 'very exciting, wow' but by then someone else was standing.

"Mr. Potter," that witch said, sternly. "Are you in any way capable of proving yourself to be human?"

"I don't know, Madam," he replied, continuing with his assumption that Sir and Madam were the right ways to talk about all the Wizengamot members. "I haven't found out what the official definition of human is."

"Grandparents," the witch told him. "To be human, Mr. Potter, you must have at least one human grandparent."

That made Harry frown.

"Wouldn't that mean that if you have a human grandparent you also have a human parent?" he asked.

"I believe it is because of the customs on what counts as pureblood versus halfblood," Dumbledore told him. "Interestingly enough this means that the children of two muggleborn parents are themselves considered muggleborn."

"Chief Warlock, I protest," the witch said. "You are allowing Mr. Potter to evade the question."

"My apologies," Dumbledore replied. "I saw a teaching moment, and I did not want to let it escape."

"Well… I think all my grandparents were human," Harry replied. "But I've never met any of them, they all died before I was born."

"Perhaps-"

"This is all very sweet," the high-voiced woman interrupted, drawing a scandalized look from the witch she'd spoken over. "But none of it matters, because Mr. Potter is clearly not human."

"Dolores," the Minister said, a little surprised, and the woman – Dolores – kept going.

"It's obviously lovely that he's been allowed to play at being a wizard," she said. "But he really needs to grow up and accept that he's not human, and to give back that wand to whoever he stole it from."

"I didn't steal my wand, Madam," Harry protested. "I paid seven Galleons for it."

"It's lovely to see you again, Dolores," Dumbledore said brightly. "Do you know, I still remember when you were a first-year. How is your father Orford doing?"

"You must be mistaken, Albus," Dolores replied. "My father is not Orford."

"Well, I can't remember any other Umbridge at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said. "And how is your mother, Ellen Cracknell? I remember her and your father both being terribly disappointed that your brother was born without magic."

Dolores looked like she was so angry she'd lost the ability to speak, which was quite strange to Harry because all Dumbledore was doing was asking about how her family was doing.

For the actual discussion to start again took quite a long time, during which there was a general uproar, and Dolores left the room in what Harry guessed was some level of 'dudgeon' – a word he didn't actually know the meaning of, but liked the sound of anyway.

The Minister for Magic looked quite perturbed by the whole thing, and when the discussion finally resumed it was Dumbledore (in his capacity as Chief Warlock, and possibly as Grand Sorcerer) who made the next suggestion.

"It seems to me that there are three possible outcomes from this meeting," he said calmly, and the last of the conversations died away to listen. "The first option is that we make the decision that Mr. Potter does not qualify as human, and thus we should take his wand."

That made Harry a bit nervous, but Dumbledore continued calmly. "This, I think, would be a mistake – because we cannot be sure that Mr. Potter is not human, and to strip away his wand could be a dreadful injustice."

"Well, of course," the Minister agreed, nodding along as if it had been his point in the first place. "Got to be sure about this sort of thing, quite sure."

"Then there is the option that we should decide to allow Mr. Potter to keep his wand, that is, to conclude that he is human," Dumbledore went on. "But I feel that this as well is not the right option, because Mr. Potter would then be in a state of worry – perhaps in the future a different decision might be made, and his wand might be taken away, and even if it were not he would doubtless worry."

That statement prompted some muttering, and after a few seconds of that the Minister spoke up. "But… I'm not sure I understand, Dumbledore," he admitted. "What's the other option? Either we say Harry Potter is human or we say he's not… unless you're saying we should just ignore it?"

"No, Cornelius, though that had crossed my mind," Dumbledore said. "But there is another option. We are the Wizengamot, and it is within our right to change the laws as well as enforce them. I might suggest an exemption for Mr. Potter?"

Harry's glasses nearly came off.

"What?" he asked, shocked, just ahead of the same question from everybody in the Wizengamot chamber. It was actually quite impressive how the shout echoed around for several seconds, and after it had faded Dumbledore – still smiling faintly – asked Harry to speak.

"Well… I don't really want there to be a law that's just about me," he explained. "It'd be really special treatment, and I don't want that."

There was a general muttering of approval, and Dumbledore considered before snapping his fingers with a smile.

"Perhaps something slightly different?" he suggested. "I would propose an amendment to clause three of the Code of Wand Use – no non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand, excepting those who are in the process of undertaking or have completed an accredited magical education to O.W.L level."

Harry remembered that O.W.L was the equivalent of GCSEs, and that everybody had to get them anyway, so that didn't sound too bad. It also didn't mention him, even though it was obviously meant for him as he was the only one doing an accredited magical education.

It sounded sort of sensible, at least as a way to avoid having to work out whether or not Harry qualified as human, and there was a lot of discussion and grumbling and more questions about what 'accredited' meant and whether the 'process of undertaking' covered time outside school.

It was maybe half an hour after Dumbledore's suggestion that they ultimately decided to accept the wording anyway, and with a quick vote it was carried into law.

"Excellent," Dumbledore pronounced. "I am glad to have had such a lovely afternoon's conversation with you all, my lords and ladies of the Wizengamot. Any other business?"

There was a long pause, and the Headmaster smiled. "Wonderful. In that case, I'll be off back to Hogwarts. Do pop in if any of you want to visit."

He turned to Harry, and spoke more quietly. "After all that, I'm quite peckish. Shall we have some Muggle food to celebrate? I've heard good things about a Scottish chef not far from here."

Amused by the idea of coming all the way down to London to eat Scottish food, Harry nodded – though he felt like heaving a big gusty sigh of relief that the stressful meeting was over.

It probably wouldn't do to set Dumbledore's robes on fire, though.

Harry had missed when Dumbledore had colour-changed his robes to a plum colour at some point, but on their way to the exit he switched them again so they were back at the 'Muggle-Safe' colour that Harry had decided on.

Then they took the phone box back to the street, where Dumbledore assured Harry both that he could keep his name badge (apparently Dumbledore had a whole collection of them in one of his drawers, ranging from 'Simply Passing By' to 'Wizard Avoiding Blizzard') and that the entrance was covered by a Muggle-Repelling Charm which kept them from being noticed.

It was some minutes after that – walking back through what was now shading towards being an evening instead of an afternoon, and through the beginnings of a rush hour that had Harry curling up his tail so nobody tripped or stepped on it – that Dumbledore revealed what he meant by 'a Scottish chef'."

"Is that not what the name means?" Dumbledore asked, with a delighted smile, eating a fry. "I must admit I was completely fooled."

Harry took a bite out of his own McDonalds burger, not bothering to remove the wrapping first.

"I think maybe the family was Scottish, originally, of the person who started it. But it's an American company," he told the much older wizard. "And there's loads of them, they're all over the place. I think they're supposed to be in half the countries in the world."

"I believe I can see why," Dumbledore said. "It is really quite tasty, and prepared so quickly, and you can take it to eat anywhere. And they call it a happy meal, as well – how very positive."

He looked down Diagon Alley, as if looking for an empty shopfront. "Perhaps we should have one in here. I'm sure they would have plenty of business."

Then there was a flash of white light, which made Harry jump, and a silvery-white doe appeared in front of them.

"Albus," the doe said, in Professor Snape's voice. "I just checked the third floor corridor. Someone broke in and got past the Cerberus."

Dumbledore blinked, then frowned. "It seems we must cut our dinner short, Harry. Please take my hand."

Harry did so, and then Dumbledore vanished with a cracking sound.

"...Professor?" he asked, confused.

There was another cracking sound, a few feet away, and Professor Dumbledore appeared again. "My apologies, Harry, I quite forgot. We shall have to take the Floo back to Hogwarts."

Chapter Text

The journey back from Diagon Alley to the Castle by Floo was quite easy – or at least Harry landed without landing upside down or something like that. Professor Dumbledore nodded quickly to his phoenix before hurrying down the stairs, and Harry followed – first simply so he wouldn't be trapped in the office, and then because he was sort of curious to see how Fluffy was.

Since the Headmasters' Office was high up in the castle, that meant following the Professor down several floors and through a secret passage to reach the third floor – the same secret passage Harry had taken some months ago when he'd been tracking the Mirror of Erised – only to come to a halt at the third floor corridor.

The door was open, and Professor Snape was just inside with his wand held ready – but not pointed at Fluffy, who was sitting off to one side with all three heads hanging in shame.

"It was the one with the turban," the left head informed Dumbledore.

"I think he's the same one who tried to get past us last year," added the middle head. "The smell was dreadful – and really rather familiar."

"Put us to sleep," the right head growled, and scraped at some shattered wood and metal strings.

"That used to be an enchanted harp," Professor Snape told Dumbledore, then saw Harry. "Mr. Potter, what are you doing here?"

"Mr. Potter was with me, Severus," Dumbledore said mildly. "I hope his presence will not be a problem."

For just a moment, Professor Snape looked mortified, but that was gone so quickly that Harry wondered if he'd imagined it.

"I suppose he won't be a problem, so long as he doesn't get himself underfoot or require us to save him," the Professor drawled instead, so Harry did his best to look alert without looking overeager.

It was quite hard.

"Remember, Harry," Dumbledore added, his voice more serious. "Take the utmost care."

"All right, Sir," Harry agreed. "Professor, was there a password on the door?"

"Indeed, Mr. Potter," Professor Snape agreed. "But, of course, Professor Quirrell knew it, and so it didn't stop him."

As he spoke, Dumbledore waved his wand, and the trapdoor opened.

"Cover your eyes, please," he requested, and Harry did so. There were a few thumps on the floor as Fluffy turned around, probably because he didn't have enough paws to put them over all his eyes, and then the Headmaster spoke again.

"Solaris."

Even through closed eyes with his paws over them, Harry could suddenly see a bright red light. Fluffy yelped from two of his three throats, and it lasted for several seconds before fading away.

"Wonderful," Professor Dumbledore added, and Harry opened his eyes – seeing the tip of Dumbledore's wand still lit up, but not with the dazzling intensity from before. "It seems the Instant Darkness Powder has been burned off. It should now be safe to drop down."

He did so, and Professor Snape followed after a few seconds. More spellcasting came from within, roils of bluish flame lighting up the trapdoor from below, and Fluffy turned around with a whine before peering down.

"Do be careful, Harry," the middle head said. "I imagine Rubeus would be terribly upset if I let you get hurt."

Harry smiled in reply, then went down.

The traps they went through looked quite different to how they had before.

The room with the keys had a floor peppered with smashed and shattered keys, and the walls were pocked with spellbursts. Professor Dumbledore explained in pleased tones that it had been Mr. Thomas' idea here, and that the keys had all been charmed to come charging down on any intruder.

Harry noticed that the door was missing, and wondered uneasily what had come through.

Then there was the chessroom, where the chess pieces were stood silent in their rows but the scars on the walls and floor testified to a quite spectacular battle.

"Professor?" Harry asked. "This doesn't look right."

"Well spotted, Harry," Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, after the suggestions I had I decided the best thing to do would be to change the rules. This is actually a game of shogi, a Japanese game which is quite like chess but not exactly the same. However, it seems that my Defence Professor decided that the best form of Defence was attack."

Harry had never heard of that game, and he wondered if Ron would be interested in a change.

"How do we get through, Sir?" he added. "I don't play that game."

"Well, there is a simple way through this one as well," Dumbledore explained, and cleared his throat. "We are neutral."

Both of the serried ranks of shogi pieces stood to attention, then marched aside to leave the way clear.

"This doesn't seem very secure," Professor Snape said, as they walked through.

"I had to have some way to get through, didn't I?" Dumbledore asked. "I am quite good at chess, but not exceptional; I daresay that Harry's housemate Ron could give me a run for my Galleons. Perhaps I shall have to join the chess club and find out?"

"I thought you said this wasn't chess, sir?" Harry frowned.

"Of course," Dumbledore agreed readily. "So you can imagine how much worse I am at shogi."

The room after that contained a troll, which grunted at them and rubbed a bump on its head. Professor Dumbledore calmly waved his wand at it, and the troll rose into the air – hovering at least twenty feet above the floor, where it gave them no trouble as they crossed to the next door.

There was a curtain of purple flame across it, and Professor Snape gave them both small vials of the same potion Harry remembered from his last visit.

Then they entered the Potions room, and the Headmaster sighed.

"Oh, dear… what did you do, Quirinus?"

Harry turned from checking that the potions bottles were all the same as before, and saw there was nothing but a pile of robes on the floor.

"Did he take his clothes off?" Harry asked.

"I fear not," Dumbledore replied, waving his wand and casting a charm to examine the pile. "Especially since, as your good friend Mr. Thomas suggested, none of the bottles contained anything but Draught of Living Death. No, something much worse happened here."

He looked at the coloured lights that rose from the pile of robes, then rummaged through them and picked up a wand. Harry recognized it as the one Professor Quirrell had used in class on the few occasions he'd cast a spell, and the Headmaster flourished it with the words 'Priori Incantatem'.

The image of a potions bottle floated out of the end, and Professor Snape watched it.

"A potions identification spell," he judged. "On the smallest bottle."

"How curious," Professor Dumbledore pronounced. "It seems as though my Defence Professor sought to steal the Stone almost as soon as we left, but he was so very frustrated by the changes suggested by Mr. Thomas that he has imploded. That is a pity; I shall have to see who I can get to teach the class for the rest of the year."

"Do you think it was the Dark Lord?" Professor Snape asked.

"Most likely, though we cannot be certain," Professor Dumbledore replied.

"The Dark Lord?" Harry repeated. "Is that the same person as He Who Must Not Be Named?"

"It is indeed, Harry, it is indeed," Professor Dumbledore replied. "Though his true name is Voldemort."

Harry tilted his head.

"Professor Snape?" he asked. "Is that a normal sort of Wizard name? I'm not used to Wizard names very much yet."

"At least you recognize your limitations," Professor Snape replied. "But no, it is not normal. Usually one expects a surname."

"Well, his name at school was Tom Riddle," Dumbledore clarified. "But he changed his name to Voldemort, though most people don't care to know the first and they don't care to say the second."

Both Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore kept poking their wands and casting spells on the robes for several minutes, before Professor Dumbledore stepped back.

"I believe we are now certain," he said. "Quirinus Quirrell was possessed by Tom Riddle. The two presumably met in Quirinus' sabbatical in Albania; it seems that Quirinus was running out of life, being drained slowly by his possessor, and that their attempt to gain the Stone came about in order to resolve that."

"A Stone, Professor?" Harry asked, who remembered that that had been mentioned before. "What stone? Just any stone?"

He looked back the way they'd come. "There's loads of them everywhere."

"Not any stone, no," Dumbledore said, as Professor Snape muttered something Harry didn't quite catch. "The Philosopher's Stone. It is a creation by my good friend Nicholas Flamel, which can turn base metals into gold and create the Elixir of Life."

That sounded worth getting to Harry, though he had to ask what the Elixir of Life did. Apparently it would allow the drinker to live forever, and it was full enough of life force that it would restore Quirinus to health as well as allowing Tom Riddle to create himself a new body.

"So it's down here with the Mirror of Erised?" Harry asked. "Or is the stone hidden here and the Mirror in your office? I know Dean suggested that as well, but I didn't see it… is it in the back of the wardrobe?"

Professor Snape let out another heartfelt sigh, retrieving more potion vials from his robes, and Dumbledore chuckled. "No, Harry. For, you see, the Mirror was never down here to keep people from looking into it."

Confused, Harry downed the bottle of flame-freezing potion that Professor Snape gave him – this one to let him pass through the black flames – and followed the two teachers into the next room.

The golden-rimmed, claw-footed Mirror of Erised was still there, and Harry looked around in case there was something else in the room – but there was nothing but what had been there last time.

Professor Snape appeared to be mildly distracted by something in the Mirror for a moment, then shook his head, and Harry cleared his throat.

"Sir?" he asked. "Is the Philosopher's Stone hidden here? Or is that what you hid in your office instead?"

"It is indeed hidden here," Professor Dumbledore answered. "And now all I must do is to get it out of the Mirror, where I hid it."

He looked into it, smiling, then his smile turned into a frown.

"What a pity," he said. "I was sure that that would work. It will terribly disappoint Nicholas and Perenelle if I must tell them I have lost their stone."

"How did you hide it, Professor?" Harry said, looking into the mirror himself. It was a little different, this time, showing what Harry was sure was a part of Midkemia rolling by below the wings of the family of dragons, and he looked away quickly.

"I had intended that only someone who wanted to find the Philosopher's Stone but not use it would be able to retrieve it," Dumbledore explained, his wand out. "Once such a person looked into the mirror, it would drop neatly into their pocket. I must admit I am disappointed, I had thought it one of my finer pieces of Charms work."

Harry had a sudden thought.

"I think I know what happened, Professor," he explained. "What would happen if someone who wanted a collection of valuable objects looked into the mirror?"

Professor Snape looked at Harry, then at the mirror, and back to Harry.

"This is another of those dragon things, isn't it, Mr. Potter?" he asked. "Like your remarkable resilience to spellfire, or your tendency to eat everything you can get your claws on? Are you telling me that you managed to get the Stone out of the mirror the moment you came in here?"

"I don't think so," Harry replied. "I, um… I think I got it out about three and a half months ago? It was really tasty, so I've been saving it for when I wanted to celebrate something."

The Potions teacher could only blink.

"Well, it seems it has been in someone's bedroom all this time!" Dumbledore chuckled. "Two points to Gryffindor for admirable self-restraint, I might say. And how do you know how it tastes?"

"I nibbled it a bit," Harry explained.

"Do we need to have that discussion about not consuming Potions ingredients again?" Professor Snape asked, his hand on his forehead. "And yes, Mr. Potter, I am fully aware that you did not know it was a Potions ingredient."

"Perhaps we should repair to Mr. Potter's bedroom," Dumbledore suggested. "There he can put away today's purchases, and we can also retrieve Nicholas' stone to return to him now the immediate danger has passed."

"Professor?" Harry asked. "I still have some questions about what happened. I thought that Tom Riddle died when he tried to kill me and it didn't happen."

"Indeed, in an ideal world that would be the case," Professor Dumbledore agreed. "But it seems that he survived, in some way which I do not yet understand."

He crouched down to give Harry's shoulder a squeeze. "And you can be sure, Harry, that I will be doing my best to ensure that he does not harm any of my students… or former students."

Dumbledore paused. "Or friends, or acquaintances. Or even people I dislike, or have never had the pleasure of meeting."

"So, in short, the country," Professor Snape drawled.

"That sounds like a much simpler way of saying it, Severus," Dumbledore agreed. "Now, I believe the curtain of flames may be dispensed with..."

A few more questions came to Harry's mind as they progressed back through the challenges – the troll still floating in a state of befuddlement – and made their way up through the trapdoor into the main castle.

"Wouldn't it be possible that Mr. Riddle would still be able to get at the Philosopher's Stone?" he asked.

"Perhaps, perhaps," Dumbledore replied. "But I am sure that Nicholas has his own plans for how to conceal the Stone – he has had many months to come up with new ones."

"That's the other thing, though, Sir," Harry went on, as Dumbledore levitated Professor Snape up through the trap door. "Hasn't anyone ever tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone before?"

"Many have," the Professor agreed. "But Nicholas asked me to protect it, so I felt it best to lend my expertise. I am still rather proud of that enchantment to keep it in the mirror, even though as we have both discovered today it is a little less strict than I would like."

The Professor vanished with a sharp crack, and a moment later he waved from the top of the trapdoor. "Up here whenever you please, Harry."

"I remember reading something about how you couldn't do that sort of thing in Hogwarts, Sir," Harry said, as they reached the Fat Lady.

"That's correct, Harry," Dumbledore confirmed. "You cannot Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts because of a pair of jinxes laid over the building and the grounds. Leo Major."

"I doubt I could stop you, Headmaster," the Fat Lady laughed, concealing her mouth with a fan, and swung aside.

"Albus, the boy has a point," Professor Snape said, when it became clear that Dumbledore wasn't going to elaborate.

"Oh, that's simple," the headmaster replied. "I'm the Headmaster. I'm the one who controls the jinxes, and I can exempt them wherever and whenever I feel like."

They were interrupted for a few moments as the Gryffindors who'd stayed at the school over the Easter Holidays noticed them, and Fred and George made a break for their room.

"Concealing contraband, no doubt," Professor Snape said laconically, as the sound of their footsteps faded. "They should count themselves lucky that is not what we're here for."

Percy got up as the closest Prefect. "Headmaster? Is something wrong? Shouldn't it be Professor McGonagall here, rather than Professor Snape?"

"No, not at all," Dumbledore assured him. "Professor McGonagall is far too busy with marking. Professor Snape and I are just getting something that Mr. Potter was so kind as to keep out of the way."

He snapped his fingers. "That reminds me, I should write Mr. Thomas a letter for all his help. Do you think I should send it by owl?"

"Maybe," Harry answered, as they reached the stairs. "I think it would be better to send him a letter by Muggle post, though… or you could tell him when he gets back to Hogwarts."

It was the work of only a few minutes to retrieve the somewhat nibbled Magnum Opus of Nicholas Flamel, and Dumbledore thanked Harry for all his help with such sincerity that he felt his cheeks heating up a little.

He'd been thinking a bit while he excavated the Philosopher's Stone from under his invisibility cloak, his pile of sweet wrappers (not quite as tasty as the sweets, but nobody else wanted them so he liked to collect them up) and his books, and as Professor Dumbledore pronounced the stone 'only slightly foxed and a little dragoned' Harry held up his paw.

"Professor?" he said, a little uncertainty. "Or, er, Professors? I've got some questions…"

"By all means, do ask them, Harry," Dumbledore advised him. "You should have no fear of asking a stupid question, unless you are already certain of both what the answer is and what my answer will be."

Professor Snape looked like he was about to object, then stopped himself.

"Well… firstly, why didn't you hide the stone under the Fidelius Charm?" he asked. "You mentioned that earlier, a spell which keeps something secret, and I know you said you have to trust someone but if Mr. Flamel could trust you then you could be the one who knows the secret."

Dumbledore stopped, and slowly raised his long index finger to his chin.

"What an excellent idea," he pronounced.

"Albus," Professor Snape began flatly. "I don't believe you could possibly have forgotten about the Fidelius Charm."

"My most sincere apologies, Severus," Dumbledore replied. "It seems my memory may be going in my old age. Why, some weeks I barely remember the names of all my students, such as Mr. Porter here."

He said it so matter-of-factly that Harry snorted with laughter, and Professor Snape let out a long sigh.

"I shall recommend it to Nicholas forthwith," the Headmaster promised. "And what was your other question, Harry?"

"It's about that spell from Diagon Alley," Harry explained.

"That, Harry, is the Patronus Charm," Dumbledore told him. "It is a very advanced piece of magic, and it is the finest example of a spell for Defence Against the Dark Arts that cannot be a Dark Spell. Unfortunately, it is also one which in the normal course of your education you would not learn until after your Ordinary Wizarding Levels at least."

He winked. "I'm sure you'll have it done by Fourth Year. And before you ask, the Patronus is unique to the caster, and why it is that way is a personal matter. I'm afraid that Professor Snape would be quite within his rights to be offended if you asked why his Patronus was what it was."

"All right, Professor," Harry agreed. "Thank you – and thank you for your help today, as well."

"I think you will find, Mr. Potter, that it is you who have done me a great favour today," Professor Dumbledore replied. "Now, I fear I must find someone to take over the Defence job for the next term. It is such a shame when someone quits without giving me any notice of the job opening… perhaps that should be in the contract."

After they had left, Harry carefully put his new tent in the bottom of his trunk.

For now, all that it really meant was that he didn't have to worry about buying too many books.

Then, because it still wasn't all that late, he went to the Ravenclaw Library for an hour or so of light reading, before heading back to the Gryffindor Common Room to do some homework.

It may have been quite a big day, but homework was still homework.

"Blimey," Ron said, when Harry told him about what had happened. "That's… odd."

"I know," Harry agreed. "To think that, um… Tom Riddle got into Hogwarts."

"Who?" Ron blinked.

"Well, I could keep calling him You-Know-Who, but until today I didn't Know Who," Harry pointed out. "The Dark Lord sounds kind of like I'm saying he is one, and I don't think he's a Lord – I did find a list of Lords once but Riddle and Voldemort both weren't on there-"

Ron yelped. "Bloody hell, Harry, warn me before you say that!"

"-and that's why I don't want to use that name," Harry continued. "Sorry."

His friend waved his hand. "It's okay. It was just kind of a shock."

Harry nodded. "And He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is really kind of clumsy. But Tom Riddle's his real name. I'm not sure if I should call him Tom or Riddle or both, though."

He frowned, lashing his tail. "Actually… now I said Dark Lord, and now I know he somehow didn't actually die, it reminds me a bit of Sauron. He could survive being killed – um, hold on, that doesn't sound like it makes sense. He could still be around after exploding because he has a ring he made, which he used to make him more powerful, but it meant that they had to destroy the ring to kill him."

"You've lost me, mate," Ron admitted. "Who's Sauron?"

Harry contemplated throwing one of his copies of The Lord Of The Rings at Ron.

It was a few days later when a letter arrived from Mr. Lupin, telling Harry how very impressed he was with how Harry had done on Monday.

Apparently the way that Harry had stood in front of the Wizengamot and answered all their questions honestly and to the best of his ability, or possibly the way in which he'd been visibly offended by the idea of someone making a law that mentioned him specifically, had been 'very Marauder'. Harry wasn't sure what a Marauder was, and Ron didn't know either, but he assumed it had to be good.

Apart from that, Mr. Lupin asked some questions about how Harry was getting on with schoolwork (answer, quite well though he didn't think he'd be in the top few people in the class, because of Ravenclaws and Hermione) and what he thought he'd do for his O. (though Harry hadn't really come to a decision yet, because they didn't have to make their choice for at least a full year).

It was a nice letter to have, even without the knowledge that Mr. Lupin was sort of like an unofficial uncle with how he'd known Harry's parents, and Harry wondered whether he could visit Mr. Lupin some time during the holidays.

Most of the rest of the holiday was just taken up with Harry's by-now-normal schedule, featuring homework, book reading, and the occasional flight to Fort William or Portree to see if any new books had come in.

Harry had finally managed to sort out a library card, which gave his address at the same place the Pride of Portree's lead Beater used as his Muggle address – as a wizard married to a Muggle woman, it was something he needed – and so he could have built up his collection very quickly by just taking out the maximum number of books every weekend and copying the lot. But that didn't really seem right, to Harry, and so he restrained himself a bit and only duplicated the ones he thought it was almost certain he'd want to read more than once.

That still gave him a steadily expanding pile of books, and it was supplemented by buying newer books from the bookshops. One of them was a bit of a guess about whether he'd like it, and the first chapters weren't really to his taste, but once he reached the bit about the planet populated by wolf-like beings who were only able to think like Beings did in small groups – that hooked him, and he didn't stop until he'd read the whole of A Fire Upon The Deep.

He didn't really follow the chapters where everything was all sci-fi-ish – it was much harder to follow than anything Anne McCaffrey had written – but it had been quite a delight to read about Tines' World, and he wondered if maybe there could be a book that was entirely set there.

Though perhaps not, if only because Ron had been worried about him – he'd spent the entire day lying on his bed, missing at least two meals.

"Hey, um… Harry?" Ron said, as the holiday drew to a close. "You know our Defence Against the Dark Arts homework? Who are we going to hand that in to?"

Harry put his quill in the inkwell, not wanting to continue his Charms essay during the conversation, and frowned.

"I don't know," he admitted. "We can't hand them in to Professor Quirrell, because he's sort of not there any more. But Professor Dumbledore did say he'd be trying to get a teacher for Defence, so maybe we should hand them in to them?"

"I just hope the new DADA teacher doesn't say Quirrell was all wrong," Ron grumbled. "I'm having enough trouble learning this."

Harry snorted.

"No, it's not that," he said in apology, in case Ron was offended. "I know what you mean. It's just – I like 'Dada teacher'. It sounds like someone who teaches dancing."

"Oh, yeah, I get what you mean," Ron realized. "I'm going to be teaching you – Da da!"

That gave them both a good laugh, and Harry went back to the Charms essay. It was his last one for the holiday, and he was quite proud of how he'd spaced them out between his revision to make them easier.

That afternoon, Harry flew down to visit Hagrid. It felt sort of odd doing that by himself, but Ron was still only about halfway through his Defence notes to write out an essay, and Harry was uncomfortably aware he hadn't visited his big friend for at least a week.

To his surprise, Fluffy was sitting outside the hut with Hagrid, alongside a sleek grey wolf with brown socks and a white tailtip. They all looked up as Harry flew overhead, and Harry heard one of Fluffy's heads saying something about 'don't worry' before he was out of earshot.

Banking around to shed speed, Harry flared his wings and landed on all four paws not far from the hut.

"Harry, good to see yeh," Hagrid welcomed him with a broad smile.

"Yeah, sorry about how long it's been," Harry replied. "I'm surprised to see you out of the castle, Fluffy."

"Ah, of course, you wouldn't have known," Fluffy mused, two heads nodding while the third affected aloof disinterest.

"The Headmaster said we didn't need to protect the Stone an'y more," Hagrid jumped in. "But 'e said that Fluffy could stay on the grounds. We're usin' a blanket for now, Fluffy's happy enough outside, but for winter we'd better sort summat else out."

"Really, Rubeus, there's no need at all to go to the trouble," Fluffy's left head said with a carefully fang-hidden smile, and he prodded the big man with a paw hard enough to knock most people over. "I will be quite happy to camp out under the stars, I daresay the company makes it an improvement on the Forbidden Forest!"

The wolf whined, and Fluffy's middle head laughed.

"I'm sure my brother meant nothing by it," he said. "You and yours are, of course, delightful company – but you cannot deny your English is some of the best of the whole pack."

"Oh, you're one of those," Harry realized. "I'm sorry, but I don't know the name of your species."

"A species is your type of wolf, instead of the other type of wolf," Fluffy's middle head clarified. "Or close enough to be going on with."

"I am not sure," the wolf said then, and the voice was probably-female – Harry hadn't met any other wolves who could speak, but it sounded higher in pitch than Fluffy even after allowing for the difference in their sizes. There was a strange accent, as well, but it was easier to follow than someone like Professor Quirrell. "There is our name for us, but that is not a name that human people can, um… say?"

"Pronounce, I think," Fluffy's left head told her. "That's the word you're after."

"Pronounce, yes," the wolf agreed.

Harry smiled. "Oh, are you having English lessons? That's great!"

The wolfess dipped her head slightly. "Thank you."

Harry sat down, thinking about that.

"Do you have a name?" he asked, trying not to use words that were too complicated in case she hadn't learned them yet. "And I can try saying a few things that might work for a human way of saying your type of people."

"Have a name," she agreed. "Name is-"

She yipped.

Harry tilted his head, trying to work out how to spell that, and the wolf's tongue lolled out in a laugh.

"But can call me June Forrester," she added. "Is easier name to say for people who speak English."

June was quite pleasant to talk to, and said that she wanted to learn to read and write as well – something which Fluffy said would take a little more time, writing especially, but he was sure they'd work something out.

Harry did notice that there was a fire going in Hagrid's house as well, despite the fact they were all outside, but it didn't seem all that important – maybe it was for the benefit of Fang, the big Irish Wolfhound who was nowhere to be seen.

After a bit of thought, and some explanation of where the names came from, June rejected 'Tine' and 'Direwolf', but quite liked the sound of 'Warg' even after it was explained that their appearances in the Lord of the Rings books were not complimentary.

"I can see what my family thinks of it," she decided.

"Actually, um… I did want to ask something," Harry added. "I've read some books which mention wolves – normal ones, though sometimes they're smart like your family is – and they say that wolves have alphas who are in charge. Is that right?"

June tilted her head.

"Yes," she said. "If by that you mean we have parents. But if not, no."

"Most people tend to at least start off with parents, or so I've heard," Fluffy's middle head contributed. "Meaning you no disrespect, of course, Harry."

"It's fine," Harry assured him, then looked back up at the castle. "I'd probably better go back and check on Ron's essay. He said he'd be done with it this afternoon, and that means we should have tomorrow free."

"Well, tell 'im from me that I hope you do well in your exams and suchlike," Hagrid told Harry.

The young Black-Backed Bookwyrm spread his wings and powered into the air, making the fur on the two canines ruffle, and circled once before heading for the Owlery.

It was nice to meet someone local.

When Hermione, Dean and Neville got back after the break, the first thing Dean did was to show them all the letter he'd got – one which thanked him officially for helping Mr. Nicholas Flamel with a matter of keeping hold of one of his prized possessions.

Apparently he'd been paid a few thousand pounds, too, though Harry wasn't really sure how Mr. Flamel had managed to pay lots of money to a Muggle family without it being suspicious – but, then again, Mr. Flamel was over six hundred years old, so he was probably really good with money or he wouldn't have any left.

That made perfect sense as far as Harry was concerned.

Once he'd given his version of events, though, and everyone had finished talking about Fast Food (which had taken up about half an hour, Harry and Dean and Hermione trying to explain to the two Wizard-raised boys about how useful it was to be able to buy food that had been cooked and neither Neville nor Ron – who had a House-Elf and a mother who was an excellent cook respectively – really getting it) then the topic turned to homework.

Ron was able to show off that he'd done all his essays in good time, Dean asked for a bit of help on his Potions essay – which turned out to be something Neville could help him with – and then they all did some practice with the spells they'd learned so far that year. Some of them needed something particular to work on, but for the ones which didn't it was good enough and Neville was relieved to get help on that.

"Oh!" Hermione realized, after they were done talking about that. "Hold on a moment, I've got something I brought back with me."

She vanished upstairs, and came back down a few minutes later with a newspaper article.

"So this looks like it might be real," she explained, putting it down. "It's from a few months ago. Ron, you remember what a pulsar is?"

"Um… hold on," Ron asked, frowning. "That's… that's one of those stars which kind of flashes very fast, right? But it's only with radio, or something."

"That's close enough," Hermione agreed. "Well, scientists seem to have found that one of them that's about, um… five hundred parsecs, I think that's about fifteen hundred light years away… has two planets around it."

Harry felt his own jaw drop, and pushed it shut again with a paw – and he wasn't the only one.

"That sounds really, really amazing," Dean said. "That's, like – that's got to be science fiction stuff, right? Sounds like Star Wars, or Star Trek or whatever."

"Oh, we've got to show Ron one of those," Hermione agreed with her friend. "It's a shame we don't have a television here."

Classes started again the next day, and it was right back to the normal schedule – going to lessons, which now included a lot of revising, along with doing homework and everything else they were involved with. There was so much that Harry sort of wondered how it was that the teachers could manage to mark it all, and for that matter how it was that Percy Weasley wasn't going slightly mad with twelve O.W.L exams to study for and only twenty-four hours in a day.

Their Defence lessons had a surprise, though, which Harry supposed would have been even more of a surprise to anyone who hadn't heard about the sudden disappearance of Professor Quirrell – their class was run by someone called Sturgis Podmore, a tough-looking straw-haired wizard in his mid-thirties, who introduced himself as an Auror and who said that because Professor Quirrell had 'unexpectedly quit' (his words) he had been asked by his good friend the Headmaster to do their lessons for the next couple of months.

Ron barely held in a groan when Mr. Podmore – who insisted he wasn't a Professor – announced that he wouldn't be marking their essays from over the holidays, as he hadn't set them and wouldn't know what they'd been taught. But when he went on from that to start outlining exactly how half-a-dozen minor jinxes could be used to protect yourself during a fight (even if your plan was to run away) everyone was soon a fan, and while it was fairly clear that Mr. Podmore wasn't really very good at teaching it was certainly obvious that he was much better than Professor Quirrell had ever been… if only because he didn't stutter.

It looked like his plan was to go through the whole curriculum at breakneck speed, doing a year's worth of subject matter in two months, and Harry left the Defence classroom both headache-free and having thoroughly enjoyed himself for the first time since coming to Hogwarts.

Even if it did mean that they had yet more essays, with their first one being 'write down all the spells Professor Quirrell taught you and how he taught you to use them' – something which Harry thought would probably interfere with his plans to read a new book by the person behind the Valdemar series.

It said that it had fast cars and elves in it, which was odd enough that he was quite eager to see where those bits all came from – but not eager enough to skimp on school work, since he knew he could always read it over the summer instead if he was busy until then.

Chapter Text

"Hey, uh… mate?"

Harry looked up, swallowing down a bout of hysterical laughter he could feel bubbling up. He'd been reading about Arnold Rimmer's exam preparations in a book called Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, and the description of just how Rimmer got himself ready for the exams – which had involved spending five months drawing up a six-month colour-coded revision chart, panicking, spending more time drawing up a shorter colour-coded revision chart, more panicking, dubious maths, heavy doses of what he thought were amphetamines and finally what amounted to a fairly serious psychotic break where he wrote that he was a fish hundreds of times over on the exam paper.

He was thinking of showing this bit to Hermione – or perhaps Percy – but right now Dean was looking worried so he did his best to forget about what he'd been reading.

"What is it?" Harry asked Dean, though before he could reply Ron joined him in looking worried too.

"You might want to see this," he said. "It's down at Hagrid's hut."

"Right," Harry agreed, putting a bookmark in his book. "Let's go."

He paused for a moment at the window, then decided not to jump out – he'd probably have to wait until his friends arrived anyway.

When they got down to the hut, Hermione was already there and trying to remind Hagrid that he lived in a wooden house. June was outside, being walked through the alphabet by Fluffy by the looks of it, but Dean and Ron were so worried that Harry just waved a hello before heading into the hut and shutting the door.

"I swear it's hotter than it was ten minutes ago," Dean groaned.

Harry wondered what was going on, and why Hagrid was stoking the fire so high. So, naturally, he asked Hagrid, and his friend blushed. (Possibly. The heat had already left Hagrid quite ruddy, so it was a little hard to tell.)

"Well, um… see, after Fluffy and me talked about it, I worked out it was a mistake, an' all," the half-giant said. "But, well… I got drunk, a few weeks ago..."

Hagrid told them – or, at least, Harry, since it seemed like the others already knew – a story of how someone had approached him in one of the pubs in Hogsmeade, and offered him the chance of taking care of a dragon egg. Hagrid explained that he'd known that the egg wouldn't hatch into anything like Harry, because he knew Harry had used to be a human, but that having a dragon to raise had been his dream for decades.

He also mentioned how getting hold of the egg had involved a lot of gambling, some drinking, and how he'd accidentally let slip how to get past a Cerberus like Fluffy.

Harry absorbed all of that, thinking about how that meant that there was a dragon egg in the fire and that Hagrid was going to do his best to try and take care of it – in spite of how illegal it was.

However, there was something else he wanted to ask.

"So… this dragon dealer?" he asked, when Hagrid was done. "Did he have a stutter?"

"What?" Hagrid asked, visibly confused. "No, not at all. Why? That something I should expect?"

"Well, that might have been Quirrell," Harry explained. "Possessed by Riddle. But if he didn't have the stutter-"

"Well, come to think of it, he never used ter have the stutter," Hagrid mused. "Had it when 'e came back, though he was always a nervous sort…"

"Can we talk about the dragon?" Hermione asked. "Hagrid, this is such a bad idea on so many levels. You could get hurt, Fang could get hurt, you could lose your house, and it's illegal as well!"

Harry nodded. "I think Hermione's right. This really isn't something you should keep secret."

Hagrid sighed, sounding dejected.

"What about if we let Professor Kettleburn or Professor Dumbledore know?" Harry suggested. "I'm sure that if there's a way to sort this out, they can handle it. Professor Dumbledore helped me just a few weeks ago."

"Reckon you're right," Hagrid agreed, and Hermione looked distinctly relieved that Harry had managed to convince their big friend.

"Maybe if you have to get rid of it then Charlie could help?" Ron suggested. "That way at least you'd know where to go to visit?"

That idea seemed to help, and they left a bit later with Hagrid having already written a letter to Dumbledore; Harry took it to the Owlery for him, and had Hedwig carry it to the Headmaster.

It was a bit of a complicated way to do things, but it did get the message to where it had to go.

The next few days were taken up with homework and classwork, as Mr. Podmore did his best to cram an entire year's Defence education into them in eight weeks despite being (as he himself put it) 'not actually very good at teaching', and much the same thing was going on in the other classes as well.

Professor Snape randomly asked questions in Potions, sometimes while they were in the middle of brewing another potion entirely, and took a point if the person in question didn't answer correctly and promptly or if they hesitated in their brewing; Professor McGonagall stressed how to tie up a Transfiguration spell so the result had no features of the original animal; Professor Flitwick started having them perform simple tasks like writing the heading for their notes with Charms instead of using their hands.

Professor Binns just kept going steadily through the curriculum, but then that was Professor Binns for you.

Harry also graduated to using one broom, and after so long working with the two brooms he'd had before, the switch to the single one was actually quite easy – much easier than he'd found it the first time around. Madam Hooch even told him that he'd probably be able to pass the broom proficiency test within the fortnight.

Then Hagrid asked them all down to his hut, and when they got there it was to find Professor Kettleburn already inside.

"Well done, all of you," were his first words. "You did the right thing to get Rubeus to report the egg, and you'll be pleased to know that Mr. Diggory from the Magical Creatures Department and Madam Bones from the Magical Law Enforcement department have officially assigned the egg to be seized as the proceeds of an illegal sale."

That made Harry frown, then look over at Hagrid – who certainly didn't look as sad as Harry thought he'd be if he'd lost the egg.

"...Sir?" he asked.

Kettleburn chuckled. "Well, of course they couldn't get rid of it! Dragons aren't common, you know, and fortunately I happen to be one of the few people in the country qualified to actually hatch a dragon and see it through the first few months."

"An' I'm helpin' him!" Hagrid burst out, unable to contain his happiness any longer.

"There are going to be a few precautions, though," Professor Kettleburn added, looking over at the egg still resting in the fire. "For one, I'll be applying a flame-freezing charm weekly – adult dragons can't be affected by it, but my hope is that this will allow us to teach the hatchling about what you can or cannot breathe fire on."

As he went on, detailing the ways in which he was going to be taking great care over the hatched dragon, Harry sat back and started wondering just how intelligent other dragons were.

He was obviously very much a different type of dragon, both with how he'd started out as human and how he was eleven years old and still not very big at all, but all other dragons grew up in the wild. Was it sort of like how fire lizards were instinctual, but if they bonded with a human and grew up with them they were brighter and more alert – like Zair? (Or Jhereg, which were more-or-less the same way.)

The idea of all dragons being as smart as people was sort of scary, with how much wizards used their body parts for things, but maybe some dragons were – well – as smart as a dog? Or as smart as Hedwig? They wouldn't be the ones which showed up doing stupid things, so they'd be more likely to survive…

"But where are you going to keep it?" Hermione was asking. "Dragons can fly, can't they?"

"We did think of that, Miss Granger," Professor Kettleburn chuckled. "You may be aware of a set of chambers deep inside the castle which are no longer needed for their original purpose. We thought it would work out quite nicely to keep the little Norwegian Ridgeback in there for a bit, until we're sure it will come back when we want."

Harry frowned, then raised a paw. "Professor? Would it help if I got some Muggle dog training books?"

The May Quibbler had its characteristically odd take on the changes at Hogwarts. Five different articles described Professor Quirrell as: undercover trying to investigate the Rotfang conspiracy; secretly an Albanian agent who Professor Babbling had defeated in a blistering duel over Liverpool; trying to blow up the Castle; having experimented with an anti-stutter treatment that had turned him into a Nargle; actually Mr. Podmore in a wig.

The fact they all had the same byline was a little confusing.

Apart from that, the Quibbler demanded that the Ministry tell everybody what the accredited institutions of O.W.L education were, whether the Minister was being bribed by a newt, and so on and so forth.

Harry had to wonder whether some of what was in the Quibbler was actually true, but he also had to wonder how anyone could possibly tell except those who knew about it anyway. Presumably Mr. Crouch knew why he was buying so many Invisibility Cloaks, and Mr. Weasley knew why he owned a battered old car despite the existence of the Floo, but none of their guesses about Professor Quirrell was remotely correct. (Admittedly Neville had shown him that the Daily Prophet described Professor Quirrell's departure as 'suddenly and unexpectedly called away to deal with a minor physical problem', which wasn't much better even if it was sort of technically accurate. If you squinted.)

The dragon egg hatched a day or two later, and Hagid named it 'Norbert' for about thirty seconds until Professor Kettleburn checked and informed him delicately that the dragon was in fact female. Her reaction to the inspection nearly got Kettleburn slashed in the arm, but he bopped her on the nose with his prosthetic left hand and firmly told her to 'stop'.

"You have to be firm, you see," he explained to Hagrid. "It's all about habits. You tell them off when they do something you don't want, and it's praise and rewards when they do. Sort of like awarding points, but because you're dealing with a dragon you need to be a bit more direct."

Hagrid nodded, absorbing that, then helped with feeding the little dragon.

"Now, don't forget," Professor Kettleburn added. "Her fire's going to come in in a month or two, so we'll want to move her to the corridor before then-"

"Norberta!" Hagrid said.

Harry wasn't the only one who gave Hagrid a look.

"What?" he asked, defensively, though he was blushing a little. (Or Harry thought he was blushing a little. It was hard to tell under the beard.) "I thought of a name and everything, but I was so eager that Harry might be getting a wee little brother I didn't stop to think if it might be a sister instead."

He scratched the dragon under her chin, which turned out to be something she liked quite a lot – an initial growl turning into a rumbling sound that was maybe a bit like a purr instead, and Hagrid kept up the scratches as Professor Kettleburn gently articulated her wings to check on them.

"They all seem healthy," he pronounced. "Remember, Rubeus, don't let her get away with misbehaving. We want to make sure she has the right behaviour."

"Right, right," Hagrid agreed readily. "'course."

Harry's main contribution to the hatching itself, apart from being there and possibly contributing to reassuring the hatchling a little, was to suggest 'Norberth' as a name. Hagrid didn't seem like he'd quite decided between the two just yet, though.

None of Harry's friends particularly wanted to help with the raising of Norberta or Norberth, but that didn't really surprise Harry when he thought about it. All four of them were much less able to shake off being bitten by a teething dragon, or scorched if her fire came in unexpectedly early (she was already shooting sparks when she sneezed) but it was interesting enough to Harry that he was quite willing to help out – it reminded him a bit of how it was to raise a newly-hatched dragon or fire-lizard on Pern, albeit with quite a lot less cooperation, and it wasn't a chance he was likely to have again for a while.

Professor Kettleburn said that there'd be some of his Care of Magical Creatures students helping out as well if Hagrid got overworked, which was nice.

With dragon-raising, revising and his book club, Harry found his free time reduced quite a lot as the days slipped by towards the exams – but that was okay, so he didn't really mind. It was the sort of thing he expected, and there'd be more free time after the exams (a few weeks at Hogwarts, then two months of holiday) so mostly he just got on with it.

There was an odd moment when Draco told him smugly that he knew about the dragon, before having to clarify that he meant the other dragon, and Harry agreed that, yes, the newly hatched dragon was quite a sight and did Draco want to meet her?

Then Draco had said that if Professor Dumbledore found out about the dragon there'd be trouble, and Harry had to respectfully disagree. For some reason Draco took the news that the hatchling dragon was entirely authorized quite badly, and he stormed off.

Harry blinked after the disappearing Slytherin, then shrugged. "What a strange person."

"I think he was trying to threaten you," Blaise helpfully supplied. "By the way, do you want an invite to my mum's wedding in August?"

"I don't really think I'll be able to make it," Harry replied. "My aunt and uncle probably wouldn't like it. Who's your mum marrying?"

"Oh, I don't know yet, but she just married someone so there'll probably be another one by then," Blaise shrugged. "Possibly two."

"Your stepfathers really have dreadful luck," Harry commiserated, and Blaise snorted. "Maybe this one's going to be more lucky?"

"Maybe," Blaise agreed. "But… no."

Harry felt sort of bad about his friend being so fatalistic about the whole thing.

"Any idea what potion we're going to be getting?" Neville said, leafing back and forth through his slightly untidy Potions notes – Ron was off at Chess club, but he'd told them to go ahead and revise Potions anyway because that was what was on Hermione's chart.

"Why ever would we know?" Daphne said, raising an eyebrow. "We're in the same situation as you."

"But Snape likes Slytherins," Dean countered. "Isn't that right?"

"He's as impartial as anyone in this school," Daphne said haughtily. "We can't be blamed if we overhear something that gives us a clue, and we certainly can't trust the clue."

"So there's not much point passing it on to you," Tracey concluded. "Anyway, Blaise, what are the ingredients of a forgetfulness potion again? I've forgotten."

Harry wasn't sure yet quite how Slytherin that discussion had been, but he was sure it was fairly high up there.

As the weeks wore on, it seemed as though Harry's presence was sort of confusing to Norberth. He was a black dragon, like she was, but she was growing visibly from day to day – which meant that from her perspective he was shrinking, like everything else.

Of course, some Norwegian Ridgebacks did stay the same size, but that size was much larger than Harry was, and this meant that whenever she looked at him it was for long, confused periods of observation as to why a dragon that was supposed to be bigger than her was now getting towards being smaller than her… or that was what Harry thought was going on, at least.

Then, about a week before the exams – and despite the demands of revision – Harry happened to be there when an important milestone was crossed. Norberth went momentarily cross-eyed, then exhaled a thin blast of flame that rolled over the bucket of rats she was busily eating her way through.

Thanks to Professor Kettleburn's flame-freezing charm, the jet didn't set fire to the contents of the bucket (or the floor) and Hagrid was terribly pleased by the result.

"Just look at that!" he said. "She's got her fire, yes she has!"

Norberth crooned a little as he scratched her under the chin, then blasted Hagrid in the face with the second jet of flames.

"Hey, now!" Hagrid rebuked her, giving her a light swat on the nose – enough that she noticed, at least. "None of that."

The dragon reared back a bit, then breathed flame on her lunch again. When that didn't earn a swat, she tried doing it to the rest of the floor (swat), then the table (swat), then Harry (which got two swats, even though Harry himself wasn't vulnerable to fire – another student would be, after all).

Then Norberth did her best to set the entirety of Hagrid's hut on fire, which didn't work but which did fill the room with smoke.

Hagrid clearly had some work to do with teaching her what could and what could not be breathed on, which was why Norberth (or Norberta, since nobody had quite decided which name to use for her) would be spending much of the next few months indoors.

The exams came all at once, during the first real rush of summer heat. Everyone moaned about it a bit, though Harry was once more grateful for his unusual biology and didn't have much trouble with it.

All seven of the core subjects had at least one theory paper, an hour of answering questions or filling out charts to demonstrate how much they knew. Astronomy was mostly about identifying pretend starfields, as it was so bright in the evenings now that it wasn't really possible to get a proper night time, while Transfiguration involved things like Gamp's Laws and the Principles of Similarity. There were questions where Harry had to write down the right option from three or four, questions where it said most of a sentence and he had to fill in the important words, questions where they had to sort and join up a transfiguration chain with spells you knew (complete with the incantations) and questions where the paper asked why someone in a duel would cast a stunning spell or a tooth-growing hex.

A lot more of it was about simply remembering things, from the inventor of a spell and when they invented it (the Lumos charm had come surprisingly late) to people who had said or done other important things – or what they'd done – and Harry found himself having to try hard not to get confused with all of his fantasy reading. It wouldn't do at all to say that one of the registered animagi was Belgarion, or that the one thing you couldn't do with magic was make something vanish, or even anything to do with wards.

By comparison, the practicals were sort of easy for the most part – or Harry thought so, at least. The potion was one he remembered (and it turned out that the Slytherins hadn't been trying to fake them out, though Harry had revised everything anyway) while the transfiguration spell was one that he got right and only Neville had any real trouble with out of their group.

Defence involved throwing different kinds of sparks, both forwards to dazzle an opponent and up into the air to ask for help, and Harry thought about showing off that he could cast that spell by breathing out sharply but decided not to (in case he accidentally set the examiner on fire).

The whole thing was very different from the SATs that Harry had done in primary school, and from the eleven-plus as well. There was a bit of Maths in Astronomy, and obviously everything had to be written down so that was sort of like English, but there wasn't any separate Level 6 papers for harder questions.

It was even less like the eleven-plus, which was lots of short questions from easy to difficult where you were scored by how many you got right… and Harry suddenly wondered about something.

Hogwarts had been around for a thousand years. So what did exam papers look like back when it was first built?

That thought kept him stifling giggles through the otherwise quite dry history exam, as he imagined a paper with questions like 'History: There's Not Much Of It Yet' and 'Who Founded Hogwarts?' being set by Godric Gryffindor and the other Founders.

Then, finally – at long last – the exams were over.

Harry had a backlog of books most of two months long, Ron wanted them all to borrow school brooms and go flying, Neville was fretting about how well he'd done in Potions, and Dean was disappointed that they weren't able to have some kind of actual fight in the Defence practical.

Hermione's initial plans to ask about how everyone had done and to look up all the answers had been roundly rebuffed by all four of them, but Harry thought for a bit before deciding to try something else – finding Percy once he'd finished with his O.W.L exams and asking if he wanted to talk with Hermione about them.

The Prefect was quite tired, after twelve subjects and perhaps twenty exams in the space of little more than a week, but he was more than happy to talk to Hermione about it, and Harry left the two of them with a sense of a job well done.

Really, his first year of secondary school had been very pleasant all around – and with the exams over, it wasn't exactly going to get worse.

Though, admittedly, more than half of the Defence questions would have been very hard indeed if they'd been relying on just what Professor Quirrell had taught. It was a pity Mr. Podmore had already left, even if most of what he'd done was just do intensive practical lessons and get them to read the entire textbook front to back in two months.

Except for two things, it would have felt like the whole castle was breathing a relaxed sigh for the whole of the next two weeks.

The first of the two things was Norberta, who was still growing – though more slowly now, in that she wasn't doubling in length, she was still gaining weight and bulking out as well as developing her wings. Her flame breath was becoming something she could keep up for longer and shoot further, as well, and that meant keeping up her gradual exposure training to humans (teaching her that she wasn't allowed to bite them or set them on fire) as well as things like the Wargs and Centaurs of the Forbidden Forest (teaching her that she wasn't allowed to bite them or set them on fire) and Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes (teaching her that she physically could not set him on fire).

Fortunately the need for lessons on what could be incinerated didn't extend to lessons on what Norberta needed to do to fly, which turned out to be largely instinctual. Harry himself got involved with those, following Norberta on her first flight and then on the following twice-daily flights as they grew in length and distance, and it seemed like the young dragoness was getting the idea that she was meant to not stray too far from Hogwarts.

It turned out that the dog training books helped out quite a lot for things like that.

Harry had honesty expected that once it became blatantly obvious that there was a dragon being raised at Hogwarts there would have been more of a reaction, but there really wasn't – so perhaps it was just that having a dragon in class and in book club and all the other things Harry had been doing just made it a bit less exciting when there was also a dragon flying past half a mile or so away.

That was Harry's guess, anyway, but he wasn't a humanologist and the closest thing to that that Hogwarts offered was a third-year class in Muggle Studies.

The second thing was House competition, and six days after the end of the exams was the final Quidditch game of the year – this time Gryffindor playing Ravenclaw.

It was much better than the Hufflepuff game, for more than one reason. One was that it lasted about half an hour, which was a much better length than the three-hour slog that the previous Gryffindor game had been. It was also one where the Gryffindor Chaser team did considerably better than they had before, which was a sign of good training and that the team was finally starting to shake out. Ravenclaw had managed to rack up an early lead, and a large one, but the Gryffindor team hung on at about a seventy point deficit before slowly turning it around into a points credit. Ten points up, twenty points up… then just ten, then back to twenty…

It was much more enjoyable than any of the other games that year, and when it ended it was because the Ravenclaw captain made a decision to just have their Seeker catch the Snitch and take the win (by about fifty points) rather than aim to get points off Gryffindor to let them win the Quidditch Cup. That felt like a nice result, and though Oliver Wood was depressed that they hadn't turned it into a win everyone else was just glad that Gryffindor had made Ravenclaw work for their points.

That also meant that Hufflepuff won the Quidditch Cup, and had a narrow lead in the House Cup as well, with not much else that anyone could really do to catch up with them.

The last few days of the term were busy, for Harry – he made three trips to Fort William, filling out his collection with copied library books while he could still cast spells, and set up his tent to pile them into his library (along with most of his possessions, leaving only a set of robes and a few other things he'd need for the next day or so).

He finally managed to cast a spell besides the spark spells with his mouth, meaning that Bluebell Flames joined his repertoire of ways he could sort-of-breathe-fire without actually breathing fire, and that led to a kind of water-gun fight except that everyone was using bluebell flames. It was enormous fun, like a snowball fight in the summer, and it left a big patch of the Hogwarts grounds looking like a forest fire until Hermione helpfully dispelled the lot.

In between those things, and taking part in the decision of what the book was going to be for the book club over the summer, Harry wrote most of a letter to Mr. Lupin.

The letter mentioned how Fred and George Weasley had tried to prank Norberth, and how the dragon had sort of snorted at them before just going back to sleep – which was an important milestone, Professor Kettleburn said, because it showed that the dragoness had learned who not to attack. (It also showed that Fred and George were terminally stupid, of course, but Professor Kettleburn said that that wasn't new at all.)

Harry also took care to make some book recommendations, labelling each one with what was good about them – like how Dragonflight was the start of reading about a different and wonderful world, or how Pawn of Prophecy was (as the name suggested) about a prophecy, but how the prophecy itself was a character who was a surprising amount of fun to be around.

He asked a few questions about his parents, things that hadn't occurred to him before now, and mentioned how he was thinking of trying out for Quidditch in second year. Apart from that, it was mostly just keeping in touch with the only person he knew who was about the right age to be friends with his parents (and Harry wondered if maybe they could meet up over the summer, but that was something he could work out in July or August).

The only thing that Harry didn't fill out was the bit about how many marks he'd got in his exams, because they didn't give those out until after the leaving feast.

When it came, the Leaving Feast deserved the capital letters. The food was excellent, everyone was enjoying one of their last meals at Hogwarts, and it was held with yellow and black on the walls and badger banners flying high – Hufflepuff happily celebrating their hard work and good luck in managing to eke out a win over Slytherin, thanks in no small part to their excellent Quidditch team.

Some of the Gryffindors were grumbling about bias, but Harry didn't think it was very serious. He was sure they'd all be celebrating if they'd won, after all, and Professor Sprout looked very happy indeed as she accepted the House Cup so he was happy for her and for her Badgers.

Harry made sure to eat until he was full, not because he expected to eat badly back home at Privet Weyr (or Privet Drive, as humans called it) but because it was just so tasty and he was going to be doing a lot of flying over the summer, and also took pains to get the addresses of all of his friends who lived remotely close to London. Dean and Hermione both lived actually in London, albeit in the outskirts, so Harry thought he could actually fly there without too much trouble… but Ron was all the way over in Devon and Neville lived up in the Yorkshire Dales, both of them much too far to reach easily.

Professor Dumbledore also gave a speech, choosing to stand up to speak about halfway through pudding.

"Before you are all too busily occupied in digestion," he began, "I wished to announce to you all that Hogwarts now has a school mascot. We have not had one for a while, and I wished to correct this terrible oversight promptly as soon as I noticed it."

There were a few scattered chuckles, and the Headmaster continued. "Doubtless you have not yet seen our new mascot, but it is my pleasure to inform you that the Norwegian Ridgeback that you may catch the odd glimpse of is in fact our mascot, and that her name is either Norberta, Nora or Norberth depending on who it is who is informing me of that detail."

He smiled. "Fortunately, unlike the custom in some Muggle schools, I will not be asking one of you to take care of her over the summer. Thank you for your time."

With that, he sat down, and Harry shrugged before continuing to eat his pudding.

He had four forks and six spoons, this time, and he took care to eat every last one of them. He still wasn't sure if the kind of dragon he was needed to have some things like metal or glass as nutrients, but it probably wouldn't be polite to eat Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's cutlery.

Their marks arrived the following morning, during the last full day, and Harry wrote them into his letter to Mr. Lupin – quite proud of his overall high marks, though he hadn't done as well as Hermione and said so – before folding it into an envelope and flying up to hand it over to Hedwig.

"See if you can wait at his house for a day or so," Harry advised her, as he tied the letter to her leg. "I'll put the tent up once I'm home and set your cage up, and hopefully Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon will be all right with that."

They probably would, if only because Harry wasn't going to tell them anything about what he was doing except that he'd stay up in the loft, but that was probably the better option for everyone if you thought about it.

The next day, on the train, Dean looked at his wand.

"It's going to be so bizarre not being able to use this for two whole months," he said.

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "And I live in a magical household – Dad and Mum both use their wands all the time, and I don't know what Fred and George do but they spend all their time in their room even normally."

He waved his hand. "Percy, well, Percy's going to follow the rules, and I'll do my best to do the same."

"Maybe you should put your wand somewhere you won't be tempted?" Harry suggested. "Under your bed or something?"

"Nah, then my sister would nick it," Ron replied.

"I'm kind of tempted to let my sister nick mine," Dean admitted. "At least at home. To see if all of us are magical or it's just me – it might help me work out who my father was, if it's just me."

"At least there's books, right?" Neville asked. "I started reading that Diamond Throne one that Harry lent me, but it's kind of hard going – it'll be good to have ages to finish it."

"Yeah, magic in that one's kind of interesting," Harry agreed. "It sort of reminds me of our magic, with how if you pronounce it slightly wrong it can go really wrong, but it's also sort of not? They don't need wands, anyway, but there's also this thing called the Bhelliom which has a completely different sort of magic, and… anyway, it'll be good when the next one comes out."

That was something else to look forward to, the books that would be released or that Harry could get hold of. It was still a pity he couldn't do magic over the summer, because otherwise he'd be able to magically grow his book collection to enormous size by copying books from all over London, but at least he had enough money to buy some more.

All in all, it was a highly optimistic Harry Potter who left Kings Cross after the train pulled in. He said goodbye to his friends, from his closest friends like Ron and Dean to his acquaintances like Blaise and Tracey all the way to people like Justin Finch-Fletchley who he'd only really talked to during lessons, then checked his packed-up tent was in his robes and took off to fly out of the trains' exit of Platform Nine And Three Quarters.

Throwing himself through a wingover, Harry was mildly surprised to discover that he'd actually flown out of the train exit of Euston Station, then shrugged and flew home – which, after a fifteen mile flight, turned out to contain only Aunt Petunia and Cousin Dudley.

It seemed that Uncle Vernon had gone to Kings Cross to pick him up, which was really very nice of him and more than Harry had expected. He apologized sincerely to Aunt Petunia for the mix-up, then made his way up to the loft and set up his tent.

That evening, surrounded by books and with Hedwig flying in through the open loft window, Harry settled down for a good night's sleep.

Maybe he should make Uncle Vernon something nice to say thank-you and sorry about the confusion? Obviously he couldn't make anything magical, and Uncle Vernon wouldn't appreciate it anyway, but there were plenty of normal things Harry could do instead.

Or perhaps he should just buy something. Harry was slightly embarrassed to admit that he didn't actually know what Uncle Vernon liked, so he'd have to ask...

Chapter Text

According to the clock on the wall, it was about nine in the evening.

Harry flipped through his Transfiguration textbook, paused, flipped back a little, then looked from the paragraph to the essay he was writing.

It looked promising, so Harry rephrased it in his own words before writing it down – outlining how the Reparifarge incantation would reverse a partial transfiguration by returning an object to its natural state, and specifically how that meant that an object that had already been transfigured could be reverted even if one did not know the original form. This was an exception to the rule of visualization, and a helpful counterpoint.

Harry's tail flicked from side to side behind his chair as he wrote, though he had to stop to erase a droplet of ink that fell on the table. It took three tries to rub it away, and Harry frowned at the result.

It was sort of good and bad, really. Bad because it meant that the ink-erasing charm he'd put on his quill at Hogwarts was starting to wear off, and it meant he really should have refreshed it before they got on the train.

Good, because this was one of his last few essays, so it vindicated his decision to do all his homework as soon as possible.

Hedwig hooted, and Harry put his quill down in the inkwell. "I'm in here, girl."

The tent flap blew open with a whoosh, and Hedwig slipped through the narrow gap before pulling up and flaring her wings to gently come to a halt – just on Harry's forearm, which he held out for her.

"Thanks," he told her, taking the letter from her leg, and she preened a little before flying over to her cage. The door was open, as it had been for most of the last month, and she settled in before tucking her head under her wing for a nap.

Harry opened the letter, which was from Hermione like he'd expected it to be. It said that visiting on Friday was fine, and that she was glad to help.

Harry put the letter to the side with a grin, and was about to go on writing when he remembered that it had been a while since dinner. So he got up, pushing the chair back, and walked around the table to the fridge.

Pouring some milk into a tin mug, he inhaled before carefully flaming it for about thirty seconds. The milk heated quickly, bubbling up to a boil, and Harry dashed some cocoa powder into it before giving it a stir.

It tasted just about right, and Harry drank half of it before sitting back down to continue with his essay.

Half an hour later it was done, and Harry blew over the parchment to dry it before rolling it up and putting it with the rest of his finished homework.

The clock said it was getting quite close to ten, so Harry washed out the mug he'd used and gave it a quick scrub. Putting it aside to drain, he turned off the light in the kitchen and made his way through into the library.

The sight of it still made him smile, even after a month of living in Privet Weyr. All the shelves along the walls had books – there weren't enough to more than half-fill them, but they were certainly there – and other books along with most of his other possessions lay in a pile on the floor, covered over with a heap of dozens of still-present Hogwarts letters.

Harry used his tail to flick the light on, then thought better of it. Turning the big main light off again, he instead turned on a small bedside lamp he'd moved from one of the bedrooms and which rested next to his bookmarked copy of The Phoenix Guards.

Another few chapters before bed sounded nice, and Harry rolled over onto his back to hold the book over his head. It was sort of a confusing one, with Dragons being a type of elf (only they weren't called elves, they were called Dragaerans) and also a thing that sounded a lot more like the sort of dragon Harry thought of when he thought of dragons, while Jheregs were criminals and also miniature dragons that couldn't breathe fire. And that wasn't even getting into what Issola were – Harry thought maybe they were herons?

Still, it was a fun read, and just the thing after a hard day's cooking, cleaning, eating Dudley's broken toys (he'd got presents for his birthday a week or so ago, and many of them were already broken) and doing essays.

The next day, Harry's alarm clock woke him at about half past six in the morning.

He rolled off his sleeping pile and stretched, wings going up and out as he flexed all his claws and muscles at once, then checked his calendar.

He had two more essays to do, which were going to be done tomorrow, but today was a day he was going to be going to Diagon Alley to meet up with Mr. Lupin and do some shopping. They were planning to meet for lunch, and Harry's rough plan was to be back to Privet Drive by about three in the afternoon, so he felt he had easily enough time to do the cooking like he'd told Aunt Petunia he'd do. (He was thinking of doing a risotto, and it had been difficult but he'd persuaded Aunt Petunia to get the ingredients.)

After a quick breakfast (two slices of toast, one lightly heated and one carbonized) Harry cleaned his teeth and then went into one of the bedrooms of his tent. He didn't use it, because of the risk to the sheets, but it did hold his clothes – which mostly consisted of his Hogwarts robes and cloak, admittedly, and Harry carefully put one of his sets of robes on – mostly for the pockets – before going down a quick mental checklist.

His money bag… wand… backpack to carry the things he was going to buy…

That looked like everything, so Harry went into his kitchen and sat down at the table to read for a while.

There wasn't really any point leaving before eight in the morning, after all. Flying to Diagon Alley didn't take all that long.

Harry left a locked tent behind him and his heavy trunk on top of the way into the loft, took off into light drizzle, and flew for about half an hour through low cloud to reach the Leaky Cauldron about nine in the morning.

Several people looked up as Harry walked through the streets, but Harry was quite pleased to see that he didn't get anything like as much attention as he had last year. How much of that was the months of time to get used to the idea and how much was just that he'd been visiting for the past few weeks was something Harry couldn't really answer.

His wings were aching a little, not in warning but just letting him know he'd given them a good workout, so he rested them a bit as he picked up some money for shopping – both in the mundane and wizarding worlds.

That done, he went into the largest Quidditch shop to have a look. There were some very costly and flashy brooms in the window, things like the Nimbus Two Thousand And One, but that didn't interest Harry all that much the way he was feeling now. It was too much money on one broom, and he much preferred the idea of being able to share the feeling of flying. Whether it was just around the expansive grounds of Hogwarts or maybe going for a flight during the holidays, it felt like a nice idea – and he was, apparently, the most well-off of his friends (aside from maybe Neville, who he knew had quite a big house but none of the details) so he could maybe do something like that.

It was worth thinking about, but Harry didn't come to a conclusion. Maybe he'd have a better idea after he was sure whether or not he was going to be having a growth spurt? But that would be a reason to put it off forever, so perhaps not.

Harry had a bit of a poke around in some of the other buildings in Diagon Alley as well, along with the side streets (though he stayed away from Knockturn Alley, which was clearly a rather unpleasant place). The Museum of Muggle Curiosities was quite funny, if only to see someone with a magic wand explaining in hushed tones about the amazing powers of a microwave, and Harry actually decided to get something in the entirely mirror-themed shop called Janus Galloglass (though neither the shop owner nor the person at the desk actually had either name, since it had been founded some decades before).

He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with a pair of enchanted mirrors that let you talk to the person who had the other end, but there'd probably be something.

It was when he was looking into the window of a shop that sold plants, picking something out for Neville, that Mr. Lupin called his name. "Harry!"

"Oh, hello!" Harry replied, turning around carefully so he didn't knock over any of the plants. "I think we're a bit early?"

"I had some books to get," Mr. Lupin explained. "It's good to see you, Harry."

"Then let's go to the bookshop," Harry invited, not seeing a problem there at all. "I do need to get something from here, first… it's for Neville."

Mr. Lupin smiled, accepting that, and began asking Harry about how his summer was going as they went inside.

"You're a bit different from your father," Mr. Lupin said, some time later, as they ate seafood from a shop called Brews and Stews – Harry hadn't eaten there before, and had decided it was his treat. "It might just be how I remember it, but your father was a lot more… boisterous."

"He was?" Harry asked, interested. "I don't really know… you mentioned how you were in a group called the Marauders."

"Yes, we enjoyed playing pranks," Remus agreed, then frowned slightly. "Though sometimes they went too far."

Harry nodded an understanding of that. "All right… maybe I should tell my friends Fred and George about that, and not to go too far. They play pranks a lot, like I said in that letter."

"Yes, and so long as they can avoid the temptation to prank something that might hurt them they'll probably do quite well," Mr. Lupin mused. "I always found that that sort of thing inspired us."

He paused, looking both ways, then ate some of his prawns. Harry was abruptly reminded of his own meal, and they ate for a few minutes in silence.

There was quite a stir some way up the Alley as a sphinx came through, making her way to the bookshop, and Harry smiled – remembering when that had been him.

It looked a lot like that was Professor Flitwick with her. Maybe he didn't have much else to do when it wasn't term time at Hogwarts?

Shrugging it off, Harry turned his attention back to Mr. Lupin. "What kinds of things?"

"Well…" Mr. Lupin said, looking around, then bent down to Harry. "I'm afraid some of the things we did weren't exactly legal, Harry. Obviously James and Peter are dead, and Sirius is in Azkaban and never getting out, but I'd like to ask you to keep it private because some of it reflects on me."

Harry had to think about that.

"The only time I'd tell someone about it is if it would be more dangerous to keep it secret," he decided. "Is that okay?"

"All right, Harry," Mr. Lupin agreed, bending a little closer. "You see, we were all Animagi. James was a stag, Peter was a rat, and Sirius is a dog."

Harry snorted.

"Like the Dog Star," he said. "But, wow – I read about the Animagus potion once. It's really hard to brew and you have to hold a leaf in your mouth for months, I'm really impressed."

He tilted his head. "What are you, then?"

"Well… I'm something else," Mr. Lupin replied. "I'd rather not say, sorry."

Harry accepted that, and frowned for a moment.

"What about my mother?" he asked. "What was she?"

"She wasn't one of the Marauders," Mr. Lupin told him. "She actually didn't like your father for most of their time at school, but eventually – well, James said that he'd won her over, but I always thought it was more like his affections delayed her deciding she liked him."

Harry had to admit that relationships always seemed very complicated, especially in books.

"So… what's second year like?" he asked.

"Well… you do get into more complicated magic," Mr. Lupin replied. "There's some things you go back over from first year, but the plants you work with get more complicated and so do the spells. I think you cover a lot of the material around the Statute of Secrecy then as well."

"That's always confused me a bit," Harry admitted. "But I don't really have secrecy trouble, so maybe I can't relate properly."

He shrugged, finishing off the last of his seafood with a bannock that he used as a wiper. "What about astronomy?"

"I… think you do the rocky planets and the asteroids, mostly," Remus said. "Sorry, it was a long time ago, and I never liked astronomy very much."

After lunch, they spent another couple of hours talking – mostly about Harry and his childhood, this time, along with at least half an hour just talking about books.

Harry mentioned how he was a bit worried that he didn't know what the second-year course books were yet, and Mr. Lupin told him that there would be a letter some time in early August. Apparently it was hard to tell before then because they needed to have all the teachers assign their course books, and the Defence teacher was always a bit of a wild card.

Then Mr. Lupin told Harry about a wizarding book on the first wizard to ride a dragon. Harry was sort of interested, though he wondered how that could work, and the fact that the book was called The Short And Glorious Life Of Borin The Foolish suggested that maybe it hadn't worked very well.

It was a very nice experience, all around, being able to talk to an adult who understood some of Harry's life, and it was a bit of a shame that Harry couldn't invite him around. Mr. Lupin seemed to understand the Muggle world quite well for a Wizard, but he doubted that Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia would appreciate a visit from anyone magical if they could possibly avoid it.

They might have considered Hermione okay, because her parents were dentists, but Dean… Harry had the feeling that it would be "probably not".

Making it home at about half past three, Harry did a few chores outside (which gave him quite a nice snack, as there were dandelions to be removed from the front lawn) and then got to work on dinner. The risotto was a mix of leek, bacon, peas and the risotto rice itself, and it was cooked for long enough that the sauce had a slightly tacky consistency, and while Uncle Vernon grumbled Harry was sure he was onto a winner (if only because Dudley ate all the leftovers).

Feeling pleased with how the day had gone, Harry carefully wrote out a note and wrapped the glory-of-the-snow plant he'd got in a box. Some wrapping paper went on the box, and he added an envelope addressed to Neville before putting the whole thing in brown paper.

"Can you take this to Neville's grandmother?" he asked Hedwig. "I know it's a long way."

Hedwig nibbled his talon, clicked her beak twice, and set off with the whole thing out the window.

Harry smiled after her, glad that he had such a matter-of-fact pet (or was it companion? He'd certainly have been impressed by a fire-lizard as bright as Hedwig) then crawled through his tent flap and got back to the book he'd been reading earlier.

By contrast with the Tuesday, Wednesday was a stay-at-home sort of day. The showers that had characterized Tuesday had turned into a deluge of heavy rain, and Harry felt no compunction at all about retreating into his weyr and trying his paw at sketching.

He'd never be as good as Dean, but it was a nice little thing to try out, and it would probably come in handy for Herbology – as well as Runes, probably, if he decided on doing that subject, and even Astronomy could benefit.

Hedwig got back halfway through the afternoon, and Harry helped her dry off before sketching her as she dozed in front of the stove. He thought it looked quite good, though Hedwig took one look and cuffed him with her wing hard enough to knock his glasses to the floor.

Harry also got his last remaining homework essays done, which was something he considered quite an achievement – it was only halfway through the holidays – and celebrated with a chocolate frog. He got a card for Newton Scamander, putting it with the rest, and wondered in a sort of idle way whether chocolate frog card people would talk to one another.

Thursday was a day Harry had been looking forward to for weeks, and it dawned bright and clear. He took off not long after breakfast, flying to London, and referred to a battered old A-Z to find where he was aiming for – a nice big bookshop in Picadilly, six floors high.

Harry had a fairly substantial budget with him, and he spent hours walking up and down looking through all the new books he could pick. It was terribly hard to choose, and a particularly dragonish part of Harry's mind wondered if he could just kick everyone else out and live here now, but that was a nasty thought so he ignored it – instead making a mental shortlist of the books he actually wanted to buy.

In the end, he went with quite a wide selection. There was a beautifully-illustrated book about dinosaurs and humans living together, called Dinotopia, and then there was a big omnibus book about the deeds of someone called Paksenarrion (presumably, anyway), along with a science fiction book about someone called Cordelia.

Then there was a new Redwall book, Salamandastron, which were always exciting even if it did seem like far too few of the rats were actually nice people – but then, far too few of the Goths in the books about Rome were nice people, so perhaps it was the same sort of thing.

He decided to try the Animals of Farthing Wood series as well, wondering if maybe he should show them to June next time he was up at Hogwarts, and finished off his purchases with a book magazine (for more inspiration) and a big three-volume set of the first three books in the Dragonlance series.

They filled his backpack, but Harry didn't mind in the least – nor did he mind the slightly difficult flight home, even after he'd stopped off halfway to have a rest and buy some lunch from what he privately referred to as 'a Scottish chef'.

That afternoon, over dinner, Uncle Vernon reminded them all of how he had an important after-dinner meeting at home on the coming Friday.

"Uncle?" Harry asked. "Would it help if I wasn't here for the day?"

"What?" Uncle Vernon said, blinking. "Yes, I suppose it would. They don't know about you. I'd have said you should make no noise upstairs and pretend you weren't here."

"All right," Harry replied, glad to have helped. "I'll go over to a friend's house."

Really, that had made it all much easier to sort out. All he really had to do now was to make sure he had Hermione's address right, and fly over there on Friday morning before coming back on Saturday.

In case it was needed, Harry took his tent with him. He sent Hedwig to Hermione and followed her, the snowy owl staying close enough that Harry could keep her in sight, and they flew over the Thames a lot further upriver than Harry would have normally gone. There were several large parks on the way, some of them with lakes and gardens and all of them full of families, and Harry smiled a little before coming down to land on a leafy street with quite large houses and gardens both front and back.

Hedwig flew into the window of one of the houses, and Hermione waved out not long after. Harry waved back, and his friend vanished into her house.

The door opened about a minute later, and Harry made his way inside.

The Grangers were quite a nice family, and apparently they'd coordinated their time off work so they could both be at home during much of the time Hermione was home from Hogwarts. They seemed to be still a little overwhelmed by how Hermione had turned out to be a witch, and that they now had a wizard visiting, so Harry made sure he was all smiles and shook their hands one by one.

Hermione said that she wanted to show Harry a film or two for his birthday, which sounded nice to Harry (who was quite happy that she'd remembered that it was his birthday), but before they did Mr. Granger cleared his throat to ask something.

"Ah… Hermione?" he began. "Which of your friends is this?"

"This is Harry, Dad," Hermione replied. "You know. The dragon."

"Oh, so this one's the one who's a dragon?" Mr. Granger asked. He looked at Harry, and frowned. "I'm… well, you said that people who didn't have magic couldn't see that he was a dragon, and I certainly can't."

"You can't?" Harry repeated, intrigued, and spread his wing. "What does it look like I'm doing now?"

"Reaching out your arm, of course," Mr. Granger replied.

"What?" Hermione said. "Dad, that's his wing."

Harry experimented by putting both wings out, standing on his hind legs, and shaking Mr. Granger's hand. The man's eyes watered, and he put his free hand to his temple.

"That's very strange," he said, as Harry furled his wings again. "For a moment it looked like you had your arms out, then suddenly it looked like you had one arm out and were shaking my hand with the other one..."

"That must be some very impressive magic," Hermione decided. "It's a pity you can't really see Harry, though, and that I can't show any of you any magic because there's a law against it. All I've managed is to show off those ink-erasing quills and some magically moving pictures."

"Actually, I do have an idea about that," Harry said, reaching for his backpack. "Do you have a large room I can set something up?"

Harry was very proud indeed of how Mr. and Mrs. Granger reacted to his tent, and his invisibility cloak went down nicely as well – that was something they could try out, vanishing completely while it was on and until they took it off again.

"So, what do you use this for?" Mrs. Granger asked. "I hope it's nothing naughty."

"I don't really use it at all, actually," Harry told her. "I'm sure there'll be something, but right now it's just nice to have because it belonged to my dad."

After that, though, Hermione had to insist that they watch a film, and so Harry squeezed into a comfortable spot in the living room as they watched Star Wars.

It was amazing. Dramatic and funny by turns, with some things that made Harry sure they must have been doing magic at some point, and with a tense climax that left Harry nervously holding his breath until the final explosion.

Hermione seemed very pleased with his reaction.

After that they had lunch, which was pleasant – Harry enjoyed being able to talk about Hogwarts, and it seemed like Hermione enjoyed being able to have someone with her who'd been in the same classes and involved in many of the same events. They had French bread, with ham and cheese, and Mr. Granger cried out in surprise when Harry ate the bag until Hermione reassured him that Harry did that sort of thing all the time. Harry proceeded to demonstrate by asking for something hard they were throwing out (it was an old spoon where the metal bit was coming out of the handle) and biting it cleanly in half, chewing it and then swallowing it down.

"That… goodness," Mrs. Granger said, staring. "That would be a lot easier to swallow-"

She stopped, chuckling at her own mistake, then continued. "I mean, that would be a lot easier to accept if we could see that you were a dragon, Harry. As it is, we know from those sketches Hermione's friend did what you look like, but as far as we're concerned we just saw a human boy bite the head off a spoon and eat it."

Hermione tried her hardest not to giggle.

"Well, that being said," Mr. Granger added. "Do you two want to go out and do anything?"

"I want to show him the next Star Wars film," Hermione told her parents. "I think he'd enjoy that one a lot as well."

Harry wasn't really sure what to make of the way that Mr. and Mrs. Granger smiled, but he gathered that he'd probably enjoy the film.

"I wonder if this Darth Vader is like He Who Must Not Be Named," he mused, after the bit with the big walking machines when they'd moved on to the bit that was in space.

Hermione stopped the video, and looked over at him. "Why?"

"Well, he's called a lord, like the Dark Lord bit," Harry explained. "And everyone calls him Vader or Darth Vader, but that sounds like a silly name – well, a bit silly," he amended, thinking about people like Luke Skywalker, Biggs, Leia Organa, General Veers and Admiral Piett. "So maybe that's a name he picked for himself, like Voldemort is, and his real name's one he's ashamed of, like Tom Riddle is."

Hermione found that very funny, for a reason Harry didn't understand, but before they could continue watching The Empire Strikes Back there was a sudden pop! as a little House-Elf in an old pillowcase appeared.

The House-Elf took one look at Harry and bowed, and then Hermione cleared her throat.

"Excuse me?" she asked, sounding annoyed at first, but her tone quickly changed to shocked. "Um… are you all right? You don't look very well."

"Harry Potter!" the House-Elf said, then jumped. "And – who is this?"

"I'm Hermione Granger," Hermione replied. "And this is my house..."

"What's going on?" Mrs. Granger asked, poking her head around the door. "Oh! Goodness, Hermione, you didn't tell me we were having another visitor."

"I wasn't expecting us to have another visitor," Hermione said. "He just appeared in the living room."

"Well, hold on a few minutes and I'll get the biscuits," Mrs. Granger said. "What's his name?"

"We don't know that yet," Harry volunteered. "What is your name?"

"Dobby, sir," the Elf told him. "Just Dobby."

"And do you like tea, Mr. Dobby?" Mrs. Granger asked, and got a hesitant shake of the head. "I'll make some Ribena then."

A few minutes later, they were all seated at the kitchen table – Dobby, Harry and Hermione, while Mrs. Granger put out some plates of biscuits. Dobby seemed terribly amazed at being served food by a human, and Hermione had to explain what she knew about House-Elves.

They were (as she put it) magical beings that could cast quite powerful magic without a wand, but who were thoroughly used to the idea of being servants. She also said that they were usually treated quite well, though Dobby didn't look like he'd been treated very well.

Everyone was quite alarmed when Dobby agreed with her, and then started hitting his head against the table while saying that he was a 'Bad Dobby'.

"Hey!" Harry yelped. "Why are you doing that?"

"Dobby must!" Dobby replied. "Dobby must punish himself if Dobby speaks ill of his family, sir!"

"That's terrible!" Mrs. Granger said, though Harry thought just the same thing and he was sure Hermione did as well.

Dobby looked torn between agreeing and not wanting to hit his head against the table again, so Harry decided to try changing the subject.

"Um… Dobby?" he began. "Why are you here? You seemed surprised to see Hermione, but this is her house – not mine."

Dobby's eyes went wide, and he mumbled something about how Harry Potter was very intelligent. Harry wasn't at all sure about that, because it seemed quite an obvious question, then went into a little detail.

Apparently – and Dobby didn't explain it very well, so Harry wasn't sure – there was a plot to hurt him at Hogwarts, so it was very important that he didn't go back to Hogwarts. It was something to do with a wizard, but whenever they tried to ask a question that got any more information Dobby had to start hitting himself or banging his head on the table.

Mrs. Granger was looking increasingly worried by it all, taking charge and asking why Dobby had to hurt himself (Dobby didn't seem to understand the question as such) and who his family was (more head bashing on the table) when Dobby mentioned about how he'd hoped that keeping Harry's letters from his friends from him would make it so he wouldn't want to go back to Hogwarts.

That made Harry scowl, feeling unaccountably angry – the idea that someone was keeping his things from him wasn't nice at all, and he had to hastily restrain a growl.

"But that's silly," Hermione said, blankly. "If Harry wasn't getting any post from us then he'd just want to come to Hogwarts anyway to ask us, even if he didn't just fly over."

"Hold on," Harry added. "I thought I was getting letters."

"Oh, Dobby did not want to stop Harry Potter's owl, sir," Dobby explained, looking nervous. "Dobby could not anyway, Harry Potter's owl is very hard to catch! But there were other letters that Dobby stopped!"

He produced a sheaf of them, and this time Harry did growl slightly.

There was a flash, and everyone looked over in surprise to see Mr. Granger with a camera.

"I had to get a new roll of film," he explained, taking another picture. "I already wanted to see if we could see Harry's dragon-ness on film, but now I've got a photo of Mr. Dobby as well."

"Dobby is not a mister, sir," Dobby replied matter-of-factly. "Dobby is a house elf, but Dobby is just Dobby."

He brightened. "But Dobby has an idea! If Harry Potter is caught doing magic outside school, then Harry Potter cannot go back to Hogwarts!"

"That's awful!" Hermione said.

"And it probably won't work – especially now he's mentioned it," Mrs. Granger added.

Dobby looked so suddenly lost that Harry sort of felt sorry for him, even though he'd stolen some of Harry's things.

"Stopping my post isn't going to help," he said, then. "Look, I'll keep my eye out for whatever it is, but I'm kind of hard to hurt. If I'm careful, it should be really hard for whoever this wizard is to stop me."

Harry's reassurance did seem to help a little, but it took at least another half an hour before Dobby left. He kept trying to impress on Harry how terribly dangerous it was to go to Hogwarts, and Harry replied that it hadn't been very dangerous so far and he'd only got a few bruises.

At the same time, Mr. and Mrs. Granger exchanged several glances as they asked Dobby about what work he normally did, and how he had to 'punish' himself, and Hermione actually went to get some paper before coming back and taking notes.

When the House-Elf finally left, it was without Harry's post, and he sighed in relief.

"Thank you," he said, pulling the pile over to himself. "All of you. I… really don't think that would have gone well if it was at my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's house."

He frowned. "But… he said he might fake it being me who'd done magic, and that might get me in trouble. What should I do?"

"So long as you have some responsible adults able to vouch for you, that should be all right," Mr. Granger said, examining the quick-developing Polaroid he'd taken later on in the discussion. It showed Harry as a dragon, to Harry, but when he asked Mr. Granger said that Harry still looked like a boy to him.

It was clearly very impressive magic.

"I'm not sure my Uncle would," Harry admitted. "My Aunt could do, but I'm not sure, and Uncle Vernon especially doesn't like magic at all."

"Maybe you could ask Neville if you can stay with him?" Hermione suggested. "That's a magical household, and I bet he'd be glad of the company – I think something happened to his parents, but when I asked he got all quiet so I didn't keep asking."

She made a bridge of her hands. "And I think I need to do some research on how you're allowed to treat House-Elves. If you treated a human the way his family treated Dobby I don't think it would be legal."

"I think you're right, dear," Mrs. Granger agreed. "You should be careful about it, but definitely don't forget about it."

She turned her attention to Harry. "I'm sorry about all this, Harry. Nobody deserves this kind of thing on their birthday."

Harry smiled, still pleased by the reminder that it was his birthday and he was able to celebrate it, then looked at all the letters that Dobby had left.

Some of them looked suspiciously package-shaped.

"I… think I've got presents," he said.

"That sounds like a good opportunity to open some presents," Mr. Granger said. "Hermione?"

"Right!" Hermione agreed, turning to go upstairs.

Harry's birthday had presents. Which was nice.

There was a month's worth of letters, which seemed to be from whenever anyone had tried to send him a letter that didn't go via Hedwig, and those included packages from Ron, Dean, Neville and Hagrid, as well as from Mr. Lupin.

Ron had sent him a pile of old electronics, saying that he was sorry it wasn't anything more impressive but that his dad had loads of them in the shed. None of them really looked fixable, and some of them Harry didn't even know what they were (as such), but they did look tasty so Harry decided to treat it as being given some sweets for his birthday.

Dean's gift, meanwhile, had been a book – specifically a big collection of myths, fables and legends, including just about every Muggle legend about dragons and from all over the world. It was quite big and full of small type, and that was just the kind of book Harry liked (because it meant there was more of it) so he was really very pleased with that as well.

The package from Neville turned out to be slightly different. It was a book as well, but very much a magical book – it was about a period of late Roman history, but from the magical point of view.

It sounded very interesting, to Harry, and when he asked Hermione if he could borrow the book he got her for Christmas to get the Muggle perspective she admitted that she'd already wanted to ask him the same question in reverse.

Hermione next gave Harry her own present, a set of three books called a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide and a Monstrous Compendium. Harry wasn't sure at all what they were, at first, and when he opened one he found that it wasn't about actually running a dungeon at all so much as designing one.

"They're for a game," Hermione explained, seeing Harry's quizzical look. "I thought it was the sort of thing you'd be interested in… the game has dragons in the title, anyway. And you get enough books that it's a bit hard to surprise you with a new fiction book."

Harry had to admit that that was fair. He wasn't sure if he'd actually play the game, but some of what was in there sounded interesting anyway.

Hagrid got him a big bar of chocolate, which was apparently magical, and Harry wondered just how magical it was – if it was like a chocolate frog, it would try to escape, so he decided to save it for now. And finally there was what Mr. Lupin got him, which was a dressing gown that had some holes in it for his wings.

It was a nice touch, and Harry felt really quite happy about his presents.

The next thing they did was that Harry sent that letter to Neville, and then Hermione reminded them that they had the rest of The Empire Strikes Back to watch.

The fight at the end was much more intense than the one in the first film, raw and full of emotion, and Harry caught himself leaning forward unconsciously to watch more closely as the implacable Darth Vader and the young, hotheaded Luke Skywalker clashed back and forth.

Then Luke lost his hand, Harry gasped, and then came the real surprise of the film.

When the film ended, Harry retrieved his glasses – which had fallen off, not that he'd noticed until then – and sank back onto the floor.

"So, what did you think?" Hermione asked, sounding very pleased with herself.

"You should have seen how Hermione reacted when we first showed her," Mr. Granger supplied. "I think it was about the same as you."

"Yeah, it was… yeah," Harry agreed.

Then he had an awful thought.

"I hope I'm not too much like Luke Skywalker," he said. "I did live with my aunt and my uncle, and I was certainly told that my parents both died… but what if I'm actually Tom Riddle's son?"

"Don't be silly," Hermione told him. "Your proper name is Harry Potter, and James Potter was a real person – we've met loads of people who knew him. And Tom Riddle's too old."

On thinking about it, Harry had to admit that that did all make sense.

"So what happens next?" he asked.

"I think we should wait for that one until after dinner," Mrs. Granger suggested. "Speaking of which, I'd better go and get it ready. Have you ever had Chinese food, Harry?"

"No, but I'm sure I'll like it," Harry replied, interested in trying something new.

After the dinner, and the cake (Hermione and her parents had made sure he had a cake for his birthday!), and the third Star Wars film, and playing a game where you had to describe a word without using any of the other words on the card, and everything else that happened that day, Harry bedded down in his tent (which was set up in the Grangers' spare room) with a happy sigh.

He'd been looking forward to today all week, but it had been much better than he'd expected… even if there was that odd House-Elf to wonder about. But even with Dobby's unexpected appearance, it had been a quite wonderful introduction to being twelve.

Chapter Text

The next morning, a letter came back from Neville saying that he'd asked his grandmother, and staying with him over the rest of the summer holiday would be fine – they'd meet him in Diagon Alley around eleven o'clock.

Harry wrote a letter to his Aunt and Uncle, telling them about the change of plans and saying that he hoped the dinner had gone well (and wishing them a lovely summer), and posted it through the nearest postbox that morning. It cost money, while asking Hedwig to handle it would have been free, but it was worth the price to make sure that his Aunt and Uncle weren't too annoyed.

Then it was packing up his tent, putting it in his backpack, thanking the Grangers for their hospitality, and quickly planning with Hermione that they'd all go shopping for their school things on the same day after the letters had been sent out. Mr. Granger had a video camera out, this time, and carefully filmed Harry as he took off.

Harry wondered what that video looked like, but he did have to meet the Longbottoms so he couldn't really spare the time to fly back and ask.

It was a little before eleven when Harry arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. He dug his wand out of his bag and opened the way into Diagon Alley, then looked around for a good spot to wait where he'd have a great view of the Alley.

A moment later, he found the perfect spot, and the way he did that was that Neville and his grandmother were there. Mrs. Longbottom (or was she Granny Longbottom?) was tall, thin and bony, wearing a quite remarkable hat, and there was really quite a contrast between her and her shorter, somewhat rounder grandson.

But then, Neville was still young, so maybe he didn't look quite like he would as an adult yet.

"Ah, there you are," the woman in question said, with a sharp nod. "Mr. Potter, lovely to meet you. It is a bit of a surprise, I must admit, but I'm glad to help you."

"I'm glad you can help," Harry replied, shaking her hand. "How was your birthday, Neville?"

"Oh, um – it went well," Neville told him. "There weren't as many people as last year, and I think I preferred it that way."

He brightened. "I liked the plant. And the spider plant's doing really well, my room's full of them now."

Over the course of the next hour's shopping (which took place at the insistence of Neville's grandmother) Harry decided that the appropriate term for her was definitely Granny. She was a little different in a few ways, perhaps, but a lot about her reminded him of Granny Weatherwax and thinking about her that way helped Harry know how to talk to her.

Then they went to Longbottom House by Floo, which was somewhere Harry didn't really know what to expect. It might have been anything from a slightly taller town house to a twenty-room mansion, mostly magic or mostly mundane, a small Norman castle hidden from the world by magical means or anything else.

In fact it was a large-ish country house in the middle of a hollow in the Yorkshire dales, made of stone, with gardens sweeping away on all sides and with four rows of four windows along the front. There were surprisingly few touches of magic visible from the outside, when Harry got a chance to fly around and look, and about the only thing he could really spot was that there was no road leading to it.

Indoors, however, it was another matter. Granny Longbottom told him quite proudly that the Longbottom family home had been continuously inhabited by eleven generations of Longbottoms, and there were signs of it everywhere – from the many moving paintings on the walls, some of whom went running off to get other paintings from elsewhere in the house to look at Harry, through the occasional magical curiosity or keepsake resting in glass-fronted cabinets, to the slightly bewildering way that going up or down a set of stairs wouldn't necessarily lead to the floor of the building that you'd expect. Neville's own bedroom was up one set of stairs and down one, and yet it was manifestly on the top floor of Longbottom House; Harry was put in a room on the first floor which was only about ten seconds away from Neville's room but was two floors down and on the other side of the building if you tried to use the windows to work it out.

And then there was the House-Elf, Tandy, who wore a teatowel embroidered with what Harry guessed was probably the Longbottom house symbol or something. She was just as shocked as both Neville and Granny Longbottom to hear the full story of what had happened with Dobby, and assured Harry that she would be making sure that no 'silly elvses' got involved with him while he was at Longbottom House.

Compared to Privet Drive – which no longer contained Harry, so couldn't really be said to be a Weyr – Longbottom House was certainly a new experience.

It was a long way out in the countryside, so it was harder to visit a library, with the closest really large town or city probably being York or Middlesborough or Leeds. On the other paw, it was private, and Harry didn't have anything in the way of chores to do (Tandy was quite scandalized by the thought of someone who wasn't her doing chores) and there was a quite respectable collection of magic books.

Neville still had a bit of homework to do, so Harry was quite happy to join him in the study and occasionally help out – not by sharing his answers, but by talking about class. And Trevor seemed much less prone to get lost in the familiar surrounds of Longbottom House, while a bit of digging around meant that Harry even found an old Quaffle which he suggested they should play a game with – taking advantage of the Quaffle's way of drifting through the air instead of falling to play catch, which worked out surprisingly well with Harry flying and Neville on the ground.

The days didn't exactly all seem the same, as such, but it was quite easy to lose track of time as Harry's reading list slowly turned into his read list and the only House-Elf around was Tandy… until a letter arrived for each of the Gryffindor soon-to-be-second years about halfway through August, telling them what they needed for Hogwarts.

Opening his letter, Harry checked that the stuff about catching the Hogwarts Express on September the First was the same as normal. That did make him wonder if the young witch he'd met on Skye would be coming down to catch the Hogwarts Express in a few years – it seemed silly to travel what must be about four hundred miles from Portree to Kings Cross and then take the Hogwarts Express all the way back up to Hogwarts when it would only be about fifty miles from her house. But then again, Hogsmeade was the only all-Wizard village in Britain and people from there took the train, so maybe it was just something everyone did. (And now he thought about it it couldn't be hard to do it, with the Floo.)

While Harry was feeling sorry mostly for any Scots Muggleborn, who didn't have the option of the Floo, he moved on to the book list. There was no extra equipment, but there were several new books – the second grade Standard Book of Spells, and seven books by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Neville had the same thing, and they wondered whether it was a second-year thing or a Defence thing. Granny Longbottom sniffed dismissively when she saw their book list, saying that Gilderoy Lockhart was a sensationalist and that his books were entirely overpriced for what they contained. (That left Harry worried for his friends – Hermione would be all right, and so would Neville, but Dean's family wasn't exactly well off and he knew Ron had to rely on hand-me-downs a lot of the time.)

Scheduling when to go and buy their books was easy, though, as they'd all agreed to go on the next Wednesday after their letters arrived.

"It's going to be pretty busy, isn't it?" Harry asked. "If they only sent the letters out this late, I mean, every day is going to be busy because everyone going to Hogwarts has to get all their things and there's only about two weeks left."

Both of the Longbottoms agreed, and Granny Longbottom added that she wasn't sure at all what Albus was thinking to send out the letters so late in the year.

While they were waiting for Wednesday, Neville somewhat hesitantly told Harry something about his family.

Harry had sort of assumed that Neville was a bit like him, in not having any surviving parents because of Tom Riddle. But it turned out that that wasn't quite correct – they were both still alive, but they'd been badly traumatized by a very nasty spell right at the end of Tom Riddle's terror campaign and had trouble recognizing him.

For some reason (and Harry felt quite guilty about it) it was that, rather than the loss of his own parents, which really brought home to him what Tom Riddle and his followers had actually been like.

He told Neville that it was nothing to be ashamed of, and that none of their other close friends would think less of him – but also that it was also okay to be nervous about it and to not want to share. It seemed like the right thing to say, and Neville seemed to be a bit more comfortable, so Harry felt he'd been learning the right lessons from all those books he'd been reading.

He hadn't found one that described in sufficient detail how to wield a sword, though – and he was keeping an eye out.

On Wednesday morning, Tandy made them a French breakfast – twisted pastries she'd baked herself, with vanilla cream and chocolate chips for filling. It was really very nice, though Harry had to admit to himself that he found it quite hard to think of something he'd eaten which had actually tasted bad rather than less nice, and it filled them up nicely before they all headed to the Floo Room.

Now that Harry had had time to think about it, it wasn't surprising that there was a Floo Room in Longbottom House. It was one of the main ways Wizards got around, and so it obviously made sense to have a room specially for it – one with tables and chairs for people to sit while they waited for someone to arrive, and with nice thick carpets to catch someone if they stumbled a bit.

They were leaving this time, though, and Harry went first. He threw some powder, announced where he wanted to go, and spun through the Floo network before landing with a rush of air from his wings in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Look, mummy!" someone said, very excited. "That's a dragon!"

"Where?" their parent asked. "I can't see-"

"Look!" the boy insisted. "Right there!"

Harry explained about how people who didn't have magic couldn't see him as Neville and Granny Longbottom arrived, and wondered a bit about how the Floo actually worked. He knew he couldn't be Apparated, but he could be Flooed – maybe it was like the way the route onto Platform Nine And Three Quarters worked?

Wondering how he could test how his resistance to magic worked without hurting himself, Harry followed Granny Longbottom out into Diagon Alley. There was a small crowd down the street, which looked like it was centered around Flourish and Blotts – probably trying to get the school books for the year – and they sat down by the entrance to the Alley to wait for the others.

"I hope that's not still there when we go there," Neville mumbled. "Maybe we should come back tomorrow?"

"Hermione and Dean are going to have to come by Muggle transport," Harry pointed out. "So we could, but we'd miss them."

"Right," Neville agreed. "I forgot about how much harder it is for Muggles to get around."

They'd been waiting about fifteen minutes when Dean turned up with his mum, who Granny Longbottom looked up and down with a sharp gaze before offering her hand to shake. Mrs. Thomas seemed a little put off by Granny Longbottom's hat, which included a stuffed vulture, but then Dean was saying hello to both of them.

"Hey, dragon-man," he chuckled, shaking Harry's hand. "Or is it dragon boy? Is there a word for it?"

"I quite like 'drake'," Harry supplied. "There aren't any actual things called drakes, so it's a nice word to use."

Neville shook Dean's hand as well, glad to see him after more than a month apart (though there'd been several letters back and forth, mostly using Granny Longbottom's screech owl in Neville's case) and then Dean asked why it was that they weren't surrounded by loads of people interested in how it was that Harry was a dragon.

"I'm not sure," Harry replied, thinking about it. "Maybe it's that almost everyone's used to me now? There was someone in the Leaky Cauldron, though… so it could be that it's just that standing in the corner like this is a lot like clinging to the ceiling."

"That sounds about right," Neville agreed, trying not to laugh. "You could call it, um, Wizards Don't Look Left Either."

It took them several minutes to explain to Mrs. Thomas why they all broke out in giggles.

Hermione was the next to arrive, and unlike the others she already had an opinion of the author Gilderoy Lockhart. Apparently he'd shown up a few times in the more recent books outlining great deeds, usually involving dealings with dark creatures (though Harry had to ask whether some of the creatures named in the book titles actually qualified as dark creatures; Banshees, Hags and Vampires were clearly Beings, while Ghouls were beasts but were ranked at only two-X out of five on the scale of danger.)

It did seem as though the Defence teacher's subject matter for the year would involve dark creatures, unless everything else was going to be in the book they'd got last year.

Mr. Granger also took the time to let Harry know that the film he'd taken of Harry lifting off into the air was just baffling to him. Hermione saw Harry spread his wings, jump into the air and fly off, but the best that Mr. Granger could do was see Harry jump and then become strangely much less relevant and not worth noticing.

Nearly-identical twins with orange-red hair went past, giving Harry a long look, and for a moment Harry wondered if he'd forgotten what Fred and George looked like – until the actual Weasley family all came out of the Leaky Cauldron, joining Harry and Dean and Neville and Hermione for shopping.

"Everyone's got to get the Lockhart books," Ron grumbled. "Mum loves them, but the one we've got is all full of obvious stuff – you know, throwing gnomes, that sort of thing."

He snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, that reminds me. You've not met my Mum, or my Dad or my sister, right?"

"Don't think so," Harry replied, thinking about it.

"Right, okay… Mum, this is Harry."

Mrs. Weasley was a sort of plump-looking woman, and very different from either Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia. While the former was heavy-set but inclined to get very angry at the slightest provocation, and the latter was thin and quick to criticize, Mrs. Weasley's first action was to draw Harry into a hug and say how awful for him it must be to be separated from his aunt and uncle.

It was quite a nice experience, though Harry did have to explain that he'd learned over the years that his aunt and uncle seemed more comfortable when he wasn't around. He did do his best to accommodate them, and it depended on their moods, but Uncle Vernon on the whole was probably happier when he was somewhere else.

That made Mrs. Weasley look quite sad, or possibly angry, and Ron next pulled his father over.

Mr. Weasley was a different proposition entirely, full of questions, and seemed absolutely fascinated with Muggle gadgetry. He asked all about how Muggles handled post without owls to do it for them, and about how they made books in large quantities without magic, and when he heard that Harry sometimes cooked for his relatives he asked all about how the oven worked.

Fred and George (or was it George and Fred? Harry could never remember) interrupted a couple of times, trying to explain Muggle things to their father in a way that made Harry fairly sure they knew what they were talking about, but even so more than once Hermione, Harry and Dean had to share slightly baffled looks.

"Dad, stop it..." Ron grumbled. "You can talk about this stuff later… and this is Ginny."

Ginny seemed to have been trying to hide behind Percy. Harry gave her his nicest smile, remembering that some humans were scared of dragon teeth so making sure to keep his mouth closed, and she blushed a little.

"Ginny's got a bit of a crush," one of the Twins judged.

"I don't!" Ginny replied. "It's, um..."

"Oh, it's worse than a crush," the other Twin said, as their sister squeaked.

The first one looked at his fellow. "Worse than a crush?"

"Worse than a crush!" the second one agreed. (Harry decided that the second one might be George, and that therefore the first one might be Fred.)

"What could be more embarrassing than a crush?" Fred demanded.

"Well, you remember all those books about the Dragon Club?" George asked.

"I do!" Fred agreed. Harry remembered them too, some of the books he'd got in his first visit to Diagon but hadn't really understood.

"I think our sister's remembering all of those," George explained.

"Shut up!" Ginny groaned, blushing even hotter than before. "It's the first time I've met him and – and now he's going to think I'm weird!"

"What, because you liked books about dragons?" Hermione asked, snorting. "Not really. That's normal to Harry."

Harry decided not to mention his opinion of the books. It made a lot more sense if they'd been meant for young girls anyway, and he wasn't going to think someone was silly for reading the best source of dragon books they had.

After managing to get Mr. Weasley away from a conversation with Mrs. Thomas and the Grangers about what Ceefax was, they headed around the Alley to sort out getting things. Ginny was the only one who needed to get a complete first-year kit, some of which Mrs. Weasley said she'd have to get second-hand to sort out their budget, and they needed to go to Gringotts anyway.

Percy needed some things for his NEWT level classes – apparently he'd got twelve OWLs at Outstanding, which Harry was really impressed by – and Fred and George had some things to pick up for fourth-year. It all got a bit complicated, in fact, though the three Muggle parents seemed fascinated by everything magical around them. It reminded Harry of how amazed he'd been when he first came to Diagon Alley, surrounded all of a sudden by the magical world, and that was what made the whole thing so pleasant.

There was a queue outside the bookshop when they got around to going there, but it seemed as though everyone wasn't actually going in yet. Harry was a bit confused by that, until he noticed the banner over the front of the building which announced that Gilderoy Lockhart was going to be signing his autobiography from twelve thirty to four thirty that day.

"Oh, I hope we get to meet him!" Mrs. Weasley said, sounding very pleased by the idea.

"It's about quarter past twelve," Mr. Granger contributed, checking his watch. "So they should be starting the signing in about fifteen minutes."

"Should we wait and come back for that?" Hermione asked. "It must be worth it, he's written so many of the books we're going to be studying this year."

"Why don't we just go in and get our books?" Harry suggested. "Or look around for what else to get? I know I could spend easily that long picking out books… I was meaning to ask if they have anything about swords."

That announcement made most of the group look at him in surprise, and Harry explained that he meant because of how Neville had mentioned he was interested in that sort of thing in a vague way.

They decided to split up, with Hermione and some of the others joining the queue, but Harry went straight in to ask about what he was interested in and look at the new releases section.

Inspecting the Dragon Club books, Harry flipped through one to confirm his assessment of it – the dragons in it were still being treated more like broomsticks (or flying motorcycles, one of which Hagrid had parked in a little lean-to next to his hut) than like an actual flying animal.

Still, they did involve dragons.

Putting the one he'd been inspecting back on the shelf, Harry moved on to pick up a new crime book. This one seemed to be set in Uganda, which was interesting, but before he'd really started reading it someone spoke up.

"My word! Is this – can this be-?"

Harry looked up, and a man in pale blue robes and with wavy blonde hair held out his hand.

"Harry Potter, I'm sure of it!" the man announced. "It can only be you, there's only one dragon like you! Sly devil, coming in here before the start of the proper book signing – I like your pluck!"

He smiled a winning smile, and Harry shook the hand because it seemed like the done thing.

"It's a pity you're here now, rather than in a few minutes," the man went on. "Harry Potter and Gilderoy Lockhart – why, that would make the front page!"

"I think a lot of things make the front page of the Daily Prophet," Harry replied. "There's just not all that many wizards."

"Hah!" Mr. Lockhart laughed. "A fine point, but there's always competition – there's always competition, Harry. And to be on top you have to always be on top of your game."

"On top?" Harry repeated, tilting his head. "I thought you were talking about being on the front page, Mr. Lockhart."

"That's what I mean!" he explained, sounding positively enthused about it. "The great game! Once you've written five bestselling books, what other ways are there to keep score?"

He waved his hand. "Galleons? Why, any fool can inherit great wealth! But for your name to be on everyone's lips, that's the true contest!"

Harry wasn't really sure he was following this conversation.

"I know you had a good start, Harry," Mr. Lockhart went on, with a wink. "But sooner or later you'll learn how to really compete – how to really be famous, to keep your name in the headlines not with a single act but with continuous great deeds and foul things vanquished – and you can call me Gilderoy, of course, Harry."

Harry was now quite sure he wasn't following the conversation at all, and Mr. Lockhart ushered Harry over to the signing desk before taking one copy of each of the books on the booklist – and a copy of Magical Me, the autobiography – before signing the lot with a flourish and giving them all to Harry just as the book signing itself started.

There was a flash as a photographer took a photo, and Gilderoy went on to announce that he would be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year.

Some minutes later, Harry had donated his collection of signed books to Hermione on the grounds that she was more likely to enjoy them. Hermione had offered to swap with him, but Harry had just gone back in to buy some more instead, reasoning that he was the one who had the most money to buy books and the one who hadn't got had to buy them so far.

When he came back from the counter with his backpack full of Lockhart books, it looked as though Ginny or Ron or one of the Weasleys had been the beneficiaries of Hermione's spares. Mrs. Weasley was waiting in line to get the books signed anyway, with most of her children, while Dean and Neville were queueing up to get their actual school books.

"Potter."

Harry's ears perked up a little, and he looked over to the door at the man who'd just spoken.

"Hello," he replied, smiling (without teeth) at someone who looked quite a lot like Draco. "Are you Mr. Malfoy?"

"Indeed," Mr. Malfoy confirmed. "Draco has told me a lot about you, Mr. Potter, and I've heard more from other sources."

His eyes flicked aside, to where Hermione and Mr. Weasley and some of the others were standing. "And about your taste in friends, as well… one wonders why you bother with them."

"Well, I think mostly it's because I met them on the train," Harry said, thinking about it. "Actually, a lot of the people I know I met on the train. But I did meet Draco, as well, and I suppose I'm not much of a friend of his – we don't spend any time together except in class. He didn't seem very nice, but maybe it was just a bad day."

Mr. Malfoy looked slightly confused by that, and looked back at his son – who was standing nearby, Harry noticed.

"I told you, Father," Draco said.

Harry waved at him, wondering what exactly it was Draco had told his father.

"Really, one wonders why Dumbledore even wants you in his school," Mr. Malfoy went on. "Hogwarts is for humans."

"Is it?" Harry asked, honestly confused. "I don't remember that rule being anywhere."

"There are some things you don't have to write down," Mr. Malfoy said. "Or shouldn't, anyway, though if Dumbledore is letting beasts in-"

Harry was going to object that he wasn't sure he was a Beast, because he was quite interested in getting involved in politics when he was old enough, but Mr. Weasley interrupted and asked Mr. Malfoy why he was wasting his time talking to people he clearly didn't think much of anyway.

It looked like there was going to be an argument, but then Granny Longbottom had brandished her wand and asked them both to please calm down. Then one of the employees at Flourish and Blotts had asked them all to leave as they were blocking the queue to the signing, and there'd been a bit of a crush on the way out because Granny Longbottom clearly agreed that they should stop getting in the way so much.

Harry certainly didn't want to disagree with her.

After a few more hours of just spending time together in Diagon Alley, including looking through some of the less normal shops off in the back streets, everyone headed home. Hermione and Dean left through the front door of the Leaky Cauldron, to take the tube home, while Ron and his family filed through the Floo one at a time. Neville went next, then Harry, and Granny Longbottom followed them back to Longbottom House.

It was only as he was going through his purchases, however, that Harry found something odd – an extra book that he hadn't intended to get. He had no idea where it might have come from, but the front page said that it was a diary for 1943.

Harry opened it up, wondering, and the smudged name on the first page caught his attention.

Property of T M Riddle.

Apart from that, it was blank.

After contemplating it, Harry put it in the bottom of his collection.

Maybe he'd ask Professor Dumbledore about why it was blank. Clearly Tom Riddle had put his name in it, so he should have used it… maybe there was a way a diary could be made so it could only be seen by the author? If it was, then if Professor Dumbledore could break the spell it might be useful.

"Okay, so… hold on," Harry asked, flipping back through the book. "What's your armour class?"

Neville checked his scribbled notes. "Um… six?"

"Right," Harry replied, and rolled one of the twenty-sided-dice. "That means… it just about misses."

He thought for a moment, then went on. "The orc's blade glances off your sword as you raise it, and he grunts something angry at you."

"I'll attack him back," Neville said. "Can I hit him with my shield?"

"I don't think so..." Harry picked up one of the other books and looked through that instead. "Oh, here we are. Yeah, but you get penalties and stuff. And you lose the bonus from the shield."

"This is way harder than Aragorn makes it sound," Neville frowned. "I wonder if we're doing it wrong?"

"I think that's what the levels and stuff are for," Harry replied. "Aragorn is meant to be a really high level, and so are the others. You're just starting out, like Aragorn was back when he was, um… Elfstone?"

"I thought it was Thongoril," Neville contested.

"No, I think that's when he's working for the Steward," Harry said. "Hold on, I'll go and check."

"No, wait," Neville said, and Harry paused. "I know what you mean. I'll just use my sword instead. So my THAC0 is twenty… let's see how this works."

He rolled his dice, they compared the numbers, and Harry nodded.

"Okay, you hit him."

Neville rolled the damage, which was a high number, and the orc fell over.

After they'd decided that the game was interesting, and Harry had decided that maybe he should try and put something together which involved dragons a bit (instead of just a fight between a new Ranger of the North and a band of four orcs), they spent the rest of the day reading through their new Defence textbooks.

The odd thing about them was that they didn't actually seem to be very good, as textbooks really. They told the story well, and it was quite exciting, but it didn't really explain how the things were done – in the Wanderings With Werewolves book, he explained how he'd defeated the Wagga Wagga Werewolf by casting a very complex charm that turned the werewolf back into a human (which sounded very useful) but all he said about the charm was the incantation and that it was very complex.

Meanwhile, in Magical Me, he mentioned the Patronus Charm (which Harry was naturally very interested in after seeing it last year) but not how to cast it. That seemed to be a trend, and Harry hoped that what was going to happen was that they were going to use the material as a basis for practical lessons.

Neville did have an interesting idea, which was that maybe the important bit of Troubles with Trolls or Year with a Yeti was all the stuff that happened before the actual battle. The hard bit, going out and finding the problem, or finding that there was a problem at all. Those bits seemed to be a lot more detailed in how Mr. Lockhart went out and did his job, and that was interesting enough that Harry re-read the ones he'd already done with that new view on things.

Compared to that, though, the Standard Book of Spells for grade two wasn't actually all that novel or interesting. It was more of a reference book, though that was quite enough to be going on with, and Harry noted down several spells he was interested in trying out himself if their class didn't handle them.

Harry took one more trip to Diagon Alley before the end of the holiday, and it was still quite busy there. Ignoring Quality Quidditch Supplies (which seemed to be mostly full of very expensive brooms), he went to Brigg's Brooms and got two Cleansweep Sixes – which seemed to be a good combination between being cheap and being good. They weren't the newest of the Cleansweep brooms, with the Seven having come out just a few years ago, and apparently that had helped bring the price down.

Harry also only just resisted flying out into London to look at what new books he could get. The back of one of the ones he'd got around to from his backlog mentioned one called Dragonsbane, which was one of those titles where he was interested to see if it really was about a bane of a dragon or whether the title was ironic, but there was that worry about whether Dobby would try and do something if he went out into the Muggle world on his own.

It really was quite annoying, this whole Dobby business, and Hermione had been trying to find out what the laws were – but her letters said that she was having trouble, in between getting ready for their next year of school and getting herself caught up with maths and science and things like that over the summer.

It was on the last day of August, the day before they were going to head to Kings Cross, that Hedwig flew in through the window.

Harry looked up from Break with a Banshee, holding up his arm, and Hedwig landed on it before dropping the envelope for him.

"Thanks, girl," he told her, giving her a scratch, and she accepted it with a preen before taking flight and heading over to her perch. She fluffed her wings and settled down for a snooze, and Harry looked at the envelope – finding that it had his name on, in blue ink, but no address. And a stamp, for some reason.

Slitting the envelope open with his claw, Harry unfolded the paper underneath and read it.

Apparently it was from Aunt Petunia, who asked whether he could do one better than this summer and not come back next summer at all. She did say that Uncle Vernon had done well in his meeting, though, getting the contract he'd been after, which was nice – and that maybe if he could come around for long enough to do the gardening once a week next summer that would be ideal.

Harry was fairly sure that he would have to go to his official home address at least once a year, so he'd have to disappoint Aunt Petunia – but then he reached the bottom of the letter, which was a complaint about how his 'dratted' owl had flown in the window, gathered together a pen and paper, dropped them in front of her and glared balefully until she wrote something out.

"Hedwig, you didn't need to do that," he said. "I don't mind, really. And now you've annoyed my Aunt and Uncle."

Hedwig shook her head.

"You certainly annoyed Aunt Petunia," Harry went on, then realized – it was Monday, so Uncle Vernon would have been at work. "Well, at least you picked a weekday for it."

Hedwig made a self-satisfied prek noise.

Chapter Text

On the morning of the first of September, Harry got up early as was his wont – in the past he'd sometimes read long into the night, but it was much better to have the same amount of sleep and start early than finish late, as far as Harry was concerned. It meant that it was easier to remember things you'd forgotten, it let you linger over breakfast, and in this particular case it let him write a letter to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

In the letter he apologized that, unless things changed, he would have to come back to Number Four Privet Drive for at least half the summer. He also said that he'd see about making sure he could spend August away, though, and included two postscripts.

In one of them, he asked Aunt Petunia specifically what she thought Uncle Vernon would like for Christmas, and the same for Dudley, and in the other he asked Uncle Vernon the same question but reversed (so he was asked about what Aunt Petunia would like for Christmas).

Folding it up into the envelope and putting the address (the full address, with Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, and the postcode) Harry wondered whether he should post it the Muggle way in London this morning, the Magical way by sending Hedwig off (it might have been a bit unfair to ask her to make the return flight all the way to Hogwarts, but then again owls flew to Romania quite happily – it was probably magic) or the Muggle way by posting it from Mallaig or Fort William.

That conundrum occupied him over breakfast, and as he packed everything for the train journey. His trunk went in his tent, which he folded up and put in his slightly battered old backpack, then Granny Longbottom saw the backpack and Transfigured it into a much better looking one with a few Gryffindor touches – nothing blatant, just a red and gold colouring on it – and the straps repaired like new.

"There's no reason to be going around with something so broken down," she told him firmly, after Harry had said thank you. "Especially when you're flying around half a mile up with it. No, Mr. Potter, you've been a charming guest and it's just a common courtesy."

Harry was quite grateful anyway, and he double-checked that he had everything in his backpack. Tent, a set of robes to change into on the train, some books (including the complete first Dragonlance trilogy), a pair of sausage rolls, and the letter to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

Neville had a bit more to do, because he had to load up his trunk, but a lot of that had been done last night and so they were ready to set off by nine in the morning.

"Goodbye, Mr. Potter!" Tandy waved to him, coming into the Floo room to see them off. "I hopes you has a good year!"

"I hope you have a good year as well," Harry replied, touched, and then they all went through the Floo to Kings Cross.

When they came out onto the platform, there was quite a bit of bustle going on. The Hogwarts Express wouldn't set off for another two hours, Harry knew, but with so many hundreds of students to get on it and so many parents to drop them off the platform would probably see something like a fifth of the total British wizarding population today.

"Don't forget to write," Granny Longbottom admonished Neville, and Neville nodded. "I'll send Darius to you in a few days so you don't need to use a school owl."

"Thanks, Gran," Neville replied, and Granny Longbottom examined him for a moment before nodding.

"And Mr. Potter," she went on. "Do let me know if that dreadful business with the House-Elf is resolved, will you?"

"I will," Harry agreed.

He adjusted Hedwig's cage, then looked over at the train. "Should we get on early? I think the others are going to be coming in by the station entrance, except maybe Ron."

"It was pretty busy last time, I think," Neville replied, thinking. "Maybe we should grab a compartment now?"

That sounded good to Harry, so after Neville said goodbye to his Gran the two of them boarded the train. There were a few photo-flashes from the Wizards and Witches standing around, and Harry overheard a confused Muggle parent asking why everyone was so interested in the boy and whether he was a celebrity, but then they were on the train and picking out a compartment.

Harry helped Neville hoist his trunk up onto the ceiling rack, and Harry unzipped his bag before taking out his letter to Aunt Petunia and putting the bag down on the seat.

"I think I'm going to go and post this," he said. "I'll be back before long."

"Sure," Neville replied, taking Trevor out, then yelped as the toad promptly made a break for it. Harry raised a wing, bouncing the toad back to his friend, and Neville took a much tighter hold of his pet now.

Remembering that flying out the train exit would mean ending up several miles away around London Euston, Harry walked out of the entrance instead – fortunately avoiding bumping into anyone.

He passed Justin going the other way, who waved to him before pushing his cart towards the portal, and from there getting outside to post the letter was just a matter of walking for a few minutes.

Really, Harry was quite impressed with how easy it was for Wizards to get around. They had brooms, which were nice, and they had Apparition (at least the adults did), but Floo was the thing which really impressed him because it was basically just walking.

Making his way back through Kings Cross, Harry sort of wondered in an offhand way what he looked like to the Muggles. He knew that Mr. Granger said he looked sort of like a boy with black hair, which was what he'd been back when he was human, but obviously he must look older than he did then because otherwise it would be obvious something unusual was going on.

Then he reached the place where the portal to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters was, and bumped into it.

Confused, he stepped back a bit and looked at where he was, to make sure he wasn't too far to the left or the right. Then he walked along the line of where the platform was supposed to be, running his tail along the wall, and there wasn't anywhere where it opened out.

It was a pity he'd left Hedwig in the compartment with Neville, because otherwise he could send a letter. Or he could fly to London Euston, but he didn't know if you could come into the portal the train used like you could go out of it.

Thinking about it, and wondering if the portal had broken down or something, Harry decided to sit down on his haunches and wait for a bit. He still had a few things he could do – he could fly to the Leaky Cauldron and take the Floo back to the platform again, or fly to London Euston and wait to see the train come out before following it, but there was no way that people wouldn't notice the portal being broken. There were still dozens of people to get on at least, and it was more than an hour to go.

Harry did wish he had a book, though.

Ten minutes later, there was a small queue waiting outside the location of the portal and trying to look like they were just there for a chat. There was Penelope (who was by herself) and a few of the other Muggleborns and their parents, plus some people who had one wizarding parent and one Muggle parent and who had decided to walk or come by train instead of Floo.

Harry was in the middle of a conversation with some redhead twins (not Fred and Other Fred – these were first-years called Tyler and Anne, or possibly Taira and Anna, it was a little hard to tell.) They seemed very interested in hearing what Hogwarts was like, and Harry did his best to reassure them about how classes worked and things like that.

He was fairly sure they were Muggleborn, because he knew that Ron and Neville had known more about what using spells was like than they did, but then they would say something which showed that they knew a lot more than he'd expected and actually more than Harry did about some parts of the magical world.

It was a very interesting conversation, and Harry was sort of sorry in a way when a slightly mousy adult man came up to the barrier.

"What's going on?" he asked. "You're all for the platform?"

"If you mean Platform Nine and Three Quarters, then yes," said Penelope. "Are you from the Ministry?"

"That's correct," the man agreed. "Department of Magical Maintenance. Er, well… the platform's blocked, then?"

"Is there a name for it?" Harry asked. "I've been thinking of it as the portal."

"That's as good a name for it as any," the man said, and stepped forwards into the group before taking his wand out. "Hmm… yes, that's quite odd-"

Suddenly half-a-dozen people fell out of the wall at once.

"Well, whatever it was, it's gone now," the Magical Maintenance man said, as the people who'd been trying to get out of the portal picked themselves up. "Through you go, I'll sit outside here to make sure it stays working..."

The whole experience was quite odd, really, and Harry was glad to make it back onto the platform. He explained what the problem was to Neville, who was appropriately worried, and then they sat back to see when their friends would show up.

Dean was first, arriving just before ten, and then Hermione arrived a bit later. When she heard about the problem with the barrier she frowned, looking at her trunk, then unzipped it and got out some notes.

"I got some books about House Elves while we were in Diagon Alley," she explained. "We don't really know all that much about their magic, surprisingly little really – it's as if Wizards don't bother to try and find out about something once they think they understand all they need – but it says that, hold on."

Hermione went to the third page of her notes. "House Elves can't be mistreated, but that only applies to things that people do to them and that they complain about. There's nothing stopping whoever it is who own Dobby from having him hurt himself… which is terrible… and they're not allowed to leave. It says that they're really loyal, but none of the books said whether that was actually magical or just that they're… well, really loyal…"

She sat down. "But one of the books which explained the kind of magic House-Elves can do said that they could do some really impressive, difficult magic, and that's without even needing a wand – maybe Dobby's the one who did that to the barrier?"

"Maybe," Harry agreed. "Yeah, that would make sense, but it's kind of silly – though if he's trying to keep me safe then perhaps he's panicking about it."

"But why would stopping you from catching the Hogwarts Express keep you from going to Hogwarts?" Neville asked.

The others looked at him, and he flushed. "I mean, um, even if I got shut out of the platform I could do something about it," he explained. "There's Floo connections in Hogsmeade, and in Hogwarts too, though I don't know if those ones are turned on a lot of the time… I could just walk to the Leaky Cauldron and go there by Floo."

"That is a good point," Dean agreed. "Hermione or I would find it harder, but we could still go to Diagon Alley and ask. And Harry can fly."

"You could be Apparated, as well," Neville pointed out. "Harry can't."

There was a long pause, as they considered that.

"I think Dobby is a bit silly," Harry decided. "I wonder what he thinks this awful plan is that I need to be away from Hogwarts for."

He rummaged in his bag, and took out the September 1992 Quibbler – delivered just that morning. "Maybe there's something in here, I haven't had a chance to read it yet."

"You don't honestly believe that, do you?" Hermione asked, sniffing.

"Not really," Harry replied. "But it's interesting to read, and sometimes they do get things right… even if it is only by chance."

He picked a random page. "This one says that someone called Mafalda Hopkirk in the Improper Use of Magic Office is being bribed by a French dark lord called Monsieur Secretperson."

"It says…. What?" Hermione asked, completely confused.

"Maybe that's because Lord Voldemort is a French-sounding name?" Dean suggested. "I think that sounds like one of the ones they made up, to me."

Harry moved on to another one. "And this one says that Rubeus Hagrid was seen buying currycombs in Knockturn Alley. That one sounds kind of plausible, but it does suggest that it's because he's in a romantic relationship with Fluffy, and I don't think that's true."

They contemplated that.

"Yeah, that raises way too many questions," Dean decided. "Anything new you found to read?"

"Hold on," Harry told him, rummaging around in his bag again. "Here, I was going to – oh, actually, do any of you still have those letters about when we're allowed to use magic?"

Hermione did, and she got it out of her bag.

As she unfolded it, someone knocked on the door.

Opening it without asking, someone who looked like they were about a fourth- or fifth-year poked their head around the door. "Have you heard? There's supposed to be a sphinx on the train!"

"Really?" Harry asked, interested. "I didn't know, no."

The other student looked at Harry, and blushed slightly. "Well, er… sorry about the noise."

He shut the door again.

"I wonder why there'd be a sphinx on the train," Neville said. "Do you think Dumbledore's decided to keep something else safe?"

That set them off on talking about other ways that something could be magically protected, like making a room without any entrance and putting it under the Fidelius Charm, or even just throwing it in the sea if you didn't care about getting it back. It was fun to talk about, and to look through their new spellbooks (and the books of Professor Lockhart) for ideas about what to use, and that and the occasional person checking if the compartment was full distracted them enough that they didn't notice the time – until Ron knocked on the door, only ten minutes before the train was going to leave.

"What a nightmare," he groaned, as he got his packed lunch out of his bag and Harry heaved the trunk up to go with the rest. "There were five of us getting ready this year… and then there was traffic, so we nearly didn't make the train."

"Can I come in with you?" Ron's sister asked. "It looks like there's space."

"Come on, Ginny..." Ron groaned.

"It should be all right," Harry told her. "I'll just go up on the trunk rack like I did last year. Besides, Ron, you're not going to leave your sister to Lee Jordan's tarantula, are you?"

Ron's ears went pink, and Ginny turned about the same colour.

"Come on," Hermione said, making space next to her. "If Dean starts talking about football, commiserate. His team got relegated, so he's kind of upset about it."

"Oi!" Dean complained, and Ginny smiled a little.

"That's all right," she said. "I'm used to that sort of thing. Ron supports the Chudely Cannons, remember?"

That made Ron complain, and Dean as well – not liking his own tragically and unjustly relegated football team being compared to the generally-considered Worst Quidditch Team In The World – and they hadn't finished talking about sport by the time the train set off.

About ten minutes after they pulled out of Kings Cross (and with at least three more groups of students going past asking where the sphinx was – which made Harry vaguely nostalgic for his first year) Percy stopped by. He asked Ginny how things were going, and after she'd said it was okay Harry raised a paw.

Percy didn't notice, possibly because Harry was lying on the luggage rack (and wizards didn't look up, Harry remembered) so he dangled his tail and waved it a bit to get Percy's attention.

"Yes, Harry?" Percy asked. "Is something wrong?"

"Not really," Harry replied. "I was wondering if we could use magic now we're on the train."

"Oh – yes, that's fine," Percy told him. "So long as you don't hex anyone or anything."

"Great," Harry smiled, and got his wand out of his backpack.

"What are you going to do, Harry?" Ron asked.

"I had a couple of ideas about using that book copying spell," Harry explained, as Percy decided that he may as well shut the door. "Ginny, Fred and George said you liked those books about dragons?"

Ginny made an eep noise, blushing, and Harry wondered about that reaction before deciding to just ignore it.

"Well, I've got lots of books about dragons," he went on to explain, rummaging for a bit before getting out Dragonsong. "Hold on… Xerographia."

The spell went well, which was pleasing – he hadn't done it in a while – and now Harry had two copies of Dragonsong. He did the same thing to The Hobbit, then passed them both down to Hermione, and she handed them to Ginny.

"Those are the ones I've got with me," he explained. "There's more, but they're in my trunk."

"Thanks," Ginny said, looking at them – her ears still pink. "You shouldn't, really..."

"They don't cost anything," Dean pointed out. "They're just made by magic. I've got some of them myself."

He shrugged. "It's kind of a pity we can't copy our textbooks, but that's magic for you."

Harry nodded, then put the books back and took another one out.

"Is that a new one?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, it's kind of a gamble," Harry admitted. "I got it in a bookshop in London, I've got no idea what it's about."

He tapped it with his wand. "Xenographia."

"You haven't read it yet?" Neville asked, then frowned. "Wait, isn't that the other spell?"

Harry nodded, and inspected the result.

The original copy he'd got was still just as it had been, but the new one was in a different language completely to the Chinese characters it had started with.

Unfortunately, it had ended up in Russian, complete with Cyrillic characters.

"I think I need to practice this spell a bit more," he admitted. "And we're going to have a lot of copies of whatever this is by the time I'm done..."

After four more castings, giving him copies in Germanic Fraktur, French, Egyptian Heiroglyphs and a language Harry couldn't even identify, he decided to give it up for now and practice again later when there was somewhere to put the probably-inevitable large numbers of books.

If he could get it to translate things into English, though, there were probably other books he could read, which would be nice. Maybe he'd even be able to find some which were supposed to have been translated but the translation hadn't worked well?

He put them away in his bag, which was bulging a bit by now with the extra copies, and instead got out Small Gods. They were passing not far from a city, right now, and it looked like it wasn't long until lunchtime – which would be when the cart came around, and Harry saw no reason not to buy everyone lunch again.

As he started reading, though, the compartment door slid open to reveal Draco, Vincent and Gregory.

Draco looked at Hermione, Ron, Neville, Dean and Ginny, frowned, and opened his mouth. Then he looked up, catching sight of Harry.

Harry waved, folding his book over his talon with his other hand to keep his place.

There was a long and slightly awkward pause, and Harry wondered if Draco was expecting one of them to say something first. Then the Slytherin second-year slowly stepped backwards, and shut the door again.

Ginny blinked. "...what just happened?"

"Draco," Dean shrugged. "He's kind of a berk."

"What's a berk?" Ron asked.

"...you know," Dean said, frowning. "A berk. Someone who's… a berk."

He looked up at Harry. "You know what a berk is, right?"

"Not really," Harry replied. "If you'd called him a twit I might know what you meant."

"I know what a twit means, I don't need you to explain that one," Ron said. "I've got at least two of them in my family."

"And which two were you thinking of?" Ginny asked him.

"...do I have to answer that?" Ron replied.

"I think by saying that you have answered it," Neville told him.

"I could have been talking about the twins," Ron defended himself. "In fact, I was talking about the twins. I decided."

"I don't think that's how it works," Dean said. "I don't think you can decide to have been talking about something else all along."

"But I wasn't talking about something else all along," Ron replied. "I was talking about Fred and George."

"His story checks out," Neville contributed.

"Can't I decide that Ron was talking about me?" Ginny asked. "And be offended?"

"Well, if you decide that I was talking about you, based only on how I said twit," Ron began, "doesn't that mean that you're accepting that you're a twit?"

Ginny's lips moved.

"I'm confused," she admitted. "Should I just read that book Harry made me?"

"Probably," Hermione advised.

Picking one of the books at random, Ginny opened The Hobbit.

Four seconds later she looked up. "What's a Hobbit?"

"It sort of makes sense as you keep reading," Harry replied. "They're sort of like short people."

"Oh, like dwarves?" Ginny asked.

"Not really," Neville said. "There are dwarves in The Hobbit, but Hobbits aren't dwarves."

Ginny frowned for a long moment.

"I'm going to keep reading and see if it does make sense," she decided. "I do like the idea of an underground house, though. It's sort of like… a den, or something."

The trolley came around, and Harry got them all a pile of things to eat. Ginny seemed a bit embarrassed about it, saying that Harry didn't need to, but Harry shrugged and pointed out that the collection of pastries and sweets and all sorts of things had only cost about a galleon – so they may as well.

Ginny still tried to protest, but then Harry ate a cauldron cake and she stopped saying anything.

"Oh, yeah, that's right, you don't know about that," Neville realized. "I don't think we've ever found anything that Harry doesn't eat."

"But that… that was wrapped," Ginny said weakly. "I thought dragons mostly ate meat?"

"That's pretty nice too," Harry agreed readily, rummaging through things and picking out some tooth-flossing mints and liquorice wands. "But I don't think I'm the same sort of dragon as most dragons, because I'm twelve and I can still fit in the compartment…"

"Is Harry not what you expected of a dragon, Gin?" Ron asked.

"Shut up, Ron," Ginny replied. "I still haven't got to the bit in that book where the dragon shows up. I don't know what to expect a dragon to be like."

"I think there's something about not tickling them?" Dean asked.

"Well, maybe Nora will be more like Ginny expects dragons to be," Harry suggested. "…oh, I don't think we had this last time. Crystallized pineapple?"

"Yeah, I've heard they sell it in Honeydukes," Ron contributed. "Maybe the trolley lady works there most of the year?"

Harry threw a piece in the air. It missed his mouth completely, bounced off his wing, and landed on Scabbers – who jolted awake with a startled squeak, noticed the sweet, and looked around for a moment before starting to nibble it.

Everyone but Ginny dissolved into laughter, and Harry ate the next piece in a much more normal way.

"Who's Nora?" Ginny asked.

"You might know her as Norberta?" Dean said, and Ginny shook her head. "Norberth?"

Shake.

"...Ron?" Hermione began. "Did you and your brothers completely fail to mention that Hogwarts has a dragon for a mascot now?"

"Wait, what?" Ginny asked. "How did that happen?"

Harry opened his mouth, ready to explain, then paused.

Should he mention how Hagrid had sort of got hold of the egg illegally? Even if it was all sorted out, Hagrid was his friend, and not properly explaining it could be confusing.

But if he did properly explain, it would take ages.

"Professor Kettleburn seized a dragon egg from someone who was probably You Know Who," Dean summarized. "Then it hatched."

Harry decided that that was probably the simplest explanation that made sense.

"You Know Who?" Ginny repeated, sounding distinctly stunned. "I thought Harry killed him, or something!"

"Professor Dumbledore thinks he did," Harry said, tilting his head a little. "But apparently he's only mostly dead."

"You hadn't seen Star Wars until this summer but you know The Princess Bride?" Hermione asked. "Your aunt and uncle have strange taste."

"What's The Princess Bride?" Harry replied, confused.

For some reason, Hermione responded to that by getting out a piece of paper and starting to take notes.

One of the odd things about a train journey lasting more than seven hours was that it was quite easy to run out of things to talk about, especially if you'd had several hours together only a couple of weeks ago.

The Hogwarts Express wound north, crossing the border into Scotland, and conversation died down a bit. Ginny sometimes asked questions about what was going on in The Hobbit, Ron asked to borrow Tooth and Fang and spent the next few hours giggling, Neville and Dean played a game of chess and Hermione read one of Lockhart's books.

For Harry's part, he was very much enjoying reading the Dragonlance Trilogy again but knowing what was going on this time – despite the occasional interruptions when someone who'd waited hours to ask about it tried to find out where the sphinx on the train was – and it was about five in the afternoon when there was a sudden clatter outside.

"What was that?" Dean asked, confused, then the door trembled a little. It opened a crack, and an orange blur came running into the room.

It was a fox, which was quite odd – orange fur, brush tail, pointed ears – and it looked around with an alert gaze. Scabbers squeaked in terror and Ron put his hands protectively over the rat, and the fox sprang up to an empty seat where it seized what was left of a cauldron cake in its jaws.

Hedwig didn't seem bothered at all.

"Where did that come from?" Hermione asked, confused, as the fox curled up a bit on the seat and started eating the leftover pastry. "I didn't know foxes were allowed as pets. I thought it was only owls, cats or toads."

"Or rats," Harry pointed out. "I know Ron probably wouldn't mind if he had a pet that wasn't really allowed, but Percy had Scabbers first."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Dean agreed. "And there's Lee Jordan's tarantula, I know about that one..."

"Maybe the rule about what pets you're allowed is a new one," Harry wondered, as the fox finished snacking on the pastry. "It's odd that Puffskeins and stuff aren't allowed."

"I had one of those once," Ron said, still hiding Scabbers in his hands. "I've no idea what happened to it, though."

"I think Fred happened to it," Ginny told him, looking up from her book. "I'm not sure though."

The fox licked its paw, getting all the pastry off, then crouched and jumped up to the headrests of the seats Hermione and Ginny were sitting in. It yawned, stretching first one way and then the other, and curled up to dangle its tail down where it just brushed the tip of Hermione's hair.

"Hey," she protested, shifting to the side a little, and the fox's tail twitched to brush her hair again.

Hermione moved her head in the other direction, and got tail-brushed yet again, before just giving up and moving over to a free seat.

The fox promptly flopped down onto the just-vacated seat, curling into a ball, and Hermione huffed.

About twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

Ron glanced around, then told whoever it was to come in, and Harry watched with interest as Tyler (or Taira, he still wasn't sure) looked around the door.

"Did any of you see a vixen come in – oh, there she is!" he said, opening the door all the way and scooping the vulpine up with both hands. She made a moderately annoyed noise, and Tyler touched her on the nose.

"Is she yours?" Harry asked, interested. "I didn't see her when we met earlier."

For some reason Taira sniggered at that. "Yeah, she's kind of hard to find when she wants to be… I turn my back and she's vanished, you know?"

"I know the feeling," Neville commiserated, checking to make sure Trevor actually was where he was supposed to be and breathing a sigh of relief that the toad was still in his pocket.

"Is there anything she's not allowed to eat?" Dean said. "There was some chocolate around earlier, and I know dogs can get ill if they eat chocolate."

"She can eat that, that's fine," Tyler assured him. "Thanks for keeping track, though."

Harry asked where his sister was, and that made the first-year snigger as well.

"Around," he said, scratching the vixen under her chin. "I'd better get back to my compartment, though, I think we're supposed to be getting changed soon."

Getting changed sounded like a good idea to the six of them, as well, and they did it the same way they had the previous year – in relays. Harry thought it was a bit of a pity that he couldn't fit his tent in the compartment, because that would have given them a lot more space, and wondered when they learned how to make an existing room bigger.

It wasn't in their second year spellbook, he knew that much.

That took longer than expected, because just about everyone had grown a bit over the summer (except Harry, but he didn't really know when he would have his next growth spurt) and while robes were easier to adjust to that sort of thing than Muggle clothes were it was still a bit fiddly.

By the time that was done the sun was just starting to sink, and Harry hopped back up on the rack for a last bit of reading before they arrived. He'd got to the bit where The Everman showed up, and he was just reading about his reaction to being spotted when Hermione gasped.

"Oh, no, I almost forgot!"

"What?" Dean asked. "What is it, is something wrong?"

Rummaging in her bag, Hermione produced a book. It said STAR WARS in big words at the top, and the front cover had pictures of several people he recognized and a few he didn't (including a man with white hair and a white beard, though not nearly as impressive a beard as Dumbledore).

"I read this over the summer," Hermione explained. "I thought you'd like it – since you've seen the films now, I mean."

Harry reached down and took it, seeing that it was called Heir to the Empire.

"Is this what happens next?" he asked.

"Well..." Hermione began. "There's a few other Star Wars books, I think. But this one seems to be the one that went the furthest out in front, it's five years after the end of Return of the Jedi."

"Thanks!" Harry said. "Is it okay if I borrow this to read?"

Then he remembered that it was a Muggle book, and got out his wand from his robe pocket. "Or I could just copy it."

Ginny giggled, which Harry thought was a good sign. She'd seemed shy at first, but it seemed like the last few hours had helped her get used to the idea of being with Ron's friends.

Actually, now he thought about it, did wizards and witches who knew they were wizards and witches go to primary school? It might be a difficult thing to not mention in the playground…

Harry didn't get very far into Heir to the Empire before the train slowed down, but he liked it already. It had a nice feeling to it.

But all too soon the Hogwarts Express was stopped at the station, and everyone was getting out. Hagrid called for the first-years, and Harry watched as everyone who was a first-year went over to that end of the platform.

There was Ginny, of course, and he also waved to Taira and Anna (who seemed to have left their pet fox on the train), but then Harry saw a bubble of chatting first-years who weren't taking up the space in the middle.

He rose up on his hind legs to check, remembering not to flap his wings for stability, and saw that it was the Warg he'd met last year, June – the one who he'd helped to pick what the human name for her race actually was.

He hadn't know she was on the train, and it was nice to see her, so he waved – though then he saw the sphinx everyone had been talking about, who clambered down from the train to the platform with care and moved with what wasn't quite a prowl towards where Hagrid was waving.

Maybe that was why she was here, then. It was nice to think about there being some more non-human students at Hogwarts this year.

"Hey, Harry, did you know about this?" Ron asked, as they reached the other end of the platform. "They've got carriages which don't have anything pulling them!"

"They do have something pulling them," Neville said quietly.

"Huh?" Ron asked, confused. "No, they clearly don't."

"Oh, hold on, I know what's going on," Dean said. "Neville's the only one who can see them for some reason. This is just like the Harry and Muggles thing again. What do they look like, Nev?"

"Well, uh… kind of odd?" Neville tried. "They actually look a bit like Harry… or, like Harry mixed with a horse? Think of a horse, but black and with kind of… leathery skin, and wings a lot like Harry has."

Hermione was already getting out her copy of Fantastic Beasts. "Like a horse?"

She thumbed through to the end. "Not going to be a unicorn… well, either they're Beings or they're a Winged Horse… aha! Thestrals have the power of invisibility."

She shut the book again. "Well, there we go. That's interesting, Thestrals are very rare. I wonder where they came from."

Harry looked at where there wasn't anything to see, and reached out his paw. Some of the carriages were already setting off, looking like nothing was moving them, but then Harry touched thin air and it moved under his paw.

"Neat," he said. "I wonder why only Neville can see them?"

They talked about it for a couple of minutes, and Blaise came over to chat to them about it as well – it turned out he could see them too – before deciding to get into them.

Harry tried getting into one carriage, and the wheels all fell off at once.

"Blimey, Harry," Ron said, between sniggers. "Have you gained weight?"

"I don't think so," Harry replied, quite embarrassed. "I'll just walk alongside..."

Chapter Text

It was Harry's first time heading up to the castle in a 'normal' way, at least at the start of term; it was tradition that the first-years took the boats back and forth, he remembered, though Harry supposed he could just fly anyway.

It was a lot shorter of a route this way, and the invisible horses pulling the carriages moved fairly quickly, so they reached the front doors after only a few minutes. Professor Flitwick was there waiting for them, and ushered them in with a smile.

Harry looked back as the last of the returning students went through the door and saw as Professor Flitwick closed them, probably so that Hagrid could knock on the doors as part of the Sorting Ceremony, then took his place at the Gryffindor table.

"What subjects did you pick?" he asked Percy, interested.

"Oh, well-" Percy began. "I could have done any of them. I think all of them would have been too much work, though, so I've done Arithmancy, Runes, History, all the wanded classes of course, and Potions."

Harry was impressed – that sounded like seven classes, unless he'd forgotten one, and as far as he knew that was quite a lot at NEWT level – and said so.

Percy seemed quite pleased by that, saying that he did his best, though he wasn't quite sure yet where he'd go after finishing Hogwarts. Harry suggested maybe doing something like a 'gap year', which was a phrase he'd heard, but when Percy asked what that was Harry had to admit he wasn't really sure how to explain what it meant properly.

Most of the Professors were already here, though there was still an empty chair where the Divination teacher was supposed to sit, and Professor Lockhart (as he was now) was talking with Professor Sinistra.

For some reason, Professor Sinistra didn't seem very impressed.

Then the doors opened, and a wave of whispers and stares rolled out as Professor McGonagall strode in at the head of the first-years.

Harry supposed that maybe some people hadn't gone to see the sphinx – whatever her name was – and June was someone he hadn't even heard any rumours about on the train. So that was interesting.

"So, I'm not really clear on this," said Cormac, who Harry remembered was the current Gryffindor Seeker. "Why is there a wolf in the first years?"

"She's not really a wolf," Harry replied. "Or not properly. We talked last year, she's descended from werewolves, and I think we decided the right word was 'warg'."

"Wait, she can talk?" Cormac asked.

Fred snorted. "Mate, you're asking that question to a dragon."

Other Fred nodded. "Yeah, she's probably more erudite than that Goyle bloke."

The discussion went a little quiet, and the Sorting Hat broke into song.

This time it was all about judging by what was inside, and how that was a thing he did very well, and how Slytherin sought the crafty and clever, Hufflepuff the close-knit and loyal, Gryffindor the brave and bold and Ravenclaw the witty and wise.

Harry wondered whether he couldn't think of two alliterative words for what Hufflepuff stood for.

Then the Sorting began, as Professor McGonagall read out the first name from her long scroll (who went to Hufflepuff).

A boy called Colin was the first new Gryffindor, and sat down as close to Harry as he could get. He looked like he had a lot of questions, and Harry wondered if it was a bad sign that he'd sat down next to the Twins.

Though, speaking of which, Tyler and Anne were twins as well, so that might make things confusing. Actually, Parvati and Padma were twins too, but for some reason they didn't come across nearly as Twin-ish as Fred and George did. Maybe it was that they'd never tried to confuse anyone about which one was which… as far as Harry knew.

Several of the first-years had been sorted while Harry wasn't paying attention, so they were onto F, and there was a bit of a hush as June padded up to the three-legged stool and inspected it.

"Do I have to sit on here?" she asked, looking back at Professor McGonagall.

"You do not, Miss Forrester," the Professor told her. "For some reason everyone else prefers to, though."

June picked up the hat with a paw and put it on her head, putting that same paw on the stool once she was done, and there was a pause. Harry could see the hat mumbling to itself, and then it announced that June was to go to HUFFLEPUFF!

Hagrid applauded up at the head table, and Harry did the same.

When 'Harper, Henry' went to Slytherin, Harry remembered with a feeling not unlike dread that the school song was going to be sung at the end of the meal.

Wondering if he could get some cotton wool or something, he watched as student after student was sorted – there was an airy blonde girl called 'Lovegood, Luna' who went to Ravenclaw, then the Sorting went through M and N and O and P. There was nobody with an initial of Q, then there was an R (who came to Gryffindor) and after that Professor McGonagall called forward 'Sanura, Tanisis'.

The sphinx walked forwards, uncertainty written on her very human face, and placed the hat on her head. Her leonine tail twitched a bit, then stilled, and Harry wondered how the Sorting Hat was reacting to a third non-human in just two years.

After some consideration, the Sorting Hat announced in a booming voice that Tanisis was to go to RAVENCLAW, and she breathed a sigh of relief before loping over to take a somewhat awkward seat on the bench.

Harry noticed that June had basically just ignored the bench and sat at one end of the table, then looked back at Professor McGonagall – no new name had come, and there was nobody on the stool.

"Headmaster?" the Professor asked. "I may need some assistance with this one."

Dumbledore rose to his feet, and gave a cheerful wave to the massed students as he walked around the high table to join Professor McGonagall.

"Ah, I see," he said, into the quiet of the hall. "Yes, those are katakana. Quite a surprise, but I suppose it should be expected."

He said something more quietly, and Professor McGonagall tapped the parchment with her wand.

"Smith, Anna," she called.

Anna (or Anne) and her twin brother both turned out to go to Slytherin, in her case after about twenty seconds of consideration and in his case almost instantly, and Ron frowned.

"How come he went to Slytherin?" he asked. "He seemed nice."

"Blaise is nice," Harry pointed out. "So are Daphne and Tracey. And I don't know most of the other Slytherins very well, so a lot of them are probably nice too."

"Yeah, but that's just anecdotal evidence," Ron dismissed.

"Where did you learn that word?" Neville said, blinking. "That doesn't seem very like you, Ron."

Ron looked torn between being offended by that and answering the question, and eventually admitted that it had been in a book.

"Hey, I think it's great," Harry told him.

Ginny was the last to be sorted, going to Gryffindor in seconds, and Professor Dumbledore stood up as soon as the three-legged sorting stool was gone.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, one and all!" he said. "And a very warm welcome to all of our first-years, who I hope will fit in well in their new Houses. If they do not, well, I am sure the Sorting Hat would be willing to accept the blame."

A rustle of chuckles ran through the hall.

"Before we begin the feast, I would like to say a few words," he went on. "But we can't always get what we want."

He sat down, and the feast appeared.

Harry had forgotten just how good Hogwarts food was, especially during the feasts. The House-Elves at the castle always seemed to be so good at putting the flavours together, including in making things with flavours he'd never considered before (like mixing garlic and rust, which worked very well).

It did mean that some of the meals came with little notes that said they were for Harry only, and about ten minutes into the feast Harry decided to check to make sure that the same thing was going on for June and Tanisis. The reaction he got at the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables was a little odd at first, since it was so common for people to stick to their own table, but once he explained what he was there for everyone agreed that it was a good idea.

It turned out that June largely just ate meat. As she explained, werewolf-descended or not she was a wolf, and that meant she got everything she needed from meat (and that some human-normal flavours like chocolate or coffee were things she knew were dangerous to her – which got quite a lot of the Hufflepuffs gasping at her misfortune). She said there were some non-meat things she liked, though, and in particular there was a dish of carrots cooked underneath a roasted chicken which tasted exotic and interesting.

Tanisis was a little more varied in what she could eat, and was deep in a conversation with several of the Ravenclaw upper-years (including Penelope, who was in Prefect-mode) about what it was she could or couldn't eat. Meat was necessary, indeed bones and what she politely called 'lights' – which Harry realized meant innards – were something she needed as part of her diet, but not in huge amounts and they could be quite spread out. So long as that was taken into account, she could eat most things humans could, though apparently she didn't like broccoli.

At all.

Back at the table, Harry found that the new first-year Colin couldn't restrain himself any more from asking all sorts of questions. Much to Harry's pleasure, though, a lot of them weren't anything like the questions he'd been barraged with last year – Colin wanted to know what it felt like to be a dragon, and Harry didn't mind talking about that a bit.

About how it was really quite nice, because he didn't ever get hurt much; about how he could fly on his own wings, which was something that he could thoroughly recommend. About how writing was kind of difficult, and a lot of other things built mostly for humans were a bit awkward, but having a tail was nice.

Harry was actually thinking idly about finding a way to attach his wand to his tail, so he could try casting spells while still on all fours – holding it in his paw did work, but it meant he had to be careful whenever he put his foot down.

Colin was also really interested in asking about what class was like, and Harry tried his best to summarize them as succinctly as possible and include some tips about what he'd learned – things like the basics of note-taking, or how it was best to do your homework sooner rather than later.

After that, though, Harry caught up with the others in second year (like Seamus, who seemed remarkably okay with the fact that all four of the other boys in Gryffindor in his year were part of the same circle of friends and he was thus ending up with all four non-Hermione girls) and with some of the upperclassmen and women. When pudding came around, he tried a jam tart, and was a little surprised to discover that there were all-new foods that hadn't been around last year – like a fudge torte, and an experimental pasta-and-chocolate combination that sounded sort of like someone had got the recipes mixed up.

Tasted nice, though.

As people seemed to be getting to the end of the meal, Harry got up to walk over to the high table. He waved, to get Professor Dumbledore's attention, and the Headmaster looked up with a smile.

"Ah, Harry," he said. "Tell me, how have you been enjoying your second first day at Hogwarts?"

"It's been interesting, Sir," Harry replied. "Do you mind if I bring you something after the end of the feast? I think it's in my room at the moment, but I want to give it to you as soon as possible."

Professor Dumbledore inspected his plate, using his knife to turn over a few peppermint wrappers, then found one that still contained a peppermint and lifted it out.

"Ah," he said, putting it to the side. "Marvellous. And yes, Harry, of course you may. The password is currently 'Percy Pig', and you may visit whenever you wish so long as it is before eleven in the evening; after that time I will be getting my beauty sleep."

His eyes twinkled. "As I am sure you can agree, I am rather in need of some beauty sleep."

"I don't think I can tell either way, Sir," Harry said. "Thank you."

"Oh, the pleasure is all mine, Harry," Professor Dumbledore told him. "I always have time for my students, though how much time does rather depend on my schedule."

He checked a silver pocket watch, and nodded to himself. "You had better get back to your seat, Harry, I believe I have an announcement to make."

Harry walked back to his seat, and the first thing that happened when he reached it was that Colin asked what they'd been talking about. The second thing, however, was Professor Dumbledore standing up and clearing his throat.

"I am sure that you have all enjoyed a long meal after a long train journey," he said. "I regret that we could not make the meal as long as the train journey, but Professor Vector informs me that if we did that then the feast would end tomorrow, and that would never do."

He looked around the room. "For those of us who are new to the castle, I wish to inform you that the forbidden forest is forbidden – both during term time and otherwise. The only exception is when you actually live there, and I am delighted to say that this exception has actually come up this year as a result of one of our new students."

Harry was fairly sure he knew who Dumbledore meant, and the Headmaster went on. "To those of you who were here last year, I will pass on that the right-hand corridor on the third-floor is no longer out of bounds; I would however commend to you the school motto, which states that one should never tickle a sleeping dragon. It may be helpful. To those of you who were not here last year, I will note that if you see a dragon around the castle, please take note of what it is wearing."

That led to a rustle of conversation, and Professor Dumbledore elaborated. "If it is wearing a long yellow scarf, that is our school mascot who goes by the name of Nora. If it is wearing glasses and robes and is only perhaps three yards long, that is Mr. Potter. If neither of these is true, only then should you inform a teacher."

Dumbledore's list of notices went on a little longer, including making it clear that items which were forbidden were in fact forbidden, and he asked that all pupils please keep in mind any differences in physical ability when dealing with other students.

Then it came time for the school song, and Harry put his paws over his ears and his head under his wings.

It helped, a little.

Everyone made their way to their dorm rooms after the feast, and Harry was no exception – following the now-familiar route through the castle, odd as it was, that got them to the Gryffindor common room faster than just taking the grand staircase.

There was a brief interlude when Lord Ridley made a very determined attempt to slay him, but Harry didn't really bother giving the ghost enough attention to make him think he was having an effect.

Then Percy gave the password – it was still Percy who did that, for some reason, even though he was now the sixth year Prefect instead of the fifth year one – and Harry did his best to commit Fortes Fortuna to memory, because he'd need to use it again tonight.

"At least we won't be at the top of the staircases this time," Ron said hopefully. "That is how it works, right? We move down a floor?"

"Not at all, Ronald," Percy told him. "You stay on the same floor you're assigned in first year. That means the new first years will be on the first floor of the dorm room staircases."

"Oh, great..." Ron groaned. "That's not really fair, is it?"

"We could always ask Professor McGonagall if you could be moved up a floor," Percy suggested. "I think we've got a loft room."

Ron shook his head, and Harry wondered about whether he'd have to move into the loft room himself if he had a growth spurt or two.

The trip up the stairs took a minute or two, partly because of all the congestion and partly because everyone else was pretty tired; Harry was feeling like he'd be glad of his bed as well, as it had been a long time since he'd woken up, but first he unpacked his tent (using a spell to set it up, something he hadn't been able to do at home) and went in to snag the diary.

That done, he made his way back down the stairs – diary in one paw – and exited through the portrait hole.

Harry's route to Professor Dumbledore's office took him past Ravenclaw tower, and the entire House was still crowded outside.

Tanisis was sat on her haunches, head tilted a little, and as Harry arrived she licked her paw.

"What about this one?" she suggested. "Behind the first door is a raging fire, behind the second door is a group of vicious hit mages looking for something to kill, and behind the third door is a man-eating lion who hasn't eaten for three months. Which door is safest?"

"Why, the third door!" the knocker replied. "The lion's not eaten for three months, it's dead. Now, young lioness, can you tell me what it is that only an elephant can make?"

Tanisis hummed, taking her tail-brush in one paw and fiddling with it.

"A baby elephant," she said. "What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?"

"Short," the doorknocker answered. "Hmm, what about..."

Harry kept going, wondering whether they'd reach a point where they'd have to stop – if only to let everyone into Ravenclaw tower.

He encountered the Bloody Baron, who inspected him before shaking his head and floating onwards, then reached the corridor where the entrance to Professor Dumbledore's office was found.

"Ah, Harry!" Dumbledore said, as Harry came into the room. "Excellent timing, I must say. I had just finished putting my dressing gown on."

The gown in question was quite a sight. It was covered in silver alchemical symbols which wriggled over the purple cloth, occasionally coming together to form an equation or other meaningful string of characters before drifting apart again. Harry said so, and the Headmaster smiled brightly at the compliment before taking a seat in one of the armchairs.

He indicated another to Harry, who took it, and Dumbledore then produced a bag from one of his pockets.

"Freddo?" he asked. "Of course, if you have already cleaned your teeth, I apologize for the temptation."

Harry said he'd be fine without one, and then took the book out from his robes.

"This is what I wanted to talk about, Sir," he explained. "I found it among the books I got at Diagon Alley during summer."

Dumbledore took it, and inspected it – opening it to the middle, at first, and seeing nothing but blank pages. An eyebrow rose as he flipped through it, forwards first, then back to the start.

When he reached the first page, he paused. "Ah, I see."

"I thought that if Tom Riddle had put his name on it then he had to have used it," Harry said. "And if there's nothing in the diary then that must be because he tried to hide it."

"Doubtless you are correct," Dumbledore agreed. "The year was one I remember well, though not for happy reasons."

Taking out his wand, he waved it once and then tapped the diary. There was a little flicker of red light, and the Headmaster's expression became troubled.

"Thank you for bringing this to me, Harry," he said. "You are correct that Tom has certainly written in this diary, though there is something else as well… I have a few ideas as to what it could be, and I fear that none of them are good."

The Professor fell silent for a long time, staring at the book, and Harry waited.

After perhaps four minutes just listening to the clock ticking, Harry glanced over at the phoenix – Fawkes, if he remembered correctly. "Is he awake?"

"No, I believe Fawkes is asleep," Dumbledore replied, and the flame-coloured bird chirped brightly. "You see? Deep in slumber. He often talks in his sleep."

He winked, and Harry chuckled.

"However," Dumbledore went on. "Mr. Potter. If this is what I fear it is, then I think it will become necessary for me to teach you a most remarkable spell. Not now, and not this year – at least I hope not – but some time you will have to learn it."

"What spell is that, Sir?" Harry asked, interested. "Is it the Patronus?"

"Not at all, the Patronus is a fine spell that I could wish more people knew," Dumbledore answered. "No, the spell I mean is called Fiendfyre. It is the most terrible kind of fire spell, hard to control and harder to stop… but it may be something you need in future, my boy. Though I dearly hope that this is simply the paranoia of an old man."

"Are you an old man, Sir?" Harry asked. "Don't you have a friend who's over six hundred years old?"

"Well remembered, Harry, well remembered indeed," Dumbledore smiled. "But wizards spend a lot of their time being old. It's really quite surprising how quickly we rush to become old, and how long we then spend enjoying it. Perhaps it is simply that it gives us an excuse to not bother to shave."

He waved his hand. "Now, I believe you should head back to get your sleep, before you begin your lessons tomorrow! Do take care to soak up as much knowledge as possible, you have had the whole summer to empty your head so it can be filled once more."

That night Harry had a strange dream, about the diary he'd handed in.

In the dream, Professor Quirrell was writing in the diary – using a quill to note down the schedule for his class. Monday, second year; Tuesday, third year; Wednesday, take over the world.

Then there was something about a horse that turned into a dragon, but honestly none of it was very clear.

In the morning, Harry stretched – getting the cricks out after the unusual experience of sleeping on a bed – and pulled his robes on before picking up Heir to the Empire. He went down the seven flights of steps to reach the Gryffindor Common Room, waved hello to the First-Years, and then had to politely tell them that, no, the way he was going to get to breakfast probably wouldn't work for them.

Leaving the portrait hole, he walked to the edge of the grand staircase and jumped.

Someone yelped back on the floor he'd left, and Harry dropped halfway to the ground floor before flaring his wings and coming down to a landing. It was just the way to make sure he was awake in the morning, and he furled his wings before heading in to get breakfast.

June was already there, inspecting some toast and prodding it dubiously with a fork, and she smiled briefly at Harry before returning to her examination of the bread products. Harry took a seat at the Gryffindor table, picking out some toast of his own, and buttered it up before adding some marmalade.

"Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said, getting his attention, and Harry paused long enough to take his schedule. It said that they had double Herbology this morning, then Transfiguration, and after lunch it was Defence.

Harry sort of wondered why it was double Herbology now, between bites of his toast. Maybe it was because they were moving on to more complicated plants?

Amused by the idea of seventh-year Herbology being an entire day's time wrestling with Devil's Snare, Harry finished his toast and looked for something else to have. He picked up some scrambled egg, a sausage, and as he was adding some baked beans to the mix Dean came into the room.

"I forgot how many stairs this place had," he said, yawning. "What's first today?"

"Herbology," Harry told him, opening Heir to the Empire. "That's a double, then there's Transfiguration as well before lunch."

"Wow, so much for an easy Wednesday morning," Dean snorted. "When's Astronomy?"

"Um… midnight on Friday evening, I think," Harry replied, then checked his schedule again. "Yeah. That might be a problem if there's a club Saturday morning."

Their friends straggled in over the next ten minutes, Hermione with a gaggle of First-Years (or was the term pride, since they were Gryffindors?), and after they'd eaten they headed all the way back up to pick up their Herbology and Transfiguration books.

Then all the way back down again to the ground floor to head to the greenhouses.

It was something like forty flights of stairs, up or down, and Hermione was grumbling about it as they got to the greenhouses.

"What about if we had bags like Harry's tent?" Ron suggested. "You know, bigger on the inside. So you could carry all your stuff in one, and you wouldn't need to go back to the dorms."

"That's a good idea," Dean agreed. "We can't all be like Harry, and inexplicably tough and stuff."

"It seems pretty explicable to me," Neville volunteered. "He's a dragon."

"That's just a description, not an explanation," Hermione told him. "If you want to get technical, that is."

"I think it's an explanation," Harry said. "Dragons are just… kind of strong? I think it's biological."

He inspected his wing. "Or whatever it is you call it."

"Any idea how hard it is to make one of those bags I was talking about?" Ron asked. "It'd be great if we all had one."

"It would," Hermione agreed. "And, naturally, if you want one you'll have to make it yourself."

"Come on," Ron groaned. "Do I have to?"

"You made yourself some Erasing Quills," Hermione told him. "Eventually. So you should be able to do it."

"But..." Ron began, then groaned. "All right, all right..."

They crossed the lawn, going around the vegetable patch, and as they rounded the corner of one of the greenhouses they saw Professor Sprout with about half of the second-year Hufflepuffs. Parvati and Lavender were there as well, and Harry took a quick glance at Ron's watch to make sure they were still early.

"Good morning, chaps!" Professor Sprout said brightly. "We'll just wait for the rest of them to arrive – shouldn't be long."

"Ah, Professor Sprout!" came a voice, and Professor Lockhart strode over the vegetable patch to join them. "Just the person I wanted to see! I was wondering whether you were going to be discussing the Snargaluff today."

"That is sixth-year work, Professor Lockhart," Professor Sprout said, still cheerful. "I wouldn't give it to second-years, I fear it would probably wipe out half the class."

"Of course, of course!" Professor Lockhart laughed. "Half the class, maybe, but I'm sure Mr. Potter would get through unscathed!"

He winked at Harry. "But I was wondering if you'd perhaps consider using a little spell I picked up in Borneo – but, no, you know best, of course!"

Professor Sprout seemed a little less cheerful at that, but then someone yelped. "Dragon!"

"You mean Harry?" Hermione asked. "He's been your classmate for a year, Ernie-"

Professor Lockhart let out a quite spectacular shout of surprise, and then Harry was bowled over by a powerful impact that knocked him rolling once over completely and left him sprawling in the loamy soil of the vegetable patch.

A black-scaled, bronze-horned head as big as his torso loomed over him, teeth exposed and tongue rolling, and Harry blinked for a moment.

"Is that you, Nora?" he asked, noticing the long yellow scarf wound around the dragon's neck.

"Yes!" the dragon replied, and licked Harry from the base of his neck all the way up to his muzzle – knocking his glasses off, so Harry had to catch them with one paw. "Nora!"

She lifted her head back up a bit, visibly looking Harry up and down, and tilted it in bafflement. "Small now?"

"You can talk?" Harry asked, confused. "I didn't know dragons could talk."

"Harry, are you okay?" Neville asked.

Nora ignored him. "Talk!" she announced, sounding very pleased with herself.

"What's that hissing noise?" Ernie asked. "Is that dragon? I didn't know Harry spoke dragon."

"I didn't know I spoke dragon," Harry replied, turning to look at the Hufflepuff. "I didn't know dragon was a thing that could be spoken."

He turned his attention back to Nora. "Can you let me get up, please?"

"Up?" Nora repeated, and try as he might Harry couldn't tell the difference between how she spoke and the sound of normal English. "Up!"

Her wings unfurled, and she took off to hover about five feet in the air. Harry rolled back to his feet, shaking some of the dirt off, and Nora gave him a plaintive look – the wind from her wings blowing fallen twigs and leaves away in gusts and making everyone else keep back.

"Fly?" she asked.

"Sorry," Harry replied. "I've got a lesson – er – how much do you understand?"

Nora seemed disappointed by the first word, and landed again. That let Harry see that she was now at least twenty-five feet long, and he wondered how she fit through the castle… then again, it was full of secret passages, and she wasn't all that wide as such. Just long.

"Understand?" she said. "Understand words!"

"Nora? Nora – there you are, you little rascal!"

Hagrid hurried over, and Nora turned to him to accept a scratch under the chin. "Sorry, Harry, she was goin' out for a fly, then she musta seen you and decided to come over. She's such a sweet normally-"

"Hagrid?" Harry interrupted. "Did you know Nora can talk?"

He frowned. "I mean, it's not English, but I can understand it, anyway..."

"Talk!" Nora agreed. "Talk lots!"

"Is that what that hissin' stuff is?" Hagrid said, sounding very interested indeed. "Aren't you a clever dragon?"

Nora seemed quite pleased by that description.

After the excitement of the dragon, Professor Sprout announced that they'd be in Greenhouse Three. Professor Lockhart seemed to have gone missing, which was a bit strange, and Harry followed the rest of the students as he brushed mud off his robes.

Maybe he'd have to swap to his other set after Herbology and leave those ones out for the House-Elves to wash.

Pondering that, he listened as Professor Sprout told everyone about the Mandrakes. She reminded everyone that the cry of an adult Mandrake could be fatal, but that a young Mandrake would just cause unconsciousness.

There were earmuffs laid out on all the tables, and Harry lifted himself up to a table with one forepaw before raising the other.

"Professor?" he asked. "What should I do? And does that apply to my sort of dragon?"

"Ah," Professor Sprout said, nodding. "Two very good questions, Mr. Potter."

She raised her wand. "If everyone else could put their earmuffs on, please?"

There was a general rustling as everyone else duly put their earmuffs on, and Professor Sprout checked to be sure everyone had indeed got their earmuffs in place. Once she had, she grasped the leaves of one of the Mandrakes before pulling it out of the soil.

Harry had sort of remembered that Mandrakes looked like that – like babies, for the young plants – but seeing it was something else entirely. The Mandrake wailed, squirming, and it was loud and vaguely painful for a second until Professor Sprout waved her wand at the Mandrake and it went silent.

After she'd re-potted the plant, she bustled over to inspect Harry and took her own earmuffs off. "Everything alright, Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded slowly. "I think so, Professor. I had a bit of a headache, but it's going away now."

"Good, you should be fine," Professor Sprout said, and tapped her wand on the spare pair of earmuffs so they reformed themselves into a dragon-appropriate shape. "Resistant, but not enough to skip the earmuffs. Better to check with a youngster than a full-sized Mandrake."

She gestured to everyone else to take their earmuffs off, then went through the details of how to re-pot a Mandrake. Harry briefly tried the earmuffs on, making sure they blocked all the sound, then listened until Professor Sprout was done.

"Professor?" he asked, putting his paw up again. "How do you know when a Mandrake is fully grown?"

"Oh, they usually hold a party about two thirds of the way in," the Professor replied. "And before you ask, Mr. Potter, it's all instinct – and yes, we have thought about that."

Harry was quite glad for the reassurance.

After almost two hours of re-potting plants, everyone went for a quick wash and change. Then it was down to Transfiguration, where they were starting right back in on transfiguring things with a beetles-to-buttons lesson. Professor McGonagall said that anyone who worked out the point of the lesson and told her would get four points, and after several minutes of trying to transfigure her beetle Sally-Anne Perks put her hand up.

"Is it so we get used to transfiguring things quickly?" she asked.

"Well done, Miss Perks," the Professor said. "Four points, as promised. Yes, this is an important aspect of Transfiguration."

She waved her wand twice, turning her glass of water into a bird and back. "When Transfiguring a moving object, you must keep in mind how long it will take to Transfigure – and where it is when the spell is cast."

That sounded interesting to Harry, and he wondered whether maybe that was why Animation was used so much in Transfiguration – as a way to get around that problem.

He managed to make one button, sort of, but it didn't have any holes in the middle and had a tendency to scuttle away when he wasn't looking. Hermione did much better, and Harry decided that he should do a bit of Transfiguration revision this evening as well as their proper homework.

It really was a pity that they couldn't practice over the summer. He knew it was the law, but it meant that you came straight back to school and you'd not done any magic for two months – certainly no Transfiguration, in his case.

Really, there should be some kind of footnote to the law where it was allowed so long as you were in a place where no Muggles could possibly see you. Or maybe so long as the only Muggles who could see you already knew about magic? That way Hermione could do magic at home, because her parents knew.

Thinking about that made Harry think about his tent, and his cloak, and the other magical items he had. Wouldn't it be just as much of a problem for a young wizard to use those as use his wand?

It was all very complicated, and Harry shrugged his wings before going to lunch.

Conversation was buzzing in the Great Hall during lunch. Apparently Professor Lockhart's first Defence lesson, with the first-year Gryffindors and Slytherins, had gone quite badly wrong – starting when he'd been asked by a Slytherin to give them a demonstration of a spell and accidentally picked up a liquorice wand instead.

It was kind of confused what had happened after that point, but it sounded like the Smith twins' pet fox had run rampant through the class, and that Professor Lockhart hadn't managed to catch her for more than twenty minutes of knocking things over and robe-biting and tripping.

The way Colin said it, there'd been absolute bedlam, and Professor Lockhart had eventually announced that they'd had an absolutely marvellous lesson in how much chaos and disruption could result from something simple – pointing out that, while it was risky for the fox, doing that to someone else in a fight would be really very useful.

Harry kind of liked that point. It was a good point, and he wondered if that had been what Professor Lockhart had been planning on teaching for the whole lesson or just something he'd come up with as an improvisation.

Unsure quite what to expect, Harry and his friends went to their own first Defence lesson of the year.

Professor Lockhart was nowhere to be seen, at first, but swept in just before the bell with a flourish.

"Ah, another fine group of students!" he said, smiling winningly. "In case you don't know, my name is Gilderoy Lockhart."

He held up one of the books from Parvati's desk and winked, and the picture on the front cover winked as well.

"I don't really like being called Professor, it's really quite a boring title," he went on, putting it down again. "Unlike, say, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, or Order of Merlin, Third Class. Or five-times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award."

He demonstrated, and Harry wondered what the appeal was.

"Though I wouldn't recommend trying to drive off a dark creature by smiling at it," Lockhart cautioned. "It certainly didn't work on the Bandon Banshee!"

There were a few faint chuckles at that, and Lockhart continued apace. "I thought I'd just begin this class with a quick test – see how much you know so far, and how well you read your course books. If you could just hand those out for me, there's a good lad."

Terry Boot took them and passed them out, one per person. Harry got his and inspected it, finding that there were three pages in total, and had to do a bit of a double-take when he read the actual questions.

There were things like asking what Mr. Lockhart's favourite colour was, or what his ideal birthday present would be, or when he won his Order of Merlin. A few of the questions were about the actual subjects of the books, but it didn't seem like many of them were at all.

Frowning and wondering what the lesson here was, Harry started doing his best to answer them as soon as Mr. Lockhart told them to start.

A few minutes in, he absently opened one of the books to check something. Then he looked up at Mr. Lockhart to see if it was okay, and the teacher winked at him.

Harry assumed that that meant it was okay to look things up, and the sound of turning pages slowly got more common as more people followed his example.

"Well!" Mr. Lockhart said, marking the exams about half an hour later. "Mostly right, Mr. Potter, but you did forget about my favourite colour, which is lilac!"

Harry wondered whether Mr. Lockhart could have at least put some kind of index in his books. It was very hard to find what he wanted to find without one of those, and he'd done his best – and with over fifty questions in thirty minutes, he hadn't had time to look most things up anyway.

"It looks like Miss Granger is the only one to get everything," Mr. Lockhart added. "Very well done, Miss Granger, ten points to Gryffindor!"

Hermione seemed very pleased, and Mr. Lockhart brought a covered cage out from under the table.

"Be warned," he began. "In this classroom, you will face fiendish dark creatures and learn how to take on terrifying spells. There will be many terrible things… you may even see your worst fear within these halls."

Dean put his hand up.

"Mr. Thomas?" Mr. Lockhart asked.

"Does that mean you have a Boggart in there, sir?" he said, pointing at the cage.

"A good question!" Lockhart replied. "But no, not this time. What you will find within are..."

He pulled the cloth off. "Freshly caught Cornish pixies!"

The pixies jabbered wildly as the light hit them, and Harry leaned forwards a little to look closer.

He'd never seen a pixie before, and they looked very odd – like brilliant blue humans less than nine inches tall, without any wings but floating around anyway.

Seamus started to laugh.

"Yes?" Mr. Lockhart asked.

"Well… they're not really dangerous, are they?" Seamus asked, gesturing to the pixies.

"Well, Mr. Finnegan," the teacher replied. "Since you say so, I'm sure you can sort them out."

He opened the door of the cage.

Eleven minutes later, Dean finally got the freezing charm right and managed to immobilize the pixie that was still lifting Neville by his ear.

Harry caught his friend, and they all glanced warily around to be sure there weren't any more pixies still flitting around the room.

Several long seconds went by with no sign of a bright blue menace whizzing back and forth, and Harry let out a long sigh.

"It's so lucky you knew that spell, Hermione," he said, looking at the bedlam that the pixies had caused. Books torn – hopefully they'd be able to repair them or at least ask Percy for help – ink splashed, several small craters in the walls, pictures broken and glass everywhere from the smashed windows and the covers of the paintings. A portrait was complaining in a muffled voice that it had gone blind, though Harry thought it had just ended up facing straight down, and the cage was full of paralyzed pixies as Ron put the last one in and swung the cage door shut.

"There you go!" Mr. Lockhart said. "A fine lesson, I think, in why you should never claim something is simple when you cannot do it yourself!"

He smiled, though it was a bit less charismatic with his hair dripping with bright purple ink. "No need to clear up the rest, I'm sure the house-elves will be delighted to. No homework today, wouldn't be fair to give it to you with so many of your classmates having fled!"

"That doesn't sound like a very good way of teaching," Su Li said, as they headed upstairs – both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor dorms were the same direction, and Sue had stuck around to help them out.

"Maybe it's all about practical skills?" Neville suggested. "I do kind of wish we had Mr. Podmore back, though. He was cool."

There was general agreement, and then they all crowded to the side to let Tanisis Sanura lope past with Luna Lovegood following her.

"Sorry!" Luna called. "We lost track of time, Charms is in two minutes!"

"Probably telling riddles again," Su said, shaking her head. "Nobody else understands half of them – and this is Ravenclaw we're talking about."

Overall, Harry thought, Hogwarts was certainly as strange as it had ever been.

Chapter Text

Ten minutes after getting up to the dorms, they all headed back down again to go out onto the lawns. It was still hours until dinner, and with comparatively little homework it made a lot of sense to go out and enjoy the late summer air while there was still a chance.

Fred and George came down as well, both with their broomsticks, and Harry had both the ones he'd got in Diagon Alley over the summer so that made a total of four. It wasn't quite enough for everyone to have one, but by taking turns it meant that five of the seven of them could be flying at the same time – and flying wasn't the only thing to do, since everyone was also still enjoying that they could cast spells again. Hermione had picked out at least a dozen spells she wanted to try out from their spellbook, and when it was their turn on the ground Ron and Neville went through most of the things from first year to get back into the swing of things.

Fred went off to the Quidditch sheds and brought back a Quaffle, which they began throwing around, and then George swooped up to fly alongside Harry as he went on a wide banking turn.

"Hey, Harry?" he asked. "Ever thought of playing Quidditch?"

"I've thought of playing Quidditch," Fred added, zooming over and flying on Harry's other side.

"You've thought of playing Quidditch?" George said. "I've thought of playing Quidditch!"

They exchanged a nod.

"We've thought of playing Quidditch," both said at the same time. "A lot!"

"And between you and me, Cormac's not actually very good at this seeker thing," George elaborated.

"It'd be a real help if someone like a second year-"

"-or unscouted third year, but who expects that," George interrupted.

"-thank you – could turn out to be actually very good at this seeker thing."

There was a long and expectant pause.

"No," Harry said eventually. "I've not thought of playing Quidditch."

The Twins sighed, sounding very disappointed.

"What's the problem?" he added. "Why are you so upset? I answered the only question you actually asked."

"He's got us there, George," said the one Harry had thought was Fred. But who he now thought was probably George.

"He has got us there, Fred," Fred agreed, and Harry smirked a little.

It was hard to trick the Weasley Twins, and he was proud of having managed it even in such a little way.

"Let's ask another question," George decided. "Will you be coming to the Quidditch tryouts this Saturday?"

Harry thought about it, flying low over the Black Lake, and the two Weasleys flanked him as he did. Then he rose, wings cupping the air to push him higher and faster, and rose almost as high as the top of the castle before slowing and drifting back down to where the others were.

"All right," he decided, as he landed. "I'll see how good I am."

"Right!" said Fred. "The tryouts are this coming Saturday, they should go up on the noticeboard tomorrow."

"That's Quidditch, right?" Ron checked, and Harry nodded. "After last year… yeah, Harry's going to be really good at this."

"You sure?" Neville asked. "He might be no good at catching the Snitch, even if he can see it."

"He's caught you enough times," Ron responded. "Mind if I check I've got this jinx right?"

"Go ahead," Neville agreed.

"Locomotor Mortis," Ron incanted, and Neville's ankles slammed together. "But come on, Nev, at least let me have this."

"Have what?" Harry asked, fishing his own wand out from his robes and using it to dispel the jinx. "I thought you were saying I'd be the one doing Quidditch."

"Well, it'd be cool if I could too," Ron said with a shrug. "But I'm not really very good – and my best position's Keeper, and I've heard about how fanatical Oliver Wood is."

Neville tried the Leg-Locker this time, and got it on the second try after the first fizzled. Harry reversed that, and tilted his head. "You still didn't say what it was you wanted to have."

"Oh, right," Ron realized. "Well… it'd be nice to have a team I'm supporting actually win."

"I thought you were okay with the Cannons always losing, Ron," Fred asked.

"I thought that was why he supported them," George shrugged.

"You have to admire their consistency," Fred said solemnly.

"Maybe that's why our brother likes them?" George asked. "He's a simple soul, and consistency is comforting."

"Oi!" Ron groaned. "Prats."

"Well, maybe it's just a problem with pattern recognition," Fred suggested.

Harry wondered about how many clubs he'd have time for, but just as important was going down to visit Hagrid for the first time that year.

The kindly man was sitting outside his hut, giving Nora a once-over with an intimidating wire brush to keep her scales free of anything that had built up, and when she saw Harry coming Nora perked up.

"Hello!" she said brightly, bouncing slightly, and Hagrid put a hand gently on the base of her neck to keep her still while he scrubbed.

"Was that still hissing?" Harry asked his friends.

"What?" Ron asked.

"It was dragon language, Ron," Hermione said. "He wasn't talking to you."

"I was," Harry protested, turning to look at them. "Or I thought I was."

"Well, it was definitely that sort of hissy dragon language," Dean said. "Thing. Whatever. Dragonish?"

"If it's a language it should really have a name for itself," Harry replied, turning back to look at Nora. "Do you know what it is we're speaking?"

The question made Nora tilt her head in deep thought.

"You know we only understood up until you said 'really have', right?" Neville checked. "You went back to Dragonish mid-word."

"Hold on a moment," Hermione asked, and got out a notebook.

"Speaking!" Nora announced, having apparently come to a conclusion.

"I know that's what we're doing," Harry said. "But, um…"

"Okay!" Hermione resumed. "Let's try a few experiments. Harry, say something in Dragonish."

"Something," Harry said, looking at her.

"No, I meant something in Dragonish," Hermione corrected. "You really don't know which language you're speaking?"

She made a note. "That's interesting… okay, now try saying the same thing, but look at Nora and say it in Dragonish."

Harry complied.

"Why Something?" Nora asked, then looked at Hagrid – who was watching the whole thing with a smile. "Done with scratches yet?"

"What did she say?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked at Hermione this time, to make sure he didn't repeat Nora in Dragonish. "She asked why I'd said the word Something, then asked if Hagrid was done with scratching her yet."

"I guess we're going to be sending another letter to Charlie," Ron guessed, as Hermione kept taking notes.

"Right!" Hermione said, some time later.

She checked the four pages of scattered notes she'd made, and Harry leaned over to look.

"Eat?" Nora asked.

"Sorry, no," Harry replied. "Ask Hagrid for something."

"Hagrid!" Nora agreed brightly, and turned towards the big giant. "Food?"

"So we've established that Harry can always understand Dragonish, but he can only speak it if he's looking at a dragon," Hermione said. "That doesn't include himself, though, and it also didn't include the dragon versions of his parents from the Mirror of Erised."

"Right," Dean agreed. "Which seems pretty much like magic to me."

"You can't just say something's like magic," Fred protested. "Magic has rules."

"Consistent ones," George agreed.

"Steady on, let's not go that far," Fred countered. "Mostly consistent."

"Then they're not rules, are they?" George said. "They're guidelines."

"You can't just say something's like magic," Fred resumed. "Magic has guidelines."

"But the guidelines are really odd," Dean pointed out.

"They're not, not really," Ron replied. "That fellytone thing, that's odd. You speak to someone a really long way away down a long wire and you don't have to shout? How does that make any sense?"

"It's because the sound is converted into electrical signals," Hermione explained. "The signals go down the wire to the other end and get converted back into sound, but because they went all that way as electrical signals-"

She stopped. "Hold on. How is it that this is something that's hard for you to understand? Wizards have the Wizarding Wireless."

"Yeah, but that's magic," Ron replied promptly.

"I think we're getting a bit distracted?" Neville asked.

"Oh, right," Hermione realized, going back to her notes. "So, um… right. Harry's never met a dragon before, so maybe they can all speak Dragonish and Harry is just the first one who can also speak English to translate."

"That sounds like something we'd need Ron's brother to help with," Harry said, sitting on his haunches. "It'd be great if all dragons could talk, though. Maybe there really are some hiding in Beauxbatons."

"What?" Fred asked, confused.

"Okay, seriously, George, you need to read that book," Ron told him.

"We've also established," Hermione went on, "that it's possible to learn to speak Dragonish, or that a human can make the noises you need to make. But it's very hard, because they're all hissy."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, remembering Ron's attempts – the hissing noises he'd made had been about half just gibberish, and the other half had resolved into almost random words until he'd finally got 'Hello' down twice in a row and they'd called that a success. "This would be a lot easier with a tape recorder."

"There's got to be some way wizards can record sound," Hermione said. "Right? Maybe that would help..."

She checked her notes again. "So the questions that we have left are, um… can Harry speak Dragonish if he's looking at a drawing of a dragon, or a photo of a dragon? Does the photo have to be moving? And – I know it sounds silly – can we confirm that other dragons actually speak Dragonish?"

Hagrid came over with a plate of rock cakes, and handed one to Harry (who crunched it down with pleasure). "And if you do end up teachin' folk how to speak dragon, I wouldn't say no to it. Bein' able to talk to Nora – properly talk, and understand her too – would be wunnerful."

Sometimes Harry wondered if the actual curriculum at Hogwarts was only half of what you were meant to be learning. The club sign-up sheets were going up, and Book Club sounded as interesting as ever – but he also put his name down for Quidditch tryouts, as Fred and George had asked, and some of the other clubs looked sort of tempting.

Maybe it was time management you were meant to learn?

Harry wondered what tips Percy could give for time management, because Percy had managed to get a staggering number of OWLs at once and somehow still keep up his Prefect duties.

But, then again, Harry couldn't think of any clubs that Percy took part in, so maybe that was part of how he'd managed to find the time. Shrugging, Harry headed upstairs to do his latest homework – and maybe finish reading Heir to the Empire.

Aside from Herbology, where they'd moved on to more dangerous plants, and to Defence Against the Dark Arts – which had started with quite an unusual lesson – it seemed as though the rest of the classes were much the same as they had been in first year. Professor Snape's Potions lessons still involved carefully following the instructions on the board, Astronomy was about plotting the movements of the planets, History of Magic had moved on a little to a different subject, and Charms meant a whole collection of new spells to learn.

It was a little odd learning how to conjure fire, or at least normal fire – the sort of fire that wizards conjured that was otherwise just like a normal fire and would set things on proper fire. Harry could do the same thing by breathing out, but he could see why most wizards needed to use a wand.

"Now, remember!" Professor Flitwick said. "The incantation is incendio, notice the stress on the second syllable! But more than that you must be careful, because the same spell can produce a jet of flames or simply cause a flame to spring into being!"

He indicated the stone basins by their desks, each filled with flammable material, and then the set of candles. "And the flame can be really quite large or very small, depending on how you cast it – so I want you all to first simply try to cast the spell, as a jet or as an ignition does not matter but make sure that you are casting it into the basin!"

Harry looked down, and moved his wand through the motion they'd been taught – a kind of wavy upstroke-and-downstroke which sort of traced the shape of a flame in the air.

"Incendio," he said, and the tinder burst merrily into flame.

"Oh, very good work, Mr. Potter!" Professor Flitwick announced. "Three points to Gryffindor!"

He chuckled. "Well, I suppose in a way you've been casting that spell a lot! It's actually quite similar to bluebell flames, Arithmantically speaking."

"It is?" Dean asked. "Um… Incendio!"

There was a whoosh of flame, and bits of smoking tinder rained down all over the classroom.

"Ah," Professor Flitwick said, still cheerful as ever. "I think perhaps a little less flame next time, Mr. Thomas!"

He extinguished the few embers that were smouldering, and lifted some of the spare tinder into Dean's basin with a quick levitation charm.

As he moved on to help one of the Ravenclaws, Harry looked at the scorched basin and then at Dean.

"Hey, at least I cast it," Dean shrugged. "Besides, you're fireproof. What are you worried about?"

"Most of my things aren't fireproof," Harry replied, inspecting his robes for embers. "And we don't learn flame-freezing charms until… what is it, third year? I think Percy said it was around that time."

Dean sniggered. "Yeah, because teaching everyone to set things on fire before teaching them to put it out again or the spell that means it doesn't hurt is a really good idea."

"Hey, I'm trying to concentrate," Mandy Brocklehurst asked, and Harry winced and apologized.

Saturday seemed to come unexpectedly quickly, which was a little odd given how it was a day of the week and those were very regular indeed, and Harry picked up his broomstick before making his way down to the Quidditch pitch for the Gryffindor tryouts.

His friends came with him, to offer moral support (or watch) and Hermione took out a small handkerchief before expanding it out into a big groundsheet to sit on.

"That's pretty impressive," Fred noted. "You don't learn that until later in the year."

Hermione blushed a little, then Harry saw her look over to the ground-floor entrance to the Quidditch pitch. "Ginny? Is that you?"

Ginny nodded from the door, looking a bit apprehensive, and Hermione patted the ground to invite her to sit down.

"Right!" Oliver Wood said – he was a big, burly boy in sixth year, and his eyes were bright with enthusiasm. "So it looks like we've only got one new possible player this year."

"Yeah, not that we need one," Cormac shrugged. He was the current Seeker, Harry remembered, and at his words Oliver shook his head.

"Harry couldn't try out last year, Cormac," he pointed out. "Unless Harry turns out to be completely rubbish you'll still both be on the team, because you're the reserve – and it really is good that you're competent in all the positions."

That didn't seem to mollify Cormac much, but Oliver lifted up a crate.

"You know the rules, of course?" he asked Harry.

"Mostly," Harry replied. "I know about the four balls, and about what each of the positions is meant to do."

"Good," Oliver said with a nod. "It's best to check. Fred and George will be giving you a bit of Bludger experience later, but for now the first thing to do is to let me see how you fly. Ready?"

Harry put his Cleansweep down, stepped over it, and commanded it to rise up – using a paw to hold it against his belly.

"All right, go," Oliver added, and Harry raised his wings before bringing them hammering down. He started the broom moving in the same moment, and took off with fairly impressive speed.

Control was a little trickier, at first, and it took him a few somewhat wobbly minutes before he was back into the groove of using his wings as giant fins to steer with most of his actual speed coming from the broom. Once he was back to it, though, he was able to flap again – little movements which kept his wings in place to steer, but which made him a little faster – and to turn around just as quickly as he could when he was flying with nothing but his wings.

It felt really good, even better than normal flying, and Harry lost track of time a bit.

When he slowed to a halt again, perhaps ten or twenty minutes later, Oliver waved at him to come down and land next to the crate.

Cormac looked a bit sour, but Fred, George and the three Gryffindor Chasers all looked pleased.

"Right!" Oliver said. "Next thing is checking you can catch – doesn't matter if you're Keeper, Chaser or Seeker, catching a ball is an important part of Quidditch."

He opened the crate, which had four Quidditch balls strapped into place – two of them fighting to get out – and reached past them to get out some smaller balls which Harry recognized as golf balls.

"Wait, wait, hold on," Dean asked, getting up. "Can I see those?"

He came closer, and Oliver passed him one.

"Yeah, that's what I thought it was," the Londoner said. "These are – do you play golf at Hogwarts?"

"What's golf?" Oliver asked. "These are intermediate Seeker practice balls."

"Mate, they're golf balls," Dean told him. "What else is in there?"

He helped Oliver balance the inner partition of the crate as he lifted it, revealing more balls inside – a half-dozen leather footballs, eight cricket balls, some tennis balls (half of them bright green-yellow and the other half all sorts of colours), and twenty or so marbles.

"Look at this!" Dean said. "Hermione, you're the other Muggleborn – come over and look at this!"

"I was Muggle raised," Harry volunteered. "And yeah, those are all for Muggle sports."

"Sure?" Oliver asked. "Those are high difficulty practice Quaffles, those are for Bludger practice, those are Snitch practice and the little ones are high difficulty Snitch practice."

"...did Hogwarts used to have a normal set of sports?" Dean asked. "And the Quidditch teams just took everything?"

"Whatever, that's not important right now," Oliver said, shaking his head. "Okay, Harry, we'll do a few drills with the intermediate practice Snitches."

"Golf balls!" Dean insisted.

Apparently deciding to focus on testing Harry, Oliver rose into the air with a bag full of golf balls. Harry followed, enjoying how the broom let him just hover there, and once he was in place Oliver held up a golf ball – then threw it to the side.

Harry flapped his wings hard, for extra speed, and darted after it. It dropped quickly, and he snatched it out of the air with a paw before holding it up.

"That's good," Oliver said, approvingly. "Fred, George, grab some of the beginner practice balls – you know what to do. Ready for another one, Harry?"

Harry nodded, and this time Oliver threw the golf ball upwards.

Ten minutes later, Harry had managed to catch all the golf balls – though he'd had to dive quite fast for a couple, and in one case he'd nearly swallowed one. Oliver hadn't minded the tooth marks, though he did say he probably wasn't going to use that one in future.

"Okay, time for your next test," the Sixth-Year added. "Fred and George have used hover charms on some differently coloured practice Snitches all over the stadium."

"You mean tennis balls?" Harry checked.

"No, I mean practice Snitches," Oliver replied.

Harry privately decided that that meant yes.

"I'm going to call out a colour, and you have to race to it and bring it back here," Oliver explained. "Your job is partly to find the hovering ball, because that's something a Seeker has to do."

"Hey, Captain?" Cormac called. "When are we getting to the competitive bit?"

"After this, Cormac," Oliver answered. "We'll do a few practice runs with the proper Snitch, then we'll give Harry some experience of facing Bludgers. Even if he's not the first-team Seeker he'll probably be reserve…"

Cormac seemed a little mollified by that, and Oliver raised his arm. "Ready, Harry?"

Harry nodded, tail twitching a little until he wrapped it around his Cleansweep just above the bristle bundle.

"All right… red!"

Harry darted upwards, looking around for a splash of red against the green grass of the pitch floor. There was a yellow one, a blue one, an orange one… a purple one – there!

It was back 'behind' him with how he was flying, not to mention only six feet above the floor, and Harry pulled up and around in a quick half-flip. That left him flying upside down, and he rolled into his dive before pumping his wings to go faster than the broom could carry him by itself.

Twenty feet off the ground he spread his wings as brakes instead, pulling the broom up to slow it down, and shed speed so quickly there was a very noticeable jolt. He grabbed the red tennis ball, slid to a halt, and turned around to fly back up to Oliver to hand the ball off.

"Good," Oliver said. "Now the blue-"

He didn't finish asking before Harry set off in the direction he remembered seeing the blue one.

As Harry tossed the last of the tennis balls to Oliver, he noticed that Cormac was looking a bit offended.

Wondering whether Cormac had become unmollified again (and deciding he liked the word mollify), Harry floated down slightly with his wings out to provide a larger sail area. That meant he rocked up and down slightly as the currents pulled him around, but it felt nice so he kept it up.

"Okay, so you're good at finding the Snitch," Oliver said. "How did you do that, by the way? It took you several seconds to spot the first one, but after that you barely waited long enough to hear which one I wanted."

"I saw them before," Harry shrugged; it seemed pretty obvious. The shrug made him bob up and down because he'd used his wings to do it, and Oliver looked very considering about that.

"Well, let's see how you do with the actual Snitch," he said, tilting his broom forwards a little, and Harry followed as they drifted down to the crate.

"This is a Snitch that got used in the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw game last year," Oliver explained, taking a hold of it and then unbuckling it. "They have flesh memories which means they remember how they were first caught – in case it's needed to settle a rules enquiry – but nobody here was even in that game, let alone the Seeker."

"How do you know that?" Fred asked. "I could have been the Ravenclaw Seeker."

"You?" Oliver asked, snorting. "You know Ravenclaw has a new Seeker this year?"

"I don't see the problem," Fred told his team captain.

"Their old Seeker left, because she graduated," Oliver added. "...you know what, never mind. Okay, Harry, so a Snitch is a bit different to what you've been catching so far."

Little spindly ball-jointed wings unfurled from the Snitch and began flapping, so far without any effect as Oliver held onto it, and he continued. "It's gold, obviously, which makes it a little easier to see at a distance. But because it flies by itself – and quickly, too – it can dodge, and if you take your eyes off it for a moment it'll vanish."

Harry nodded, watching the Snitch closely as Oliver held it up.

"In a game there's a ten second wait," Oliver went on. "But here we'll start easy. When I say go, go after the Snitch."

Crouching, Harry got ready for a quick takeoff. His wings rose slowly to their highest extension, his tail twitched back and forth slightly, and he kept his eyes on the golden Snitch.

"Don't eat it!" Ron reminded him.

Oliver let the Snitch go, then chopped his hand down. "Go!"

Harry took off with a combined jump and flap, powering off the ground, then steered straight for the moving spark of gold. His paw closed around it with smooth efficiency, and he flared his wings to come to a halt again.

Oliver blinked. "Okay… maybe a longer delay this time?"

"Try having him cover his eyes while it flies off!" Dean called.

About ten minutes later, Cormac was looking exceedingly disgruntled.

Harry had to admit that when he was going after the actual Golden Snitch it was just like everything clicked together. There was a shiny thing moving, he had to chase the shiny thing… he didn't even need to think about how he held his wings or controlled his broom, it all just fitted neatly together.

"All right, that's enough!" Oliver decided. "Unless something serious comes up, I think that means Harry's our starting Seeker this year-"

"Hey, what about that versus match you mentioned?" Cormac asked.

"He's got a point," Harry agreed, and wondered why Cormac gave him an odd look at that. "You did say."

"Well… Bludger practice first," Oliver said. "The Bludger's a ten inch ball of iron."

"Sorry, what?" Hermione demanded.

She got up from the enlarged handkerchief and came over. "What? This is a ten inch ball of iron?"

"Well, yeah," Oliver agreed. "Why?"

Hermione pointed at George. "And those two knock it about with a wooden club?"

"An enchanted wooden club," George said. "And there's only one of me over here, the other one of me is over there."

Fred waved.

"Oh, you're almost interchangeable anyway," Hermione said a little crossly. "And – I must have read it in Quidditch Through the Ages but I didn't realize – a ten inch ball of iron has to be – hold on."

She pulled a notebook and quill out of her pocket, and Harry noticed that all the actual Quidditch players were exchanging confused looks.

"I can't remember exactly how dense iron is, but it's at least seven times water – and that's twelve and a half centimetres in radius, call it twelve… so that's a thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight, times about four so call it seven thousand..."

Oliver tapped Harry on the wing shoulder. "Do you have any idea what she's doing?"

"Maths," Harry replied. "I think."

Hermione seemed to be satisfied with her numbers, and looked up from the page of scribbles she'd been using.

"You know those balls weigh about fifty kilos each, right? That's more than a hundred pounds!"

"I'm completely lost," Fred admitted. "What's that in Galleons?"

"I don't think it's that kind of pounds," George told him, in what was theoretically a quiet voice.

"Oh, right."

"How strong are you two?" Hermione demanded.

"We're Beaters," Fred answered, as if that explained everything.

"Hermione!" Dean called. "Remember. It's magic."

That answer seemed to annoy Hermione, but she shook her head and took a deep breath before going back to sit down.

"So what kind of practice am I going to do with the Bludger?" Harry asked.

"Mostly making sure you know how to avoid it," Oliver replied. "Okay, here goes!"

Harry was not very good at avoiding the Bludger, it turned out, but on the plus side he took a direct hit to the side and it didn't do more than knock him sideways a little.

He discovered that, as far as the Twins were concerned, this made him "kind of tough".

Cormac insisted on the Seeker head-to-head, just to be sure, and then for some reason he was upset when Harry just pounced on the Snitch again.

Oliver seemed to be extremely happy, saying that Harry would break the losing streak Gryffindor had been on, and Harry watched as Fred and George exchanged glances before quietly taking their captain aside to remind him that Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup in the 1990-1 school year and that a streak normally meant more than one year.

After that slightly odd aside, Oliver told Harry what the practice schedule was. It was a bit dismaying to see it taking up three evenings a week – and his Saturday and Sunday mornings, as well – but Harry supposed it was because of the need to make sure that everyone could work well together as a team. (He wasn't sure exactly how you did Quidditch practice with only one team and one extra person, though.)

It did mean he probably wouldn't have time to try more of that AD&D game, though, which was a pity. Maybe he could do some over Christmas?

"Are you sure you're going to have time to do your homework?" Hermione asked, as they went back up to the castle. "That's a lot of free time doing Quidditch."

"Yeah, I know..." Harry agreed, sighing. "I might have to not head out to Fort William for new books. I'll see how I get on with the collection I picked up over the summer."

"That sounds like a pretty big sacrifice, Harry," Ron said. "I know how much you like reading."

Harry shrugged. "I'll see how it works out."

"Other sports don't take up that much time," Dean contributed, frowning. "Actually, I did that pick-up football game last year… maybe what we need is some clubs for other games too. We've certainly got most of the equipment for it, even if it is all labelled as Quidditch gear."

"Doesn't tennis need some bats?" Neville said. "I remember hearing that."

"Cricket and softball need bats," Dean corrected him. "Tennis needs rackets."

"Well… if they're Muggle sports, none of it needs magic, right?" Ginny asked. "If you got one to show Percy he could probably make you more with Transfiguration. I don't think Gamp's Law has an exception that says you can't transfigure sports equipment."

They thought about that as they approached the front door.

"Now I want to see how the Quidditch Beaters do playing cricket," Dean said.

"Actually, I want to see that but with all the fielders on brooms," Hermione replied. "It could be very tactical."

"Just so long as you don't bring back Creaothceann," Ron asked. "I don't want to see most of Gryffindor wiped out."

That was an odd enough thing to say that everyone stopped and looked at him.

"What?" Ron asked. "It's a sport where you fly around with a cauldron strapped to your head and try to catch giant falling rocks. I know which House would play it."

There were a few shuffled-around time slots for clubs, partly because of the Astronomy classes for the people involved meaning that they had to change it around a bit, and when the dust settled the book club was on Sunday evening.

Hermione, Harry and Neville all went there with their suggestions for the first book to read, and when they got there most of the familiar faces were still there. The sixth-year who'd facilitated the club last year was gone, and one of his housemates explained that it was because of NEWTs – but there were enough newcomers to make up for it, including both Tanisis (the sphinx) and her friend Luna.

Everyone wanted to talk to Tanisis, and Tanisis had Luna right next to her, so Harry only got a chance to quickly say hello to the two of them during the 'let's get to know each other' bit of the club. Apparently Luna knew Ginny – they'd grown up in the same village – and wondered whether Ginny would be willing to come along to the next book club, while Tanisis was doing her best to smile at everyone and not feel too overwhelmed.

She kept taking out her wand and looking at it, and Harry wondered how easy it was for her to use it with her paw. Were lion tails like hers prehensile enough to hold wands and point them the way he thought his was?

That and other questions kept him occupied until it was time to choose which book they should read first, and Harry suggested The Hobbit. To his surprise, it was the one that got picked first, which meant he didn't really have any more reading to do (though any excuse to re-read The Hobbit was a good one).

After that, and somewhat to Harry's relief, his second year began to settle out into a routine.

Ginny did start coming to the book club to spend time with her friend Luna, there were several hours of Quidditch practice every week, and homework came rolling in from all their classes and rolling out again as Harry got through it.

The theoretical bits felt as hard as they had last year, but when Harry went back to check he found that they were actually quite a lot harder than last year – so he thought about that a bit, then decided that it meant he was getting better (and that was a good thing).

The only really odd thing was the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. The homework was sensible enough, but Harry would have expected that the classroom lessons were practicals – and instead they turned out to be acting out bits from Professor Lockhart's books, usually bringing someone up from the class to perform the part of the dark creature or magical civilian (or Muggle civilian) that Mr. Lockhart was interacting with in that part of the book. It was interesting, because you got an idea of how Mr. Lockhart dealt with the situation, but they didn't seem to be learning much if anything in the way of actual magic.

Maybe that was next term?

Chapter Text

As September wore on, Harry was quite glad he was only doing one other club than Quidditch – juggling things around was quite tricky as it was, and his reading time was suffering. Some other people were doing several clubs, which sounded like the sort of thing Harry could have done in first-year but he had trouble seeing how he could manage it this year with Quidditch.

Some of the clubs were things Harry didn't think he was ready for even if he'd had the free time, like Charms club or the Arithmancy Society, but then there was a newly-started music club which Ron had joined – apparently that was the work of June Forrester – and a cooking club which sounded like it would be really nice to be involved in.

Even if it was just as the taste-tester, though Harry was sure they had enough of those.

But, for all that, the Quidditch team was full of camaraderie and enthusiasm. Harry was often asked to help out in providing them a challenge, from an opposing Chaser for the three Gryffindor chasers to practice tackling, to a Bludger target (which was admittedly something only he could really do safely), to even being the opposing Keeper as they refined their whole-pitch formations.

Oliver was torn between gloating over Harry's ability to get the Snitch and worry over the Slytherin team – all of whom were equipped with high-level Nimbus brooms more modern than anything Gryffindor had. It seemed a little like an unfair advantage, but Harry wasn't really sure how the rules worked for that because Quidditch had been around for hundreds of years before brooms were even really sold.

It wasn't as if you could really buy better performance in a Muggle game like Football – or, at least, you could buy better players, but you couldn't buy boots that made you run twice as fast.

As Harry propped up his book and got ready for breakfast on the third Thursday of the month, Neville sat down next to him.

"Did you hear about what happened last night?" he asked.

"...not really?" Harry replied. "Did something bad happen?"

"Well, apparently someone set off some fireworks during the first-year Astronomy class," Neville explained. "All sorts of different colours – Percy said he was going to tell Fred and George off for it, but they're saying it wasn't them this time."

Harry thought about that.

"Actually, I wonder why there's only those two playing pranks," he said. "They're good, but they're only halfway through learning magic – there's got to be some seventh years who can do better than them."

"That is a good point," Neville agreed. "And, come to think of it, fireworks are one of those things you can just buy in a joke shop. Doctor Filibuster, I think?"

"I hope they're less dangerous than Muggle fireworks," Harry mused, then took a bite of his toast. He chewed thoughtfully before swallowing, and went on. "They're always full of warnings about keeping away from children and pets. They do smell kind of nice, though – one fell in the garden back at home, and it was pretty tasty as well. Kind of a salty taste."

Neville looked at him, then shook his head.

Colin gave Harry a bit more details over lunch. Apparently the fireworks had hissed off into the sky for almost an hour, each one sending out a burst of multicoloured sparks, but there'd been at least five minutes between them and they'd always been just as Professor Sinistra had told them all that they were about to move on to looking at something else.

It actually sounded like there'd been surprisingly little disruption, given that it was a series of fireworks exploding during an astronomy lesson at night. Harry was sort of impressed with himself that he'd slept through it, really, though apparently almost everyone had.

"Hope that doesn't happen in our Astronomy lesson," Ron said, cutting himself a slice of ham and a big hunk of cheese. "We're doing epicycles and stuff tonight. I kind of want to know why people thought they were a thing."

He snagged two thick slices of bread, buttered them, and put the ham and cheese inside – giving him a plus-sized cheese and ham sandwich.

"Isn't it just because we didn't know that the sun was the centre of the solar system?" Hermione asked. "It's an optical illusion."

"Yeah, but I want to know why people didn't know," Ron replied, and pointed his wand at his sandwich. "Hyacinthum inflammare."

Bright lavender flames sprang up all around his meal, and half the Great Hall turned to look.

Ron noticed the attention. "What? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, brother, my bother," Fred began.

"Why have you set your food on fire?" George continued.

"Is this some kind of French thing?" Fred said.

"Would it be a problem if it was?" Hermione asked.

"We're British," Fred pointed out. (Or possibly it was George. Harry was just guessing.)

"My brother's right," George nodded. "Well, my handsome brother is right."

"You mean me, then?" Ron asked.

"No, not at all," Fred informed his youngest brother. "He means me."

"And we're sort of not getting to the point," George said. "Why have you set your meal on fire?"

"It's bluebell flames," Ron replied. "They're not actually dangerous, and the fire doesn't spread."

He pointed his wand. "Finite."

The flames vanished, and Ron checked for a moment to be sure they were really gone before picking up the sandwich and taking a bite.

He chewed for a few seconds, just about all eyes on him, then swallowed.

"Delicious," he pronounced. "It melted the cheese, just like I expected."

"Oh, right," Dean realized. "I thought you'd gone a bit mental, to be honest."

"Is that the right way to say it?" Harry asked, distracted. "Wouldn't it be eccentric? Or bonkers?"

"With the best will in the world, I don't think we're rich enough to be eccentric," Fred admitted.

"We are mad, though," George frowned. "As in mad science."

"Mad magic, not mad science," Fred corrected. "Or perhaps Madic?"

George contemplated his twin for several seconds, then thwacked him with a rolled-up Quibbler.

"That was bad," he said. "And you should feel bad."

Harry noticed over the next couple of weeks that Nora had started watching as they did Quidditch practice.

Fortunately, she mostly seemed interested in watching, and there didn't seem to be any danger of her taking part – it just looked like she liked watching, and unlike Harry didn't seem inclined to go chasing after the Snitch the moment she saw it.

It was actually kind of nice to know she was interested.

Then, after one practice session, she came flying over as Harry left the pitch and landed in front of him.

"You..." she began, then paused and tilted her head.

"What is it?" Harry asked, and Nora shook her head in reaction.

"Not what," she denied, and was silent for several seconds – Harry could almost hear the gears turning as she tried to express what she was thinking.

Eventually, she tried something. "Back hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," Harry replied.

Nora accepted that, and took off again. Instead of flying towards either Hagrid's hut or to the castle, though, she headed on a bit of an angle – something which interested Harry, so he took off and followed her.

Harry had known there was a tree on the Hogwarts grounds that would bludgeon anything that got nearby – he'd wondered if maybe it was an Ent, but it was just a Whomping Willow – but he had to admit that he'd never thought of doing that with it.

Nora stretched like a cat next to the trunk, forepaws digging into the ground to stabilize her, and the branches of the mobile tree hammered down on her with a series of thwacks and thumps that sounded quite painful. They obviously weren't, though, and after she finished stretching the Norwegian Ridgeback lay down where the tree could reach her and continue to batter her all over.

Banking around well outside the tree's attack range, Harry alighted.

"Is that what you were asking about?" he said.

Nora brightened, lifting her head and twisting to look at him. "Hello! Back hurt?"

"No, I'm just curious," Harry explained.

Deciding that this would be a good thing to go into his next letter to Charlie Weasley, he checked the time and sat down to see how much longer Nora would spend being hit very hard with the branches of a mobile tree.

Several minutes later, Nora got up again. Her tail flicked out, slapping the side of the tree, and to Harry's surprise the Willow immediately froze – branches stopped in mid-swing.

"Am hungry now," she announced, and took off to fly over to Hagrid's hut.

As she left, Harry wondered if Neville knew that you could turn off a Whomping Willow by touching part of the trunk.

He'd know once Harry told him, obviously, but what he wasn't sure about was whether Neville already knew.

On the first day of October (which was a Thursday), the Quibbler arrived at breakfast.

The cover was a drawing of Hogwarts castle, with a cat looking out the window, and the story it advertised was one called 'Humans At Hogwarts'.

Curious, Harry opened it up, and read a long article in which the author raised the chilling but sadly feasible possibility that Hogwarts had just admitted their first human student.

Harry got two paragraphs past that before stopping and re-reading it, just in case he'd missed something, but no – the Quibbler article suggested that everybody at Hogwarts wasn't human.

It was a thoroughly odd article, and Harry seriously considered seeing if it made more sense to read it upside down. It wasn't the only strange article, either – another one reported that the Andorran Ministry of Magic had surprisingly turned out to be just one man, because the population of the little country was under 80,000 and so there weren't many wizards there.

That one sounded quite likely, to Harry, but he did wonder why it had taken so long to notice.

Then there was a two-page interview with an anonymous sphinx who was a Ravenclaw first year. Harry was fairly sure he could guess who that was, but the interview was very interesting anyway – for example, Tanisis (or Sphinxess, as the interview called her) said that her mother had become friends with her father because of a shared passion for running, before pointing out that sphinxes were well known for the riddle thing but that didn't mean that was the only thing they were about.

Harry did wonder who the interviewer was, though.

"I wonder if wizards do any trick or treating?" Dean asked, when they were in the middle of doing History of Magic homework one evening. "I know it's still a few weeks before Halloween, but it seems like the kind of thing that they'd either not do any of at all or that they'd do loads of because they get to go outside looking like themselves."

"I don't think that's the technical term," Hermione sniffed.

"What?" Harry asked. "I never got to go trick or treating, but I've heard about it. It's definitely what it's called."

"That's not the one I mean," Hermione explained. "I mean 'they'. Dean, you're a wizard as well."

"Oh, yeah, but I was talking about wizard culture," Dean clarified. "And – hold on. You knew that, didn't you?"

Hermione explained that of course she did, she was just trying out this new thing called deadpan.

"Why don't we just ask Ron and Neville?" Harry suggested. "They grew up in wizard culture."

"Of course we do trick or treating," Ron agreed. "We only did it for a few years and only around Ottery St. Catchpole, but it was great fun. I think Ginny went with her friend, that Ravenclaw first year… Luna, that's right. I always dressed as a wizard, though a really old fashioned wizard and mum didn't let me take one of our brooms."

"That's neat," Dean said. "What about you, Nev?"

Neville looked a bit embarrassed. "Well… Gran didn't like me doing that. She said it was disrespectful to… actually, to your mum and dad, Harry."

"I don't mind," Harry replied. "It's kind of… it wouldn't be right if people couldn't have fun."

"I'm letting you tell Gran that," Neville said, and Harry snorted.

"I wonder if-" Dean began, then laughter broke out all around the common room.

Harry looked up, confused, and saw Fred and George coming in through the portrait hole.

Both of them had bright green hair.

"What in Merlin's name happened to you?" Percy asked. "Your hair's green!"

As he said it, both twins' hair turned yellow.

"Shut up, Perce," Fred grumbled, or possibly George grumbled. "Just tell us you can remove this spell."

"We can't," George agreed, or possibly Fred agreed. "It's got one of those fancy fixing effects on."

"The ones that mean you can't just finite," Fred said.

"It's very annoying."

Percy raised his wand. "Egritudo."

There was no change.

"Has that fixed my hair?" George asked, and the colour changed to purple.

"It's not fixed your hair," Fred answered.

This time it went blue.

"I'm casting a spell to see what's going on," Percy explained, following his brothers as they went over to a corner – the one not far from where Harry and his friends were. "It looks like this was a potion, actually."

"Of course," Fred realized. "We should have known those cookies were suspicious."

"In our defence, George," George said, "they were in the kitchen."

"I think we've been pranked, by Jove," Fred concurred. "Anyone got a Bezoar?"

"It doesn't count as a poison," Percy told them. "So you'll just have to wait. It'll probably wear off overnight."

"Oh, come on, Perce," George groaned. "Can't you come up with some kind of spell to fix this?"

"Probably," Percy replied. "But I don't feel like it. Maybe I will in the morning."

"This is some kind of punishment, isn't it?" Fred asked.

"Mostly just a reminder not to eat random food," Percy told them. "What if you'd got something that they were making for Harry?"

"Good point," George conceded.

"Smugly made," Fred agreed.

"That actually reminds me of the sort of thing Mr. Lupin said the Marauders used to do," Harry said. "Does it really change colour every time someone says 'hair'?"

Both twins' hair changed to chartreuse, but neither of them noticed.

"Who's Mr. Lupin?" Fred asked.

"Where did you hear about the Marauders?" George added.

Harry blinked. "Huh? I met him last year, because of a letter he sent into the Daily Prophet. He said that he and my dad were friends at school, and they were part of a group of students called the Marauders who did pranks and stuff."

Fred and George discussed something in very fast whispers. It looked like they were saying the word 'hair' a lot, because in the space of about thirty increasingly awkward seconds their hair changed to midnight blue, chocolate, silver, cornflower blue, black, salmon, olive and finally ended up a deep violet.

"Okay, we need to talk about this," Fred said. "Come on, Harry."

"We're going to find a classroom," George agreed. "Hey, Perce, it's not curfew yet is it?"

"No, though I suspect that wouldn't stop you," Percy muttered.

A few minutes later, Fred and George had dragged Harry down to a sixth-floor classroom that looked like it had once been a Transfiguration class.

"All right," George began. "So let's talk about this."

"Who's this Mr. Lupin?" Fred added. "And who did he say the Marauders were?"

Harry frowned, thinking back to the conversation. "Well… I think he's the only Marauder who's really left. He said that there were four of them. He was one, and then there was Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and my dad."

"Ouch," George winced.

"Yeah, we didn't expect that," Fred agreed.

After a pause which was kind of awkward, George coughed.

"So did he say which one he was?"

"Which one?" Harry repeated. "Well… there's some stuff I promised not to share unless it was really important, but I guess the bit that doesn't really matter as much is that my Dad was an animagus – a stag."

Fred and George exchanged looks.

"That's good enough for me," George said.

"That's good enough for you?" Fred repeated. "I was going to say that!"

"That means you have to say something else, doesn't it?" George asked. "I think that's how it works."

"I don't," Fred countered. "That's good enough for me, Harry."

Harry tried not to snigger.

"The reason we ask," George went on, deciding to be the one who got on to the next bit, "is that we've heard the name Marauder before."

Fred took a folded up parchment from his pocket – it looked like it was about A-3 in size – and put it on the nearest desk. He put the tip of his wand on it, and cleared his throat.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he announced.

Lines spread out on the parchment from the tip of Fred's wand, forming into dots and lines and eventually an entire map – a map of the whole castle, with little moving (or stationary) dots all over it and tiny writing next to them. There were a lot of secret passages on there as well, most of them ones Harry had never seen before woven through the castle like spaghetti, and he wondered how long Fred and George had had this.

At the top, it announced that

Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

Puvreyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

are proud to present

THE MARAUDERS MAP

Harry was quite proud of how quickly he worked out who was who – which, he thought, was probably because of all the Redwall he'd read.

"I think Moony must be Mr. Lupin," he said. "Wormtail is Peter Pettigrew, Padfoot is Sirius Black and Prongs is my dad."

"That's why it was good enough for us," Fred explained. "We know we hadn't told you about the Map, so you wouldn't know about something that would fit closely enough with Prongs."

Harry wondered what animal Mr. Lupin could turn into, to be Moony, then after a moment he realized what it probably was.

Poor Mr. Lupin. Being a werewolf was a lot less nice than being someone like Belgarion.

"So does that mean that Mr. Lupin and the others were animagi as well?" Fred asked.

"You know what that means, George?" George said.

"Yes, I do!" Fred agreed. "But where are we going to get the fur dye?"

"...what?" George asked, completely baffled.

"Oh, I thought you were doing that joke about having a strange idea," Fred explained. "Yes. Animagus. Right."

"I wonder if Mr. Lupin can help," Harry said, half to himself.

He picked up the map, looking at it and wondering how his dad and the other Marauders had made it. It couldn't be easy to do this sort of thing, to make a magical map of Hogwarts – making a normal map of Hogwarts was probably hard enough with all the odd passages! - and it looked an awful lot like those dots were actually people.

There was tiny writing next to each one, though Harry had to look quite closely to see them because the whole castle and all the floors and towers – as well as the grounds were crammed onto what was a large but not huge sheet of parchment.

"How do you two read it?" he asked. "This is really tiny."

"Oh, you get used to it," Fred said.

"But there is a neat trick," George added.

He placed his wand on the map again, the tip resting on the sixth-floor classroom they were in, and made a sweeping upwards motion. The lines on the map got larger, some of it moving off the edge, and the sixth-floor map expanded until it was much easier to read.

"There's ways to make it do other things, too," George went on, dragging his wand down again to make the map change the scale the other way. "If you get close to a secret passage, it shows you how to open it – that's really useful."

"So that's how you know most of the secret passages in the school?" Harry asked.

"Most of the secret passages?" Fred said, offended.

"We know all the secret passages," George agreed.

"I certainly can't think of any we don't know," Fred nodded.

"So!" George went on. "We might want to look at that map again in future, but really you should have it."

"Your dad helped make it," Fred agreed. "And since one of the other people who helped make it is dead, and another of them is evil, that means it's you or Mr. Moony."

"Which makes you the heir," George concluded, the hair of both twins going white.

Harry blinked, not expecting that. "Well… thanks, guys!"

He looked at the map. "I'm not really sure what I'll use it for, though..."

"Why not cause a bit of trouble?" George asked. "Or at least make sure you don't get in trouble when you have to go out after curfew?"

Harry wasn't sure he'd ever have to do that, but it was something that his dad had done.

Right now, though, the thing that was occupying more of his attention was the reminder that the Marauders had been animagi (or, in one case, something else).

What would his friends end up if they became Animagi?

And could you become an Animagus while at school legally?

Mr. Lupin was quite glad to hear that Harry had run across the Marauders' Map, as he'd always wondered what had become of it after the caretaker Mr. Filch had confiscated it (apparently on general principle).

His letter also outlined the whole process for becoming an Animagus, but warned that it was extremely risky and that he thought it would be a very bad idea for Harry's friends to do it in second-year – along with a caution that the Weasley Twins (whose hair was now back to normal) would be better off waiting until their fifth year.

Harry showed that much to Ron, Hermione, Dean and Neville, who were all interested in the idea of becoming Animagi, but he kept the postscript to the letter to himself.

I wondered if you would work out my problem. Thank you for promising to keep it secret.

-Moony.

Harry did wonder what his Marauder name would be, though. It was normally what you were that wasn't human, so did that mean he'd be Smaug?

Probably not. It didn't sound silly enough.

Maybe Fred and George had hoped that giving Harry the Marauders' Map would make it so he'd spend time sneaking around and pulling pranks, but even if he'd been inclined to it felt like he wouldn't have had the time.

On top of his classwork, and homework – and Quidditch to boot – Harry also had to keep up with the books for the book club, and there was also the sort-of-hobby he'd developed of taking notes on what Nora was saying and doing. Nobody else spoke Dragonish, though Hagrid was doing his level best to at least pick up a few words, and what little information he could send off to Charlie Weasley was always greatly appreciated.

Hermione was helping out as well, torn between lamenting that this couldn't be considered a Care of Magical Creatures side project because they weren't doing the subject this year and fascinated by everything Harry could mention. She was even trying to sort something out with the British Dragon Reserve, to see if Harry could visit them and see if adult dragons were more eloquent than Nora was, but apparently she was having a lot of trouble working out how to schedule it.

There was also no sign of Dobby, which Harry could only view as positive – maybe the little house-elf had given up.

Certainly whatever plot Dobby was trying to keep him safe from hadn't turned up yet.

Halloween was on a Saturday, and that meant that Harry's morning was occupied once more by Quidditch practice. The weather was pretty bad, with the rain coming down in sheets, and after ten minutes Harry took his glasses off and put them in his robe pocket just so he wouldn't have drops of water in the way of his vision.

Practising in bad weather made it much harder for Harry to actually fly the way he was used to. Unlike everyone else, he had wings – which meant that he was blown a little off course by the force of a wind squall – and he had to concentrate hard to try and see the wind coming, or to adjust when he was blown off course anyway.

When it was his turn to team up with Cormac and be an attacking player for the whole rest of the Gryffindor team to defend against, it was trickier still – passing the Quaffle wasn't something he was used to, and the way the ball floated through the air which normally made it so a Chaser could catch it easily was a liability in bad weather. It was at least easy to see, bright red as it was, but more than once Harry ended up fumbling the catch anyway.

The combination meant he actually crashed at least twice, splattering mud all over his robes and scales, and when Oliver reluctantly called practice off Harry wanted nothing more than to have a wash.

At least he hadn't taken a book with him to the training session.

"Why are there no showers down near the castle entrance?" he asked Fred, as they climbed up the hill on which Hogwarts stood – Harry's wings out to give the others as much shelter from the rain as he could. "It seems like with Herbology, and Quidditch, and probably Care of Magical Creatures as well, half the reason why people would need a shower is outdoors."

"I think it's because plumbing hadn't been invented when the castle was built," George replied, from under Harry's other wing.

"I'm… not sure that makes sense?" Harry asked. "If the problem is that they hadn't invented plumbing, then they could just have installed the showers wherever they wanted, couldn't they?"

"Ah, that's your mistake," Fred told Harry. "That sounds logical."

"But as your friend Hermione has been so kind as to tell us," George went on. "Wizards don't have much time for logic."

"I don't have much time for it myself," Fred agreed. "I mean, look how much it helps!"

"Wait, hold on, guys," Alicia asked.

"She speaks!" Fred announced. "I wondered why you were being so quiet!"

"I'm wondering why all our teammates were being so quiet," George agreed. "Is there something wrong with joining in with a conversation?"

"We don't want to encourage you, that's what," Cormac contributed. "Plus, we want to get to having a shower."

"I'm curious, though," Alicia went on. "Didn't you just admit that logic helps? So why don't you use it?"

"Because that would be the logical thing to do," George explained.

Harry shook his head, smiling, and then they were inside the castle entrance.

Electing not to shake himself off the way he'd seen Nora do, Harry wiped his paws – leaving more than a little mud on the mat. Oliver cast a spell to Vanish the mud once everyone else had done the same, and they headed up to the nearest set of bathrooms – or, for Alicia, Katie and Angelina, the second nearest set of appropriate bathrooms, because the closest girl's bathroom was haunted and nobody wanted to be haunted during a shower.

Properly washed-up and changed out of his Quidditch armour (which Percy had Transfigured to fit a dragon; Harry wasn't sure there was much point given how durable his hide was but it was a nice thought), Harry finally got back to the corridor with the Fat Lady about half past twelve.

"Coriolanus," he said, and the Fat Lady's portrait clicked as she swung outwards. Before he went in, however, he paused – smelling something a bit odd.

"Going to be going in, dear?" the Fat Lady asked. "Don't leave me hanging, as the youth say."

"They do?" Harry replied, distracted. "I didn't know they did."

"Well, that Dean Thomas boy said it," the Fat Lady explained. "I thought I'd try and stay in touch."

Harry chuckled, then sniffed again.

It was definitely familiar, and he loped down the corridor and found a small orange vixen looking up at him in confusion.

"Hello, there," he smiled. "I think we met on the train?"

The vixen stared at him, then apparently decided he wasn't all that threatening and licked a paw.

Wondering if she was sufficiently magical to see him as a dragon instead of a human, Harry thought about how he'd read you were supposed to treat animals.

"You're very lost, aren't you?" he said. "You should really be down with your humans in the Slytherin dorm room."

The vixen tilted her head, tail wagging slightly, and Harry slowly reached out to pick her up. She consented to it, and Harry juggled her about a bit so she was held in one paw and he could use the other three to walk on.

"I'll see if one of the Prefects can take you down to your common room," he said, still trying to sound non-threatening.

Maybe he should have a quick word with the Smith twins, though. And Neville, for that matter – one pet going missing was a problem, but a fox and a toad both going missing was just asking for a tragic Owl home.

Once that was sorted out, Harry had some homework to do. Dean hadn't done it yet, so the two of them spent some of the Halloween afternoon working on the only somewhat spooky subject of Potions, though they were interrupted for a bit when Neville asked for advice on how to make sure his arms were strong enough to swing a sword.

That one was a bit of a puzzler for Harry as well, but after a bit of thought Harry suggested that he should start with moving a weight around and use heavier weights over time. It was mostly a guess, but he was fairly sure it was a good one.

It was actually kind of odd how little the books he'd read actually talked about sword fighting. Belgarion – back when he'd been just Garion – had got a sword for a present, and then just been… quite good at sword fighting. Maybe it was magic, but then it should be magic here as well.

Then again, maybe he should just suggest Neville do some training as a spare Beater. Fred and George were clearly very strong.

Potions called, though, and Harry went back to that (along with Dean, who put away the book he'd been reading while he waited). There was a foot or so left on their essay about the usefulness of tap water, salt water, groundwater and lake water as the base for a potion, and with all the looking-things-up they had to do it took quite a long time.

Putting down his ink-erasing quill, Harry sighed.

"I think that's done," he said, shutting the Potions textbook and the extra book they'd got out of the library. "And just in time, too, there's not long left until the Halloween feast starts."

"You going to dress up?" Dean asked.

"Well..." Harry began, about to say no, then shook his head. "I'm going to dress up as a dragon."

"But you are a dragon," Dean replied, sniggering.

"Yeah, it's a really good costume," Harry explained, warming to the topic. "I've been in one all this time. Really convincing, isn't it?"

He leaned closer. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm actually a dwarf."

Dean tried manfully to keep a straight face.

"You guys coming?" Ron asked. "We're heading down soon."

"Bit early, isn't it?" Dean replied, glancing at the clock.

"Do you want to be part of hundreds and hundreds of students trying to get through the corridors?" Ron said.

"I'd say I'd fly," Harry noted, looking at the window and the rain drumming against it. "But… yeah."

"Hey, take a book if you want," Ron shrugged. "Pity the Quibbler doesn't come until tomorrow. I'd kind of love to see what the Halloween edition is like."

"You could ask Luna," Ginny volunteered, looking up from The Two Towers. "Her dad's the one who runs it. I think he writes all the articles."

"You what?" Ron asked, blinking. "Some of those articles contradict each other."

"That sounds like a pretty normal tabloid to me," Hermione said, joining in the conversation. "Now, are we going down now or are we going to spend some time in the library first?"

Once the students had stopped arriving, the Great Hall was packed. There was a slightly different feel than last year, with the floating candles burning in appropriately spooky colours like green and blue; Harry wondered if it was a bit Ravenclaw or Slytherin, but he supposed that some of them were burning blood-red and others were burning deep black, so when you thought about it all four Houses were represented.

It looked like almost everyone was here. Tanisis was easy enough to spot, and June stood out almost as much, but when Harry tried looking he actually could see just about everyone he tried to find – Cedric Diggory, Draco, Marcus Flint, Penelope… even Nora was in the room, curled up on a giant cushion behind the High Table with her tail flicking slightly as she snoozed.

The only people who seemed to be missing were the Smith twins from Slytherin, and Harry wondered if that was just because they wanted to make sure their pet vixen didn't escape again.

"Attention, everyone!" Professor Dumbledore said, standing. "Before we begin the Halloween Feast, I would like to say a few words. Does anybody mind?"

After a slightly awkward pause of about ten to fifteen seconds, he nodded. "Thank you. I thought it was the right time to say something about the true meaning of Halloween."

He cleared his throat. "Boo."

With that, the feast appeared.

"I can never really tell if he's actually crazy or just acting like it," Dean said, as he sliced some Pumpkin Pie to put on his plate.

"I'm not sure it has to be just one or the other," Neville replied.

The Halloween Feast had been loud and fun last year, and this year it was just as much fun – made all the sweeter by the drumming rain on the roof, and the warmth of the Great Hall. Everyone knew that there was filthy weather going on outside and they were well out of it, and the House-Elves had outdone themselves.

Some of the odder things that made their way to the tables included Saumon a la Rothschild (which was restricted to the upperclassmen, as it contained alcohol – watching it vanish as Fred tried to cut himself some gave half the Gryffindor table the giggles) as well as breads baked with things like mushrooms and cheese included in the loaf. Harry quite liked that, and the chasseur chicken, and the Chicken-and-Egg Fricassée, but one thing he wasn't sure about was the fried haunch of zebra.

In fact, everyone was a bit iffy about that one, except for the two obligate carnivores at the feast. June came over to get a plateful, carefully using a levitation spell to move her plate, and Tanisis asked permission before moving the whole rest of the haunch over to Ravenclaw.

As the puddings were coming out, Harry happened to notice as Tyler (or was it Taira? He still didn't know) snuck around the side of the hall before getting Professor Snape's attention.

Trying not to stare, but still curious, Harry watched as the Slytherin head of house listened for a long moment before getting up. The two of them left through the staff entrance at the back of the Great Hall, and Harry wondered what was going on.

Hopefully it didn't revolve around a pet.

"I wonder how the House-Elves decide what to make," Hermione said, inspecting the chocolate pumpkin. "There's so many of them, they must have hundreds or thousands of years of experience between them."

"Well, yeah," Ron agreed. "That's why it's so good."

He indicated the pumpkin with his fork. "Are you going to have all of that, or should we share?"

"...Ron," Hermione began. "This is bigger than my head."

"So that's a no?" Ron asked.

"Of course I'm all right sharing it," Hermione sighed. "It'll probably take all of us to make a good start on it."

She cut into it with her knife, sawing back and forth to cut it more easily, and revealed that beneath the thick outer shell of chocolate it was filled with alternating layers of brownie and sponge cake stuck together with caramel.

"I'm pretty sure that would be the kind of thing a really posh family would show off at a party," Dean said, as Hermione cut herself a slice before starting on one for Ron. "And I mean, really posh. Like, lords and stuff."

Ron's slice was done, and Hermione moved it over to his plate. He cut a bit off with his spoon and took a nibble, then frowned and looked down at it.

"Something wrong?" Neville asked.

"Not really," Ron replied, loading up his spoon again. "I'm just surprised they managed to get the brownie to taste of lemons as well as chocolate."

"Sounds nice," Harry said, wondering if you could use magic to arrange food.

Sure, you couldn't use it to conjure or transfigure food – unless you had some and used magic to make it so you had more than you started with – but would you be able to make a brownie and a sponge cake, and some chocolate, then magically arrange them into the pumpkin shape?

Would you be able to make it in another shape?

"Oh, wow," Neville said, now with a slice of his own. "You're right, that's really impressive."

"Want me to take over, Hermione?" Harry offered. "It looks like that's hard to cut."

"Thanks," Hermione agreed, relinquishing the knife gratefully.

Harry adjusted his grip a little, then sawed down into the pumpkin. His cut was a bit more wobbly than Hermione had managed, but it was also much faster – little curls of hardened chocolate left behind by his knife as he sliced downwards.

"Anyone else want a piece?" he asked.

As it turned out, quite a lot of people did.

A few minutes later, Harry had finished cutting, and was about to start eating when there was a loud ting sound – sort of like a bell – that resonated throughout the hall.

The hubbub of conversation died away, and everyone looked up to the top table.

"Thank you," Professor Dumbledore said, putting down a crystal goblet and returning his wand to wherever it was he kept it. "Regrettably, I am afraid that I will have to miss the rest of the meal because of one of my many duties. As this is such a dreadful shame, I recommend to all of the students here at Hogwarts that you do your best to end up with no more than two jobs."

He smiled brightly at everyone in the Great Hall. "If any further announcements have to be made, I am sure that our school mascot will do a wonderful job."

"Mascot!" Nora agreed, though Harry was aware he was the only one who understood what she'd said in the first place.

"Don't let me keep you from your food," Dumbledore added. "I recommend having a hot drink with your pudding, it really does make the experience much nicer."

Professor Flitwick tapped Professor Dumbledore on the wrist, and the tall man bent down to hear what his colleague had to say.

"Ah," he went on. "Professor Flitwick has just reminded me that there have not yet been any hot drinks provided. Just wait a minute, and I'm sure they will be."

Professor Snape was standing by the door of the staff entrance, looking vaguely disapproving of how long the Headmaster was taking. That made Harry wonder if it was something to do with Tom Riddle, or maybe a Slytherin house thing…

Dumbledore finally left, with a cheerful wave, and Harry decided that until he knew more that was no reason not to have pudding.

He spotted a plate of cream horns nearby, and snagged it so he could have one and offer them around to everyone sitting close to him. It wasn't quite the same as having some cream with the cake, maybe, but it was nice to have to combine the taste – and the same was true of the hot chocolate, which appeared about a minute later.

By the time they headed up to bed, not far from midnight, Harry was pleasantly full of all sorts of food and more than a little drowsy.

Professor Dumbledore hadn't come back in, but in a way that was good news – if there'd been a serious problem he was sure that the Professor would have come in and told everyone what was going on. Instead, it had been a normal Halloween feast… albeit one where it seemed like someone had given the House-Elves several recipe books and told them to come up with whatever they could think of.

"More exercise tomorrow," Neville said, mostly to himself, as they trudged up the last few stairs. "Or maybe the day after."

"No kidding," Seamus agreed. "Did you guys try the chocolate cobbler?"

"I was too full," Ron replied. "Full of pastry and chocolate."

"That's okay, chocolate cobbler's both..."

"I'm surprised they didn't make, I don't know… molten metal maltloaf for Harry or something," Dean said, then yawned.

"I think that'd be difficult to bake," Ron said, thinking. "Can't really get the oven hot enough. And if you do you might melt the oven… maybe you'd need to use magic."

Harry stayed awake long enough to clean his teeth, then curled up on the pile of letters on his bed and went to sleep in minutes.

Halloween was a nice part of the year, but he always seemed to eat too much.

Chapter Text

Perhaps because of how much he'd eaten, or just because of the fact it was Sunday, Harry slept later than normal.

When he finally did wake up, the sun was already up, and Ron was digging through the sheets on his bed.

"Huh?" Harry asked, rolling over, and fell off the bed. There was a thump, one of his wings stuck up for a bit before he reeled it back in, and he snagged his glasses off the bedside table and put them on before looking around.

"Harry, good," Ron said. "Um… can you quickly check, you didn't land on Scabbers or anything?"

Harry checked, but he didn't find any squashed rat beside him or underneath him or anything like that.

"Is he missing?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, I can't find him," Ron replied. "I didn't see him last night, but I was way too tired to check."

"I don't blame you," Harry admitted. "Okay, hold on."

He took a deep sniff, then blinked.

"Huh, that's odd."

"What's odd?" Ron asked anxiously. "Can you smell him?"

"Well, yeah, but not all that recent? I think?" Harry replied. "I'm not great at tracking things, but I can usually track Trevor… but I can smell something else, as well. Sort of like fox."

"What!?" Ron demanded. "You mean like that pet fox the Slytherins have?"

"Yeah, that's the one," Harry agreed. "But it's all over the place, and I know she only came into Gryffindor tower for a few minutes yesterday – I handed her straight over to Percy and he took her down to Slytherin."

"Then someone must have let her back in," Ron guessed. "But… hold on, all the Gryffindors were at the Halloween feast, weren't they?"

"Yeah, that's what's weird about it," Harry agreed. "And I can smell the Smiths as well. I think."

He shook his head. "I can't tell if its just smelling them on her, or what… and I can't smell any blood, either, so if the vixen went after Scabbers he got away."

Ron seemed to find that a bit comforting. He was about to say something else, but Neville came running up the stairs and burst into the dorm room.

"Guys," he said, panting a little. "I just got the Daily Prophet."

"Did you see Scabbers?" Ron asked.

"What?" Neville said, thrown. "Why would Scabbers be in the Daily Prophet?"

"I don't know," Ron admitted. "But I asked you to-"

"Never mind that!" Neville insisted. "Look!"

He put the paper down on his bed, and Harry and Ron crowded around to read the front page.

SIRIUS BLACK MOSTLY INNOCENT?

There was a big photograph of Sirius Black, who Harry had seen in a photo or two before, but this time he looked deeply befuddled.

"Isn't he – but – how can he be innocent?" Ron demanded. "Didn't he betray Harry's parents or something?"

"It says mostly innocent," Harry replied. "So… did he betray Mum and Dad only a little bit?"

After thinking about that for a moment, he shook his head. "No, that doesn't make any sense…"

Deciding there was no other way to find out what was going on, he started to read the article.

"Long-time inmate of Azkaban and the head of the notorious Black Family, Sirius Black was once thought to be the most devious henchman of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," he read. "But events last night at the Ministry of Magic cast doubt on what we all thought."

He paused. "Isn't Black kind of an ominous name, now I think about it? I know it's a Muggle surname as well, but..."

"Is it a Muggle surname as well?" Ron asked.

Harry nodded, but most of his attention was on the article as he read through.

"He didn't get a trial?" the young dragon asked. "Wow."

"Well, everyone thought he was guilty, I guess," Ron replied. "It's not like anyone else could have betrayed the Potters if there was a Fidelius charm going on… wait, hold on, how could anyone else have betrayed your parents? Or was he guilty of that?"

"I'm still reading," Harry answered. "It says that..."

He stopped.

"It says what?" Ron asked.

"It says Peter Pettigrew got brought into the Ministry last night by Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape," Harry told them. "And he had a Dark Mark on his arm, and they used truth potion and he confessed to being the one who betrayed my parents."

Harry sat back, automatically twisting his tail around to act as a rest. "I mean, um… wow?"

"How did they find him?" Ron asked. "That's what I want to know."

Hermione came running up. "Have you seen the – you have!"

"Yeah, I'm still trying to get my head around it," Harry admitted.

"I know!" Hermione agreed. "I couldn't believe that Pettigrew was an illegal rat animagus who was hiding at Hogwarts for the last several years."

There was a short pause.

"What?" Ron asked. "Did you say he was a rat animagus?"

"Well, yes," Hermione replied. "There's a picture on page two, or rather, two pictures. One of Peter Pettigrew in human form and one in rat form."

Ron picked up Neville's copy of the paper and turned it to the next page.

"...well," Neville said, after a long moment. "It looks like Scabbers is in the paper."

The way Harry felt for the next half hour or so was something he couldn't really put words to.

Firstly, he was feeling a lot like he did when he wanted to test out how well he could fly, so he powered up to the level of the clouds and then just stopped flapping or gliding – tumbling through the air in freefall.

Hopefully the analogy didn't go any further than that, though, because when he'd started doing that at age eight or so it had taken him a few tries to get used to how to recover again. There had been some oddly shaped dents in a meadow not far from Little Whingeing for a year or so after that, until he'd finally got used to it properly.

Secondly, there was how Scabbers had actually been Peter Pettigrew, which was enough to wrap his head around to begin with.

Thirdly there was how apparently Mr. Barty Crouch was in really big trouble for not giving Sirius Black a trial. The Minister for Magic had only had time to give a quick statement, but he said he was shocked by the lack of care shown by the previous administration.

Then there was that Sirius Black had confessed to something else to what he'd been in Azkaban for. Apparently Professor Dumbledore (in his role as Chief Warlock, or Supreme Mugwump, or possibly Grand Sorceror) had visited Azkaban prison, and then Mr. Black had confessed to being an illegal animagus, to having recklessly endangered a fellow student at Hogwarts during his time there, half-a-dozen minor crimes, and to being 'ruggedly handsome' and 'deeply hilarious'.

The writer of the article thought it was quite likely that he'd go free based on time served.

About half past eleven in the morning, Harry and his friends were sitting around a table in the common room.

"Going down to lunch is going to be really odd," Ron said.

"Yeah, that is a good point," Dean agreed. "For both of you, too."

He shook his head. "Mum's not going to believe this."

"My mum's going to be really cross," Ron groaned.

He brightened a bit. "Though I guess Scabbers was originally Percy's pet, so maybe she'll be cross at him too?"

"I don't think your mum's going to be cross at any of you," Harry reassured him. "Peter was able to hide for years from Professor Dumbledore."

"Yeah, that is a good point," Ron admitted.

He went silent for a long moment.

"Any ideas what would be a good pet?" he said.

"Toads are nice," Neville tried.

"I don't think so," Ron denied. "Not if they're all escape artists like Trevor."

"Surely not all toads are like that," Hermione said. "That sounds very unlikely."

Harry tilted his head a little. "Have you ever seen a toad that isn't an escape artist?"

"They're the easiest kind to see," Ron snorted. "On account of how they're… you know, not escaped."

Hermione looked troubled. "I actually don't think I've ever seen a toad that isn't Trevor."

"There you go," Ron said. "So not a toad, then. What's the other things we're allowed?"

"Based on what I've seen..." Harry frowned. "Cats, owls, foxes, tarantulas. And you could probably have another rat, as long as it's actually a rat."

"No way," Ron insisted. "I'm not having another rat."

"An owl, then?" Hermione suggested. "Or a cat. They both eat rats."

"...owls eat rats?" Ron asked. "Blimey. Now I'm surprised Scab – um, Pettigrew lasted that long."

Harry was about to ask how Ron hadn't known that, but then Hedwig flew into the common room just ahead of Katie Bell.

"Whoa!" someone said, startled, and the snowy owl alighted on Harry's arm.

"Hey, Hedwig," Harry said, giving her a quick stroke. She clucked her beak, then dropped a small envelope in front of him.

"Sorry I don't have any bacon or anything," Harry added. "I'm guessing you couldn't deliver at breakfast because I didn't have any?"

Hedwig indicated with a little head bob that that was the case.

"That is one seriously smart bird," Dean said. "They've all got to be pretty smart to take letters, but waiting outside until someone opens the portrait door is really neat."

"Yeah, she was the only one who didn't freak out when I went into the shop," Harry agreed, opening the letter with one paw and a tail to hold it in place.

Inside was a note, which asked Harry to come and visit Professor Dumbledore in his office at any time between ten and eleven, two and three, or five and six, and giving the current password (which was 'marchpane').

Harry sort of had an idea what that was going to be about.

Once he'd let Hedwig out the window, Harry went down to lunch.

It seemed like everyone wanted to talk to him, and find out what he thought, and all Harry could really say was to give the answers to the most common questions.

No, he hadn't known Peter Pettigrew was alive or at Hogwarts.

Yes, he'd thought Sirius Black was guilty.

Yes, he didn't like Peter Pettigrew now he knew who was really at fault.

No, he hadn't been the one to catch Peter Pettigrew.

Luna Lovegood from Ravenclaw asked him whether this meant he had a Dogfather now, which made him laugh (and realize how much he'd needed it), while Draco said something about Harry being lucky that Peter Pettigrew had been so much of a coward.

Harry had replied that he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that Peter Pettigrew was a coward, because if he was the one who was had betrayed his family then it might be because of that. He didn't know enough to be sure, though, or even to know if Peter Pettigrew actually was a coward, and after he'd said all that Draco had looked puzzled for a minute or so before just walking away.

Harry was unable to concentrate on homework, so it was just as well he didn't have any.

Neville did, an extra-credit essay for Herbology, and Harry did his best to help his friend by looking things up. He wasn't sure how much help he was, though, and shortly before two in the afternoon he left Gryffindor to go to the Headmaster's office.

Harry was still wondering exactly what marchpane was as he entered the office, and found that Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen.

"Professor?" he asked, a little confused, and then the fire flared up green and Dumbledore came through.

"Ah, Harry," he said. "Either I'm a touch late or you're slightly early."

"I think I'm probably early, Sir," Harry replied. "I didn't want to be late."

"That makes perfect sense," Dumbledore agreed. "I did not want to be early, so it seems we have both got what we were after. Please, take a seat."

Harry did so, and Professor Dumbledore came around to sit opposite him in one of the other chairs.

For about ten seconds, there was silence.

"The first thing I want to say to you, Harry," Dumbledore began, "is sorry. I realize it is quite a short word, and so often has to bear so much weight, but I would not be able to forgive myself if I had not said it."

"Sorry, sir?" Harry repeated. "I… don't think I properly understand."

"Ah, the innocence of youth," Dumbledore said. "Harry, I am the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and I was a friend of both your father and of Sirius Black – and, I thought, of Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black has been dreadfully wronged."

He let out a sigh. "Harry, would you be willing to hear the explanation as to why I made such a terrible mistake?"

"Of course, Sir," Harry agreed. "I really don't understand most of what happened, I'm afraid. The newspaper said a lot about it, but I don't think they gave all the details."

"That is only to be expected, I fear," Dumbledore told him, nodding. "The Daily Prophet is sometimes informative, sometimes entertaining, but the only thing that is truly consistent about it is that it is always printed on paper."

Harry giggled, unable to help himself, and Dumbledore winked.

"I find the Quibbler has the virtue of also being entertaining," he added. "Though I notice no Quibbler has arrived yet. I imagine old Xenophilius is furiously updating the November issue. In any case, Harry… what happened was the result of the brave intentions of a good man and their ability to trick even myself."

He steepled his fingers. "You see, I was the one who cast the spell that hid your parents' house, and I duly made Sirius Black the Secret Keeper. It would be impossible for anyone to find them unless the Secret Keeper told them, and told them willingly."

After listening to that, Harry tilted his head.

"So..."

"So Sirius, James and Peter made a plan to trick everybody," Dumbledore explained. "There is a potion called Polyjuice, which is very hard to brew, and which allows the drinker to take on the body of any other living person. In secret, they prepared this potion – which would have taken months, unless they already had some made – and had Peter Pettigrew drink a potion prepared to make him into Sirius Black."

Harry nodded, seeing where that was going. "And so you cast the spell on Peter, but you thought it was Sirius?"

"Exactly," Dumbledore confirmed. "And then Peter told Voldemort of where your parents were hiding. When Sirius came after him, Peter blew up a street, faked his own death, and vanished into the sewers with the rats."

He sighed again. "So that is why I thought that Sirius must be guilty… I attended many of the trials that took place, but I could not attend them all, and when Sirius was placed in Azkaban I made the misguided assumption that all had been done according to the law."

Harry was quiet for a few minutes after that, thinking about what Professor Dumbledore had said.

It sounded like a series of awful mistakes had happened, made by everyone involved.

"Can you find it in your heart to forgive me my mistakes, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

"Sir, I don't think you're the only one who made a mistake here," Harry replied. "I think everyone involved did."

Then, because he wanted to be correct, he added, "...except for me, I think. I certainly think I was involved, but I don't remember making any mistakes."

Dumbledore nodded, a twinkle in his eye at that last comment.

"I am curious about something, though, Sir," Harry added. "How did Peter Pettigrew get caught?"

"Ah, I might have said that that was not my story to tell," Dumbledore replied. "But since it involves you so, I believe I will be able to clarify."

He smiled. "You see, the trick is in the twins who joined us in Slytherin this year. Doubtless you are aware that Miss Forrester and Miss Sanura are not exactly what most would call human."

"Yes, Sir," Harry agreed. "I did notice that."

"Well, they are not our only non-human students in this year," Dumbledore explained. "You see, Mr. Smith and his sister Miss Smith are kitsune – though the local way of describing them would be that they fall into the category of fae."

"I've read a bit about them," Harry said. "They've got some of their own kind of magic, and they can change into foxes as if they're all animagi. So that means that their pet fox..."

"...is in fact Miss Smith herself," Dumbledore confirmed. "Yes, though please avoid spoiling the surprise for as many people as possible. The two of them asked that I please allow them to keep up the joke. In any case, it seems that they have been engaged in a little series of pranks for some time now, and they entered into the Gryffindor dormitories while everyone was at the Halloween Feast."

Harry nodded, realizing how they'd got the password, and felt a bit embarrassed about it.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Naturally, their intent was to see whether they could play a prank on the Weasley Twins. But you can doubtless imagine their surprise when they got the wrong dorm rooms, and saw your friend Mr. Weasley's pet rat reading through a book called Redwall."

That was enough of a surprise that Harry didn't really know what to say about it.

"After that, well, as I understand it Miss Smith detained the rat in question, Mr. Smith sought out his head of house for advice, and that is how we come to be where we are now."

Dumbledore shook his head. "The whims of fate are peculiar to us all."

"So that's why Professor Snape came to get you?" Harry asked. "And then you took Peter Pettigrew to the Ministry?"

"I did indeed, Harry," Dumbledore agreed. "We also visited Azkaban to talk to Mr. Black. It was quite a night, and I was most grateful to be finally able to get to bed."

He tapped his chin, thinking. "Unfortunately the legal process, long belated as it is for Mr. Black, will take at least a few days to resolve. I believe however that it should be possible for him to visit at some point next week. Do you think you would be available to see him?"

"If I don't have class at the time, I think so, Sir," Harry replied. "Or Quidditch. My first game's on Saturday, and that might take all day."

"Perhaps, perhaps," Dumbledore agreed. "And of course it would not do to interrupt your education… perhaps this day next week would be best."

He nodded slightly, then focused on Harry. "Though I feel I should warn you, Harry, Mr. Black has spent more than a decade in the Wizard prison, Azkaban. He will not be spending any more time there, I am sure – few things indeed could cause someone to be sent there for so long, and he has been wronged by the legal system besides – but so much time there has doubtless worn him out."

"I know they have Dementors there, Sir," Harry said. "I read it in a detective novel. They said that they take away all kinds of happy memories… it sounds dreadful."

"And indeed it is, Harry," Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "Though Sirius has been sustained by his own knowledge of his innocence, as it was not a happy memory as such. He seems remarkably resilient for a man in his situation, but you should make allowances for how he will be when you do meet him."

"I understand, Sir," Harry said.

Dumbledore then checked a watch. "My goodness. It seems that this whole conversation has taken forty-five minutes less time than I thought it might. I don't suppose you have any more questions you might want to ask?"

Harry couldn't think of any, and said so.

"Then perhaps you will indulge me in a little pastime?" Dumbledore asked. "I have some small skill at magic, you see, and it's rare that I get a chance to show it off."

That sounded so odd that Harry had to see what Dumbledore could possibly mean. "I wouldn't mind that at all, Sir," he said, shifting a little in his seat.

Instead of retrieving his wand, however, Dumbledore took out a pack of playing cards.

"Pick a card," he said, fanning them out in front of him with the backs facing him. "Any will do."

Harry took the Two of Hearts, and memorized which one it was before putting it back in the deck.

Dumbledore shuffled them at that point, mixing them up thoroughly, then turned them all to face him and frowned.

After a long moment, he removed one from the pack with his slender fingers.

"Is this your card?" he asked.

Harry looked at the Four of Clubs, and shook his head.

"Bother," Dumbledore pronounced, putting the cards down. "It always seems very simple when the Muggles do it."

Harry thought to send a letter to Mr. Lupin that afternoon, mostly just to say that he hoped the man was okay – and that, even though it was all really complicated, he was glad that one of Mr. Lupin's friends had turned out to be both "alive" and "nice".

Hedwig went on her way with it, after a treat of some cubes of beef from the kitchens (George was only too happy to show him how to get in there) and Harry did his best to get on with as normal a week of school as could be expected.

Something that actually surprised Harry a bit was how normal that week felt. He still did Herbology working with Justin, who appreciated his more-or-less total immunity from the nastier plants but without just letting Harry do all the work, and in Transfiguration the only difference was a few questions about Animagi.

Apparently casting a spell intended to transfigure an animal on an Animagus who'd turned into that animal was "not safe, though mostly for the Animagus" and there was no limit on how long the Animagus could stay transformed.

Then Lily Moon asked whether an Animagus thought like a human when transformed, and Professor McGonagall told her pointedly that a transformed Animagus could certainly think well enough to concentrate on the Fundamental Theorem of Untransfiguration.

Potions was a little different. Harry was still working with Daphne, like he always did, but for some reason Professor Snape seemed a lot less harsh with anyone who made little mistakes than normal. When Ron put two frog brains in his potion instead of one, Professor Snape even came over to tell him and Dean exactly how to fix the mistake – a complicated process with at least four extra steps, which needed some of the supplies from the cupboard – and Harry did his best to scribble notes about it on a spare piece of parchment in case it was useful.

Maybe they'd be doing how to fix potions in another year, or maybe even later this year. It sounded more like a NEWT or at least OWL thing, though.

Harry also stayed behind after that class to say thank-you to Professor Snape for helping, which the Professor didn't quite seem to know how to respond to.

Mr. Lupin wrote back on Thursday, and Harry got the letter only after a tough evening Quidditch practice session. Oliver Wood had been having everyone else do drills on the slowest brooms he could find against players on Cleansweep Sixes and other faster brooms, to try and make sure they could deal with the way that Slytherin had a complete set of fast modern Nimbuses, and it was kind of head-stretching how you had to think about positioning much more when you were slower.

Harry wasn't immune to that consideration, either – he might have been the Seeker, but Seekers had a role in disrupting the other teams from their formation plays if they had the time to spare, and since Harry had wings and could fly faster than his broom could technically manage he was the most mobile member of the team.

It had been a lot to think about, so fortunately it was only when Harry was heading back up to the castle that Hedwig came flapping down to fly alongside. Harry opened the letter right there, holding his broom against his side with a wing, and blinked when he saw how long it was.

"Who's that from, Harry?" Alicia asked. "Normally letters turn up at breakfast."

"Yeah, Hedwig seems to have decided to deliver at all hours," Harry agreed. "I'm not sure where that comes from, but it's nice."

Hedwig seemed very pleased by that way of putting it.

The letter took quite a long time to get through, and the demands of homework and stuff meant that Harry hadn't actually finished it by Friday. Mr. Lupin seemed to have wanted to say almost everything that came to his mind, which Harry was sort of touched by, and the fact he was sorry for having believed the worst about Sirius was only part of it.

It was something Harry was sort of thinking about during Defence class, where they were dealing with the bit of Gilderoy's book about werewolves where he talked about defeating the Wagga Wagga Werewolf himself. Seamus had been dragged up to the front of class to act out the part of the werewolf, which made Harry wonder if June was having to do that bit in the Defence class for the First-Year Hufflepuffs or if that would be a bit much, and that made him wonder what the Homorphus Charm would do if it was cast on a werewolf like Mr. Lupin.

Or on a Warg like June, for that matter. She was certainly a wolf in body, and had been all her life, but would the charm reverse the werewolf-y bits?

Idly wondering what would happen if a Warg got bitten by a Werewolf, and if they'd become like Lupine from Reaper Man, Harry noted down the bits he already knew from Wanderings With Werewolves.

It did seem a bit odd that he only used the Homorphus Charm to deal with one of the werewolves, though. There were a total of six in the book, and Harry circled that thought just moments before the bell went.

The Professor took the time to wish Harry good luck in the Quidditch match, which was nice, and told everyone that their homework was to write a poem about the defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf.

The biggest problem Harry could see with that was that it was going to be hard to find enough rhymes for Wagga Wagga. Except for rhyming Wagga with Wagga, but that was sort of cheating.

He did want to look up where Wagga Wagga was, though, because about all that Professor Lockhart mentioned was that it was in Australia. That might be enough to make for a good rhyme, but some of the names of bits of Australia that Harry remembered would be really useful for that as well – like New South Wales (which could rhyme with Hails, or Wails) and Queensland (which was a bit harder, but which could rhyme with Hand?)

Maybe he should go and see if there were any rhyming dictionaries in Fort William after the Quidditch match.

The day of the match dawned a little gloomy, with scattered but quite dark clouds, and despite how it was the seventh of November it felt really quite warm. Harry didn't think it was the best flying weather he'd had, preferring high pressure whether hot or cold, but if you were going to have a sports match involving flying around at over fifty miles per hour in November in Scotland it was probably better for it to be quite a warm day for the time of year.

At least, if you didn't have a thick hide like Harry did. (And possibly an internal furnace as well.)

A little nervous about his first Quidditch match, Harry passed some of the morning reading a bit of The Sapphire Rose – the bit about Eosian church politics was surprisingly entertaining – before heading down to have some breakfast.

That done, he told Oliver Wood where he was going and went down to the Quidditch pitch early – making sure to bring both his brooms, so there was a spare in case something went wrong.

Oliver turned up about half an hour later, and started impressing on Harry how their plan was going to be to do as well as possible to score and save points – but Harry's priority was to go for the Golden Snitch as soon as possible.

Harry hadn't planned on doing anything else, but it was good to have the confirmation.

Then everyone else turned up, including Cormac (who would be substituting in if anyone was injured, so he could end up doing almost anything) and Oliver gave them all a strategy rundown – mostly reminding them all of things he'd been saying over and over for at least the previous month.

After that, out they went onto the pitch.

It felt a bit odd to have the whole school body staring at him at once. Harry's tail thumped on the ground a few times, watching as Madam Hooch had the two team captains shake hands, then she released the balls into the air.

There was a ten second pause to let the Snitch escape, and Harry looked up at the Bludgers circling ominously overhead as he mounted his broom. Then Madam Hooch blew the whistle, and everyone took off.

The Slytherin team rocketed into the sky on their much faster brooms, aiming to snag the Quaffle and score before Oliver had even made it to the goal hoops. Harry did what he was supposed to and flew as fast as he could, hammering the air with his wings to speed himself up, and managed to get in their way for just long enough that Oliver blocked the first shot on goal.

As soon as that was done, he turned to look for the Snitch. At first he couldn't see it, simply because he couldn't look at the whole pitch at once any more like he could when he was in the stands, but a moment later the little glint of gold showed up and he turned to aim straight for it.

"Look out, Harry!" Fred called, cutting across his path, and used his bat to knock a Bludger away. The impact was a loud whang, sending it off at ninety degrees to the path it had been taking before, but a moment later it curved around to come straight back at him.

Harry dodged, annoyed that he was losing momentum, and this time Fred knocked the Bludger directly towards Draco (who was the new Slytherin seeker). Harry refocused to going after the Snitch, looking around for a moment to see where it had escaped to before powering after it, but barely five seconds later the Bludger came right back around again and hit him in the side.

There was a groan from the Gryffindor portion of the stands, and Harry could faintly make out the sound of Hagrid assuring everyone that he was bound to be okay.

Then the Bludger hit him again, this time on the head, and Harry slewed a little to the side.

It was annoying more than anything, as he lost sight of the Snitch and now he had to look for it again.

Five minutes later, Harry had been hit at least twenty times by the Bludger and was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with it. He was fairly sure they were supposed to go after all the players, rather than just one of them.

He'd have to check Quidditch Through The Ages again just to be sure.

The score was also at least thirty-zero to Slytherin already, so Harry decided to try something different.

He'd looked it up once, and the rules specifically said there wasn't a limit on how high you could fly during a game. So he turned his broom upwards, spread his wings to the full, and climbed as fast as he could.

"You're supposed to be down here, Potter!" Draco called, flying close for a moment with his much more powerful broom, then turned away to orbit a bit higher than the highest part of the stands and look for the Snitch. The Bludger smacked into Harry again, knocking his glasses off, and Harry caught them just in time before they fell to the ground and got lost.

Then he decided he was about high up enough and pulled out of his climb. The Bludger was still following him, which was really very surprising, and Harry tried to ignore it as it bounced repeatedly off his back just over his wing inserts.

After about twenty seconds of looking, Harry finally spotted the little glitter of gold that was the Snitch flying low over the grass near the base of the Slytherin goal hoops.

So he turned his broom off and went into a dive.

The Bludger followed, but Harry was much faster like this than he was flying around normally – even with the aid of a broom – and outdistanced it easily. The wind whistled around his ears and tugged at his robes as he went faster and faster, rocketing past Draco, then flared his wings out with a snap to slow himself down.

He hit the ground still doing about forty miles an hour, which did sting a bit, but his paw closed around the Snitch in triumph.

Then the Bludger arrived.

Harry was pretty much certain this was the way it wasn't supposed to work. If it was, then it wouldn't have taken three people to pin the Bludger down.

Also, Oliver had said something about how Bludgers weren't supposed to do that, which Harry supposed was a sort of clue.

The next day, Harry went up to Professor Dumbledore's office again. This time it was in the morning, and the password was different ('Drumsticks', which Harry sort of remembered were a type of chewy lollipop).

When he got to the top of the stairs, Professor Dumbledore was waiting for him – and so was a tall man with long black hair, looking like he'd had a very rough time for the last several years.

It did look like he'd recently had a wash, though, and probably a haircut as well.

"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore smiled. "I believe you've met, but it was quite a while ago and you might not recognize one another."

Standing from behind his desk, he walked around to introduce them. "This is Sirius Black, Harry. Sirius, this is Harry Potter."

"It is," Mr. Black agreed. "When I saw the Prophet I couldn't believe… but… those really are Lily's eyes."

"Did my mother have eyes like this?" Harry asked, trying to sort of indicate slit pupils. "And – it's nice to meet you, Mr. Black."

"Don't call me Mr. Black, Harry," the man said.

He hesitated, then smiled. "Call me Sirius. Or if you must be formal, call me Most Noble Head Of The House Of Black. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure I am now."

"I can see the two of you are getting on very well," Professor Dumbledore said brightly. "If you will excuse me, I'll leave the two of you to talk. I've got some marking to do."

"You do, Sir?" Harry asked, confused. "I didn't know you taught any classes."

"I do some years, but sadly nobody was interested in the noble art of Alchemy this year," Dumbledore told him. "Or last year, come to that. Perhaps I should tell people it's an option for NEWTs. No, this is a set of essays I found on my desk this morning."

His eyes twinkled. "I've got no clue what subject they're for, but it will be a pleasure finding out."

Harry chuckled, but Sirius started to laugh. It bubbled up in a great big burst that obviously caught him by surprise, and he gasped a couple of times before it finally stopped.

"I… really needed that," he said.

Dumbledore smiled, and went into the room next door.

Once the Headmaster had left, Harry didn't really know what to say – or what to start with, because it felt like there were so many things he could say and he wasn't sure if any of them sounded right.

Maybe it would help to think about how this sort of thing worked in books, but normally in books there had been some kind of terrible misunderstanding and they were meeting in a tense situation… not in Dumbledore's plushly appointed office, with a phoenix snoozing nearby.

"You said I could call you Sirius… what about Padfoot?" he tried.

Sirius blinked, then realized. "Oh – yes, Moony said he'd told you."

"Well, he told me about how you were Animagi," Harry said. "But the reason I know what your names were is that I got given the Marauders' Map."

That news made Sirius smile, which transformed his whole face, and the sight was so amazing that Harry had to smile as well.

"You got the Map!" the man said. "Brilliant! What have you done with it so far?"

"Um… nothing, really," Harry replied. "I… kind of feel guilty about that now, I might have been able to see Peter on it."

"No, I don't want to talk about Peter," Sirius said, shaking his head. "Let's talk about something else. So I heard that you're the Seeker this year!"

The conversation lasted a long time.

Once they'd actually started talking, Harry found it very easy to keep talking to Sirius. The man alternated between asking about Harry's life and what it was like to be a dragon and then switching into telling stories about his own life.

Whenever Peter Pettigrew was about to come up, Sirius abruptly changed topic, except for one time when it was simply unavoidable and he made sure to tell Harry very firmly and clearly that Peter was "a total berk".

Harry wasn't sure what a berk was, but he thought he got the basic sense of what Sirius was saying… if only from context, at least.

"...anyway, James had this idea of writing Lily a love poem," Sirius explained. "Because he was trying to really convince her that he was thoughtful and stuff."

Harry nodded, seeing the logic in that.

"The problem is," Sirius went on, drawing out the words with a real relish. "James used this metaphor, where Lily was a doe, and naturally that meant that he was in the role of the stag."

"Like how he could turn into one," Harry agreed.

"The way we said it was that James could turn into Prongs," Sirius clarified. "But the thing is, he sort of forgot that she had no idea about this."

He started laughing. "So he sent this poem to Lily, and she had no idea who it was by or what was with this whole deer metaphor. James was waiting for her to tell him how sensitive it was for a week before Remus and I took him aside to explain!"

Harry had to laugh at that as well, imagining his father being terribly disappointed that his clever poem had completely fallen flat.

When Sirius had finished laughing, he wiped his eyes, then blinked a few times.

"It's all a little strange," he said, eventually. "For the last week it's like I've been living in a dream… except I didn't really have many nice dreams in Azkaban."

He put his thumb and forefinger on his temples. "Sometimes I thought about trying to escape. I thought I could do it, they didn't know I was an Animagus, but… it didn't seem like I could do anything that was worth it. I didn't have a hope of finding..."

"The rat," Harry filled in, and Sirius nodded sharply.

"And I couldn't help you, either," he went on. "Though I can't remember if I even thought of it… but you were with someone, you could go to school, and that's more than I could give you."

Harry reached out a paw and put it on Sirius' shoulder.

"And – well – I feel like I'm about to wake up," Sirius explained. "And be back there, rather than be here and happy..."

He swallowed. "But I have to keep reminding myself. It's over. I'm out. And… and that things have changed, while I was in there. And they're good things."

"I really wish you hadn't been in there at all," Harry agreed. "It'd be nice if I'd known when I was eight that being a dragon was unusual."

Sirius snorted, then shook his head.

"I'm still trying to get my head around it," he said. "It might take me a while… but I can do it."

"I'm sure you can," Harry told him. "It took my friend Ron a while to get used to the idea that the trouble he was having doing spells was an old wand, not how good he was. And your thing's much worse."

He frowned. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"

"Well, Moony – ah, Remus – has been putting me up," Sirius explained. "There's a Black family town house in London, but it's going to take ages to clear out, everyone in the family was either Dark or disowned."

He snorted. "One good thing is that Remus isn't exactly very well off, and he hates charity, but I've been paying him about five times what a hotel room would cost. I don't think he actually knows that… don't tell him, okay?"

Sirius asked if the Defence Against the Dark Arts post was still cursed, and Harry told him that it seemed to be because their first teacher last year had actually been possessed by Tom Riddle. That meant that Harry had to explain who Tom Riddle was, and then Sirius seemed quite angry about the whole thing until Harry went on to tell him about how Professor Quirrell had left the castle.

Since the best way that Harry could find to summarize how the whole thing had ended was 'and then he got so angry that he imploded', Sirius seemed to find the whole thing very funny.

"Your friend," he said, trying to control a smile. "Your friend. Annoyed Voldemort. So much that… that… that he just imploded."

Harry nodded.

"Professor Dumbledore said that he's probably still around, in the same way he could be still around after he died the first time. But it took him ten years to come back as a not very good Defence teacher, so maybe it'll take him a lot longer to come back able to do something useful."

Sirius took that on board, smiling slightly at the description of Tom-Riddle-as-Professor-Quirrell's classroom skills. "What about this year? Who do you have this year?"

"That's Professor Lockhart," Harry replied. "He's written loads of books about how good he is at stuff, but I think we're mostly doing theory this term. He does know a spell that turns a werewolf back into a human, though"

"That does sound useful," Sirius agreed. "And how's everything else? Your Potions teacher treating you well?"

It sounded like he expected the answer to be no, and when Harry said that, yes, Professor Snape was usually a bit abrupt but was quite a good teacher it seemed like Sirius was dealing with an answer he didn't want to hear.

"...well..." he said, after a long pause. "I suppose I'll take your word for it."

He rubbed his fingers together, then frowned at them and tried again. On the third attempt there was a nice crisp snap, and he pointed that hand at Harry. "So! There's a very serious question I have to ask, Harry."

Harry nodded, waiting to hear it.

"Only one of my friends is still alive," Sirius went on. "And you're the only person who's any memory of my other friends. So… what do you want me to be, Harry?"

Harry tilted his head, not sure he understood. "I thought the options were human or dog?"

"No, then it would be a very Padfoot question," Sirius said. "I was talking about a very Sirius question."

That made Harry snort, as he finally got the joke. "That's terrible."

"It's been years since I was able to tell it," Sirius replied. "I have a much better name for joking than my brother Regulus did… anyway, Harry."

He sank back in the chair a little.

"I don't really know what I should be for you," he explained, with his eyes closed. "I should have stayed with you… I shouldn't have gone after the rat. But I've missed so much of you growing up, now, and I want to make sure I don't do this wrong."

There was a little catch in his voice, and Harry swallowed.

"Well..." he began, slowly. "I don't think I need a father sort of person. I've been getting on quite well so far, and I have somewhere to stay over the summer holidays with my aunt and uncle. But Uncle Vernon isn't much of an uncle sort of person. So it'd be nice to have one of those."

He shrugged a wing, flapping it out to the side before pulling it back. "And to have someone to talk about magic to, as well. I stayed with my friend Neville for the second half of last summer, and that was nice."

"All right!" Sirius said, sounding positively delighted. "Just you watch, Harry, I'll be the coolest uncle you can imagine!"

"But I'm not hairy," the young drake replied, tilting his head. "These are scales."

Sirius blinked for a few seconds, then a slow smile spread.

"I made that joke the first time I saw you, back when you were only a few hours old," he said. "You weren't hairy then either."

After checking the time, Sirius sighed.

"It looks like I'll have to go, Harry," he said. "I've got another appointment with the therapist."

"You've got a therapist?" Harry asked. "That sounds like a good idea."

"Well, she says she's a therapist," Sirius shrugged. "She's my cousin, Andromeda. But she is a healer, so I suppose it might be helping out."

He paused, then glanced in the direction of the doorway Dumbledore had left through.

"I think we've got a couple of minutes, though," he decided. "Want to see Padfoot?"

That sounded very interesting to Harry, and he said so.

Sirius took a deep breath, and then-

It was a very peculiar thing to see. It happened all at once, but not in the blink of an eye, so Harry sort of had a vague impression of joints changing shape and fur growing out.

Then instead of Sirius Black there was Padfoot standing there, a great big dog with jet-black fur and the same pale eyes he'd had as a man.

Harry was very impressed, and said so, and Padfoot wagged his tail before giving Harry a sudden, slobbery lick.

"Ah, what a pity," Dumbledore said.

Padfoot stopped abruptly and stepped back, and Harry turned his neck to look at where Dumbledore was. "Is something wrong, Professor?"

"Oh, I simply wanted to let Sirius know about the matter of the homework," Dumbledore explained. "I believe I have solved the conundrum, you see, and I wondered if he might be interested to know."

Walking around to his desk, Dumbledore winked at Harry before continuing. "After looking very closely at all the pages, it seems to me that these are in fact the details of a recently considered statute by the International Confederation of Wizards."

He shuffled them together. "I suppose it is a little embarrassing that I have found so many spelling mistakes."

Padfoot snorted.

"I should also let you know, Harry," Dumbledore added, "that you will almost certainly have to stay with your Aunt and Uncle for at least some weeks of each summer. You see, there is a form of magical protection in place that keeps you safe from Voldemort so long as you call that place home for around a month every year."

Harry nodded. "All right, Sir. That seems simple enough, I had a good time there last summer."

"Excellent," Dumbledore pronounced. "Oh, and if you do see Sirius, please let him know that I would like him to teach you Occlumency when he gets the chance. There's no rush – a summer project is fine."

Chapter Text

Meeting Sirius helped Harry sort of put the odd experiences of the last week or so behind him a little, and he rather thankfully settled back into a Hogwarts routine – or as routine as anything could ever be at Hogwarts, anyway.

The November Quibbler finally arrived the following Wednesday, with a really quite good drawing on the front cover of Sirius Black on top of the page and Peter Pettigrew on the bottom. If you touched one of the pictures then the wizard turned into their Animagus form, and if you changed them both then Wormtail silently squeaked and began running away from Padfoot all over the cover.

The usual mix of articles was absent, as well, with almost everything focused on Sirius or Peter. The headline article was How To Tell If Your Pet Is An Animagus, which suggested the staggering total of thirty-five different ways someone could work that out – from asking 'are you an Animagus' in a clear voice, to trying to include them in conversation, to putting them in a room with the Wizarding Wireless tuned to a particularly obnoxious Italian band and seeing if they liked it or not.

Harry thought it would make much more sense to just use magic somehow, like however it was that Professor Snape had confirmed that Scabbers really was Peter Pettigrew.

Then there were articles about how Sirius Black had remained mostly sane in prison, articles suggesting that he'd spent most of his time sentenced to Azkaban not actually in Azkaban but moonlighting as a singer called Stubby Boardman; it further said that, since he was Stubby Boardman, it was clear that he wasn't at all involved in the initial incident in the first place (as a witness, let alone as a participant) since he'd been having a romantic dinner at the time.

Harry was a little confused by the photograph, which had a picture of Sirius Black printed twice side by side – only that one of them was labelled as Stubby Boardman and the other was labelled Sirius Black.

One article claimed that Sirius Black had known that Barty Crouch was trying to corner the Invisibility Cloak market and that that was why he'd been thrown in prison; another claimed that Sirius had been romantically involved with Minister Bagnold and that she'd been having an affair with Barty Crouch. That seemed unlikely to Harry for all sorts of reasons, in fact for so many reasons it was a little hard to quite be sure which reason to think was the most important.

Aside from that, and from the usual Quibbler pieces about cryptid sightings (one article claimed to have seen a Dodo, as in not a Diricawl), there was also a long piece about how Lily Potter had been an unregistered heron animagus.

Harry wasn't sure where they'd got that idea from.

The week after that, and shortly after the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw Quidditch match, Harry was climbing the stairs to the Astronomy tower along with the rest of the year.

"I kind of wish we didn't have to do this so late," Megan Jones grumbled, a few places behind him.

"Well, it's astronomy, isn't it?" Sally-Anne Perks replied. "I'd like to see you do astronomy during the day."

"Muggles can do that," Ron contributed. "With their really big telescopes, anyway, and depending on what they're looking at. It's whether the sky is brighter than the stars."

"How does that work?" Sally-Anne said, baffled. "Oops – sorry, Harry!"

"Don't worry, my fault," Harry replied, rolling his tail up so it wouldn't get trodden on again.

"It's because the stars and planets and stuff are still there," Ron explained. "It's just harder to see them. Like… like how the Black Lake is still there even if it's really misty in the morning."

They reached the top of the Astronomy Tower, and Harry stepped out into the mostly-clear night with the stars shining overhead.

It was a bit odd, because he was sure it had been overcast when they'd set off.

"Why is it so clear, Professor?" he asked, looking around for Professor Sinistra. "It always seems to be really good weather when we have Astronomy."

"That's why it's the Astronomy tower," Professor Sinistra replied. "It's bewitched, though the enchantment isn't perfect – that's why it's sometimes cloudy here, though usually that's when it's raining or snowing everywhere else. When that's happening, you can sometimes see snow or rain falling if you look far enough away."

Once everyone had arrived, she coughed gently to get their attention. "Now, today we're going to be starting on the asteroids. Who has a good description of asteroids?"

Hermione's hand was the first up.

"They're smaller than planets and they orbit the Sun," she said. "They're usually found in the Asteroid Belt."

"Good," Professor Sinistra said. "Mr. Goldstein?"

"They weren't discovered yet in ancient times," the boy answered.

"Also a good point, they're much fainter than planets," the Professor agreed. "Mr. Weasley?"

"One of them wiped out the Dinosaurs," Ron said.

There was a short pause, and then Theodore Nott said, "Pardon?"

"Can you explain, Mr. Weasley?" Professor Sinistra asked. "I hadn't heard about this."

Ron nodded, and started to somewhat-hesitantly explain about the giant crater Muggle scientists had found and how it was at the same time as dinosaurs had suddenly vanished.

The lesson got a bit derailed after that.

"...so that's Tennis," Dean said. "What do you think?"

"It sounds kind of boring, compared to Wizard sports," Neville replied. "Shouldn't the tennis balls fly around by themselves or something?"

"No, because Muggles don't have magic," Dean explained. "On account of being Muggles."

"That does sound like a good point," Neville admitted.

Harry chuckled, then looked back down at his latest History of Magic essay on The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards.

It was almost at the length it was supposed to be, but not quite, and he thought for a long moment before rummaging through the books in his bag and picking out one that he thought might help. It was a novel set during the late Middle Ages, which seemed a lot like he'd heard The Three Musketeers was like, but more to the point it talked a lot about how the Germanic wizarding community had been hidden all over the rest of Europe during the Thirty Years' War to keep them safe from the chaos.

It wouldn't be a good idea to trust any of the specific bits in the book, but it sounded a lot like the sort of thing he could look for in a history book to confirm it happened.

"...the problem with doing cricket here is that there isn't a big enough pitch for it," Dean was saying. "Except for the Quidditch Pitch, and for some reason everybody thinks that has to be kept perfectly safe."

"Well, it does!" Ron said, looking up from his own homework – he'd said something about how one of the Defenestrations of Prague had involved Wizards somehow, though Harry hadn't looked that bit up. "It's sacred turf!"

"Ron, the only times that Quidditch players even touch the ground are when they're about to take off at the beginning of the match and when things go badly wrong," Dean countered. "You could replace the entire pitch with two ten foot circles of polished wood over a swimming pool and it would barely affect the game. Six wooden stumps and a crease aren't going to wreck it."

"...actually, I'd want to see that," Hermione voiced. "Maybe if the Snitch was underwater? Bubble-Head charms are a thing, and you have to admit it would be pretty amazing to watch Seekers diving into the water like gannets."

A few days later, the Daily Prophet was full of news about the Pettigrew trial.

Apparently there were some quite elaborate security measures, just to make sure Pettigrew didn't get away or any other members of Tom Riddle's old organization didn't try to either silence him or break him out of the trial. Since he was an Animagus, and one for a small animal, that was difficult to say the least.

The papers said he'd tried coming up with all sorts of excuses, many of which had been promptly shot down by the lawyer for the prosecution – he'd said he was in hiding, but he hadn't had an explanation for why he'd gone to a Wizarding family or why he hadn't just fled the country. (That made Harry wonder why his parents hadn't left the country, actually, but he supposed if everyone who didn't like Voldemort had fled the country he'd just have ended up sort of winning by default, and you couldn't do that everywhere.)

The way he'd killed twelve Muggles to get away had also come in for some sharp criticism, which was fair enough, but Harry didn't like reading too much about that because it was quite an unpleasant topic. It seemed like it would take a while before the trial was over, just because of the complicated legal process, and Harry was halfway reading about the possible ways to keep an Animagus prisoner when Ron opened a letter and swore.

"Ron!" Hermione said sharply. "What was that about?"

"I'm going to have to go to the trial," Ron explained. "Because he was my pet. Percy's going to have to go too, I think, because he was Percy's pet first."

"Ouch," Dean said. "That's going to be rough, man. Any idea when?"

"It says… Thursday morning?" Ron blinked. "That can't be right, that's during class."

"I'll make sure to take good notes," Harry promised. "And we can do the practical stuff together."

"Don't you have Quidditch?" Neville asked.

"Yeah, but Oliver's let us off slightly because there's not another game until Spring," Harry replied. "That's a really relative thing, though… I still haven't finished some books I got back in August."

"At least that's better than finishing everything you have available to read," Hermione said. "Though there is a library for that."

"Two," Harry agreed. "Three if I can manage to find the time to go to Fort William."

At dinner the next day, Harry got one of the unusual preparations the House-Elves seemed to like making for him.

He was about to start eating it when Blaise wandered over.

"Oh, hey!" Harry said brightly. "Is something up?"

"Oh, I just smelled something familiar," Blaise replied. "Is that yours?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "It appeared in front of me and it's got a little Harry Only label, so it might not be safe for you."

Blaise gave it a sniff, and nodded. "Yeah, that's… probably got about four ounces of hemlock in it."

"How do you even know what Hemlock smells like?" Dean asked, blinking. "Wait, isn't that a poison?"

"We use it in Potions," Harry pointed out. "It was one of the ones we did in October, I think."

"That's only if you neutralize it," Blaise informed him. "That's going to be extravagantly dangerous. Make sure you've got a Bezoar on hand in case you're not immune to it."

"Sure," Harry agreed. "I think Hermione made me carry one..."

"That still doesn't answer how you know what it smells like," Dean said.

"Mother is quite an inventive cook," Blaise informed him, as Harry dug out the Bezoar from his robes.

Now considering himself ready for the meal, Harry trimmed off a tiny piece of meat and gave it a careful taste.

"Oh, huh," he realized. "That's the sauce they used last week as well."

"I'm starting to think I should invite you around one of these days," Blaise informed Harry. "You'd probably like Mother's cooking. You wouldn't even need anything from the pepper grinder with it."

Harry frowned, wondering what pepper would have to do with it.

"Bezoar in the pepper grinder?" Dean asked.

"Bezoar in the pepper grinder," Blaise confirmed. "This is why I like you. You're surprisingly sneaky for a Lion."

"I'm going to choose not to be offended by that," Dean decided, after a bit of consideration.

The day of Ron's part of the trial came and went, and when Ron arrived back at the castle that afternoon he shook his head.

"That was so weird," he said. "I had to answer questions about what Peter had done, and I had to say he'd mostly been asleep. Then I had to say what spells I'd done on him."

"Was it hard?" Harry asked.

"Not really," Ron told him. "Not as bad as I was expecting, anyway… they showed me a load of pictures and I had to pick out which ones were him, to prove it was actually him. I'm not sure why, though."

"They're probably being really thorough," Harry guessed. "Like… really thorough."

He shrugged. "Maybe it's because of how Sirius didn't get a trial last time? They're making sure Peter obviously has so much of a trial that nobody can possibly say he didn't have one."

Ron thought about that, and decided it made sense.

"Okay, so what happened in the lessons I missed?" he asked.

"We did the Softening Charm," Harry replied. "But because that was in Transfiguration we did a lot more about the theory and stuff."

"Right, properties and stuff," Ron realized. "Bleah..."

"I'm sure there's a use for it," Harry shrugged. "Maybe there's something you could use it for where you could make something softer, or softer and something else?"

Ron frowned, thinking about that.

"Anyway, we've got Potions later," Harry added. "So there's that."

"What's this one?" Ron asked. "Hope it's not a hard one."

Harry told him it was Swelling Solution, which was one of those ones where the name was a bit strange. It wasn't really a solution, except that things were dissolved, maybe, but if that was why you'd call it a solution then almost any potion could be called a solution. You'd have a Boil-Removing Solution and a Forgetfulness Solution and so on.

Then Ron told Harry to stop going off on a tangent.

An odd rumour was going around the castle the next morning, about how during the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes for the Sixth-Years there'd been an incident where Percy Weasley had blasted the teacher out the window.

Percy seemed very embarrassed by the idea and didn't say whether it was true or not, but that didn't stop Fred and George from both deciding it had to be true and calling him Percy the Defenestrator.

Harry wondered if maybe it was because of the trial, or maybe because Percy didn't like the idea of his NEWT homework being writing a poem.

In their own Defence lesson the same day, Harry had to play the role of one of the werewolves that Professor Lockhart had defeated – this time in Kathmandu. It didn't work very well, because Harry got a bit too into the role and Professor Lockhart may have been able to wrestle a werewolf successfully but Harry was a bit too much for him.

Afterwards, Harry stayed behind to apologize, then asked again about the Patronus. Professor Lockhart said that the Patronus was a very difficult charm and that he wasn't comfortable teaching it to a second year, and Harry tried to explain that he was okay with the idea that it would take a lot of practice but Professor Lockhart simply didn't seem to be interested in that – in fact, he instead took the time to tell Harry how to respond to fan mail.

That made Harry realize he hadn't got any fan mail, and while at first he just felt quite happy about that he did wonder whether maybe it wasn't getting to him.

"I've got news!" Hermione announced one Sunday afternoon, putting a hefty book on the table her friends were sitting around.

"Really?" Ron asked. "I thought the Daily Prophet came in the morning. And was smaller."

"No, not that kind of news," Hermione replied. "I've looked through all the legal precedents and stuff – it's part of NEWT History of Magic to do a project on that sort of thing."

"Blimey, you're doing your course work early," Neville said, more than a little intimidated by the prospect.

Harry had to agree. Maybe he was thinking about asking Sirius for help with his friends learning how to become Animagi, and maybe he was trying to learn the Patronus charm, but both of those were sort of hobby-interest things.

"That's not why I'm doing it," Hermione explained. "But it might help if I do History of Magic at NEWT level. Anyway, I looked up the laws on what you're allowed to do to a House-Elf."

She produced a sheaf of notes, putting them on top of the book. "The law is very clear on it. You're allowed to tell a House-Elf off, but you're not allowed to verbally abuse them and you're not allowed to either harm them physically or force them to do it to themselves."

"Yeah, everyone knows you're not allowed to do it," Ron said.

"Then why does Dobby keep hitting himself?" Hermione asked. "His owners aren't allowed to treat him like that!"

"I bet it's because Dobby thinks he has to," Dean suggested. "And his owners probably broke the law in the past, but now they might not even need to any more."

Hermione deflated a bit. "I think you're right..."

"Then… if Dobby is being treated badly, couldn't we get him away from his family?" Harry asked.

"There's two ways that can happen," Hermione replied, putting a smaller book called The Benefits Of Brownies, Or, The House Elf on top of the pile. "There's a kind of magical connection that a house elf has with their owners, and if that's broken then they're automatically free."

"Oh, yeah, the clothes thing," Neville realized. "Gran told me about that, she said I should never give Tandy any clothes unless she asks for them and we talk about it."

He shrugged. "I forgot a few times, but I don't count as Tandy's owner, so it's not really a problem."

Hermione nodded. "Yes, so it would have to be whoever Dobby's proper owner is."

She shuffled the notes around. "The other way is the House Elf Relocation Bureau, but they're apparently not very good. The legal arguments take months, and usually you don't find out who the owner is anyway."

"It sounds like it's going to be really hard to help Dobby out," Harry summarized. "That's a pity. He did really seem like he was trying to help."

"I know," Hermione agreed. "Even if the way he was trying to help was a bit odd."

She looked around. "Any idea what he meant by Hogwarts being dangerous?"

"Maybe he was talking about Peter," Ron suggested, looking uncomfortable. "But if he was, then Hogwarts hasn't been safe for years."

"I think it's actually safer this year than last year," Neville volunteered. "Last year one of the teachers was You-Know-Who, this year the most dangerous thing in the castle is probably… well, it's probably whatever the Seventh Years are doing for Defence. Or a malfunctioning potion."

"What about a rogue Bludger?" Ron asked.

"That wasn't in the castle," Neville replied, with impeccable logic as far as Harry was concerned.

"And I don't think the Seventh Years are doing anything dangerous in defence," Dean added. "After that Percy thing I asked the NEWT students, they said they're just doing readings out of Professor Lockhart's books as well."

"What?" Hermione asked, then looked back down at the legal research she'd done, then back up at Dean. "But… why?"

She shook her head. "That just doesn't make sense to me – he should be teaching them the Homomorphus Charm, the Patronus, shield spells and point casting and all the things he's done in the books."

"Yeah, I'm kind of wondering about that," Ron said. "We've never actually seen him do anything impressive, have we?"

"Well… teachers don't have to do impressive things," Hermione countered. "But – well, I suppose Professor Flitwick does, and so does Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape."

"Even Professor Binns does do one thing that's impressive," Dean contributed. "He's old enough he probably lived through some of that history."

"Actually, how old is Professor Binns?" Harry asked. "I know wizards can get really old, and he died of old age."

"Well… hold on a minute," Hermione asked, and hurried off. She pushed open the portrait hole door, and left.

The four boys looked after her, then at the big book on the table.

"...any idea how long she's going to be?" Ron asked.

Some minutes later, Hermione came back with a book marked with an eagle on the cover.

"I thought I saw this last time I was in the Ravenclaw library," Hermione explained. "It's a biography of the Hogwarts headmaster before Professor Dumbledore, Armando Dippet."

She flipped it open, finding the number she was after. "According to this, he was born in 1637… and he was still alive when the book was published in 1987, for his three hundred and fiftieth year."

"So… Professor Binns is really old, then," Harry summarized.

His tail twisted a bit. "Actually, I think that's really good. I was sort of vaguely worried about whether dragons lived longer than people. The dragons in the Pern books really hate it when their partners die..."

"I don't think Gandalf enjoyed living longer than his friends, either," Neville agreed. "And isn't that why Arwen has to pick what kind of life she's going to live?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I wonder how Dumbledore feels about that kind of thing, actually..."

Now he thought about it, Dumbledore must be terribly sad about all the people he knew who had died in the war with Tom Riddle. He'd never realized that before.

The next morning, there was a rumour buzzing around the breakfast tables.

Harry sort of half-listened at first, too busy reading through Dark Force Rising and enjoying how sneaky Grand Admiral Thrawn was, but when he overheard that it involved the Smith twins he bookmarked his place to listen in.

It sounded like Fred and George had worked out who had been pranking them and had decided to prank back. If the rumours were correct, all the quills the twins owned had been subtly charmed – it didn't look like anything was wrong when you were looking, but they had a tendency to dance over and doodle Weasels Are Best in the margins of whatever work they were doing.

Harry wondered just how good Fred and George were at that kind of magic, and how they'd learned it – Hogwarts classes taught you a lot, but how much time did Fred and George spend experimenting that they could work out all this stuff?

Especially since they both did Quidditch as well. Maybe they just didn't sleep very much?

The idea of coming up with all kinds of new spells was interesting, and Harry had sort of already done it by accident with the Xenographia spell. Maybe that was the plus side of pranking, though Harry thought that maybe it would have to wait until his NEWT years because at least then there was the possibility of having less homework.

That or maybe he'd stop doing Quidditch, though he really wanted to keep it going for at least a year. Or could you just not go to practices?

Oliver probably wouldn't like that, though.

As November changed into December, Harry thought about the fact that he now had some adult friends – or, adult pseudo-relatives? He really wasn't sure – to think about getting presents for. That was on top of Ron, Dean, Neville and Hermione, who he had some ideas for as well.

Nothing was really going to be able to do better than the wand from last year, for Ron, so Harry wasn't going to try and was thinking about maybe making Ron something instead. The others were a bit easier, but trying to think what to get Sirius was really tricky.

Harry's letters to Sirius, and Sirius's letters back, had made it pretty clear that his 'sort of uncle' was fantastically well off, making Harry's hoard look small, and that meant that Harry was having real trouble just coming up with what Sirius would like but that he wouldn't have already got. It didn't help that he'd only really talked to Sirius once, and sent a few letters back and forth, so he wasn't even sure what kind of thing Sirius liked.

It was all a big puzzle, and since Harry liked the idea of getting his friends presents it was one he was thinking very hard about as he read over his Transfiguration homework.

Noticing a spelling mistake where he'd written house instead of mouse, Harry took out his quill and refreshed the erasing charm. He rubbed out the offending word and re-wrote it, then kept going.

Then the portrait hole opened and Fred and George tumbled in, pursued by donuts.

A wave of shock, then laughter, ran around the common room as both Weasley Twins picked themselves up before running for the stairs to their dorms. The donuts followed them, shooting right past the table Harry and his friends were at, and Harry stuck out a wing to block one of them with a plap sound before juggling it with his other wing and biting it out of the air.

It turned out to be full of melted fudge, which was quite surprising, though he supposed it wasn't as surprising as if it was full of something like… soup.

It was only a guess, but he thought the Smiths weren't going to take the prospect of losing a prank war lying down.

Harry was lying on his bed one afternoon, reading the bit in Lords and Ladies where it was talking about how nobody had said elves were nice, when there was a sharp little pop next to him.

Curious, he put a bookmark in and looked over, and was quite surprised to see that Dobby was standing there wringing his hands.

"Hello again, Dobby," he said. "Is everything all right?"

The question seemed to make Dobby rock back on his heels a bit, and he burst into tears.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Harry asked, concerned.

"Oh, Harry Potter, sir..." Dobby sniffled. "Dobby only wanted Harry Potter to be safe! But no matter what Dobby did, Harry Potter came back to Hogwarts and stayed at Hogwarts!"

"Well, I want to learn how to do magic," Harry explained. "And it's where most of my friends are. And it hasn't really been all that dangerous, either."

"If only Harry Potter knew," Dobby groaned, pulling on his long ears. "Hogwarts will be very dangerous for him! He must make sure he is safe!"

"I think I am safe," Harry replied. "Or… mostly safe, anyway. I don't think Professor Lockhart is actually You Know Who in disguise, though."

Dobby's lip trembled, and he seemed to be about to say something, but then Harry realized something.

"What do you mean about no matter what you did?" he asked.

"Dobby tried everything Dobby could think of!" the house-elf announced. "Dobby tried to find when Harry Potter could be blamed for magic, so he would have to not go to school, but Harry Potter never left the wizard house! Then Dobby tried sealing the gateway so Harry Potter could not get on the train, and Harry Potter just waited until the gate was open! Dobby had to iron his hands for that-"

"Oh, that was you?" Harry asked. "They were really confused about it – wait, you had to iron your hands?"

Dobby showed Harry his long fingers, which still had a few red marks on them, and Harry swallowed.

"That's… really… you don't have to do that kind of thing, Dobby," he said.

"Dobby must!" Dobby replied, shocked. "Dobby must punish himself if he does something wrong!"

"No, I mean you actually don't have to," Harry countered. "My friend Hermione looked it up. Nobody is allowed to make a house-elf punish themselves."

The idea made Dobby stand stock-still for at least a minute, waving slightly back and forth, and Harry wondered if the little elf had broken.

"But when Dobby found out that Harry Potter had got to Hogwarts anyway, Dobby was so surprised!" Dobby burst out. "Dobby burned master's dinner, and he got such a flogging!"

That made Harry actually angry, much more than Dobby thinking he had to punish himself had done. He must have snarled slightly, because Dobby took a step back and looked very worried.

"I don't – I'm not angry at you, Dobby," Harry explained. "It's whoever your master is. They shouldn't do that to you – they're not allowed to do it to you."

"But Dobby is a house-elf," Dobby said. "Master can do whatever Master wants to Dobby."

"No, he can't," Harry replied, quiet but insistent. "We looked it up. The law says that House-Elves can be told off, or you can threaten to give them clothes-" Dobby squeaked at the very thought, "-but they can't hit you and they can't make you hurt yourself."

Dobby pulled on his ears again, looking deeply troubled. "But… but Dobby did other things as well… Dobby wanted to keep Harry Potter safe, so Dobby tried to make it so he could not get to Hogwarts, and then Dobby tried to make it so Harry Potter would have to go home, ill!"

"You did?" Harry replied, tilting his head. "When?"

"Dobby tried to make food that would make Harry Potter ill," Dobby said. "Dobby tried making a Bludger go after Harry Potter. But Dobby has run out of ideas! Dobby does not know what to do!"

"Wait, that was you?" Harry asked. "That was tasty."

Dobby blinked his big tennis-ball eyes. "Harry Potter ate the Bludger?"

"No, I mean the one with all the hemlock in," Harry clarified. "Though maybe I could have eaten the Bludger. It probably wouldn't be very tasty, though, it's just iron."

He tilted his head. "Actually, you said you want to keep me safe from something your master wants to do… what does he want to do to me, and why?"

"Dobby cannot say!" Dobby wailed. "Dobby is not allowed to say who his master is! Dobby would be a bad Dobby and have to put his ears in the mangle!"

Harry was a bit distracted by the idea that Wizards still used mangles, but shook his head. "Uh… then why does this wizard want to hurt me?"

"He hates having wizards who are not humans at Hogwarts," Dobby said, carefully now, almost as if he was trying to find out what he was allowed to say. "Dobby thinks wizards who are not humans is a good thing, but Master thinks they are bad, and he wants to hurt Harry Potter!"

"Then… hold on," Harry said, holding up a claw. "If I left Hogwarts, wouldn't that mean that I'd done what he wanted anyway?"

Dobby looked crestfallen, then yelped. "But – but Harry Potter could be hurt more if he stays! The Chamber of Secrets will be opened once more-"

Dobby stopped, shocked, and Harry realized something.

"When was it first opened?" he asked, but Dobby grabbed a heavy book from Harry's trunk. He was about to start using it to beat himself over the head, but Harry stopped him by taking the book back. "Did anyone get hurt last time?"

The house-elf nodded, clearly scared, and Harry thought for a bit before asking the next question. "Was it something that Tom Riddle did when he was in school?"

Dobby fell over.

"How does Harry Potter know that name?" he asked.

"Professor Dumbledore told me in first year," Harry replied. "I actually found one of his diaries in my stuff, I'm not sure where from, but I handed it in to Dumbledore."

Dobby gaped, then flung himself at Harry and hugged him around the waist.

"Harry Potter is a great wizard!" he announced.

"Blimey," Ron said. "I didn't know a diary was that important."

Dobby froze, and Harry looked at the door. Ron was there, and so were Dean, Neville and Hermione, and it looked like either Fred or George had his head around the door as well.

"How long have you been there?" Harry asked.

"Pretty much for all of it," Dean answered.

Dobby let out a kind of meep noise and vanished with a crack.

Chapter Text

The conversation with Dobby made Harry feel upset, in a way that sort of simmered away in the background.

It wasn't like the vague feeling that it would be really nice if his friends knew what it felt like to fly on their own wings, or the melancholy sadness of not knowing his parents. He'd known that some people had a worse time than him, but this was something completely different… and something where he had no idea how to fix it.

Harry felt like it was the sort of thing that adults should solve, and he did write a letter to Sirius about it, but he couldn't really put his talon on what should be done to fix it. Based on some of the books he'd read, the appropriate thing to do might be to storm into the house of whoever Dobby's master was and free him, but that didn't seem like it would be legal (or polite, if it wasn't in a book)… and he still didn't know who Dobby's master was.

It was sort of like he imagined it was different for someone like Frodo or Merry. They'd sort of been aware of Mordor, and other unpleasant things like that, but meeting people who'd been put in awful situations sort of made it more… real?

Harry much preferred it when everyone was basically okay, and that made him think a bit about the books he read. It seemed like something he hadn't really realized when he was reading things like the Belgariad was that it was the bits between the books – or after them – that were the nicest times to live in. A big exciting battle was much more interesting to read about, but if you thought about it it was probably much nicer living in Riva five years after the end of the books.

The good news that came about a week into December was that the trial of Peter Pettigrew was finally over. He'd said that a lot of people had been servants of Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, but apparently it was really hard to tell who'd been under mind control and who hadn't. It sounded like anyone who'd been doing evil things after Harry's parents had died had been put in prison, which was part of what happened to Sirius.

The paper said that Pettigrew had been sentenced to Azkaban, and that his cell would be specially made to make sure that even a rat couldn't get out of it.

Harry did sort of hope that was the end of it, though. He liked going to magic school, and while it was nice to do other things as well it did seem like there were a lot of distractions. He wasn't at all sure what the Chamber of Secrets was, for example, even after Hermione had told him that it was meant to be a secret chamber built by Salazar Slytherin a thousand years ago with a monster inside it to rid the castle of Muggleborns.

Admittedly Harry had sort of guessed the bit about the Chamber of Secrets being a secret chamber. And Hogwarts being Hogwarts, it did seem possible there was a room that was hidden so well almost nobody could find it, but that did make him wonder how it was supposed to actually rid the castle of Muggleborns.

He did remember how the argument about whether he was allowed at Hogwarts had let him know what the official definition of "Muggleborn" was, but it did make him wonder about how you could tell without asking someone.

Was Tanisis a Muggleborn? Neither of her parents had been to a wizarding school, because they were both sphinxes, but they'd both been magical. Did that count?

What about people who were Squibs, who didn't have any magic but came from a magical family? Would someone whose grandparents were all Squibs count as muggle-born or pure-blood?

Harry wasn't sure. It seemed a lot like one of those rules that made sense when people thought it up but had sort of difficult bits around the edges.

The next day, Harry was up early. He'd seen the signs of what was about to happen, and wanted to watch.

It was the first snow day of the year, thick and soft, and it lay in drifts all over Hogwarts castle and grounds. Little powder-trails blew from the battlements as the wind stirred snow piles that had fallen overnight, the Quidditch Pitch was covered in at least six feet of snow (so could be used for Quidditch practice the same as always) and the Black Lake was frozen around the edges.

"Ah, Harry," Hagrid said, as Harry landed next to him at one of the postern doors. "Yer just in time."

Harry nodded, furling his wings, and watched as Hagrid opened the small side door.

"Hagrid!" Nora announced brightly, loping forwards in a way that made her tail ripple, and gave him a nuzzle.

Then she noticed the white stuff on the ground, and reached out a tentative paw to touch it.

"Cold?" she asked.

"That's called snow," Harry explained, and Nora slowly put her weight on her forepaw. It made a crunching noise as the snow gave way readily under her weight, until she reached the solid ground underneath.

Nora withdrew her paw, inspecting it on top and then craning her neck to look underneath, then tried eating some of the snow. That made her flinch back and shoot a jet of flame, melting a big patch of the snow, and that seemed to really baffle her.

"It's frozen water," Harry explained, and Nora swung her head around to look at him. "Water that's gone hard?"

He took a pawful of the snow himself, turning it into a snowball, then blew gently on it. Nora watched very closely as the snow slowly lost definition, water dribbling off it until finally there was nothing left at all.

"Snow..." she said, repeating the word Harry had used. "Cold water?"

"That's right," Harry agreed.

Picking some up, Nora licked it – more carefully this time.

Then she let out a roar, and dove at one of the bigger snowdrifts – sending white flakes flying in all directions.

The next day there was a special Astronomy lesson just before midnight for everyone who was still doing Astronomy at all, even the people who'd had it the last night. The astronomy tower was packed, and the moon overhead was faint and red – a total Lunar Eclipse.

In some of the books Harry had read an eclipse was really significant, either because it meant magic was more powerful, or less powerful, or something was disapproving of the world.

That was usually a solar eclipse, though. He asked Professor Sinistra whether there were any magical effects from a lunar eclipse, and she frowned for a long moment before saying it might confuse a few werewolves.

Unlike with his first year, Harry had to seriously think about how he was going to spend his Christmas holiday in second year.

He'd sort of worked out what to get everyone for Christmas, and was flying to Fort William when he got a chance so he could work most of that out, but that was only half of it. He could just stay at Hogwarts like he had the previous year, and like Ron was planning on doing, or he could take up Sirius' offer to come around for the whole Christmas holiday and visit.

Harry wasn't all that sure that he'd do that, because Christmas at Hogwarts was a sight to behold, but Hedwig was kept busy as he discussed it with his new uncle and it really seemed like Sirius liked the idea of spending some time together – so it sounded like it would be a good idea to do at least something.

Eventually, a week or so before the end of term, they had an idea which sounded good for both of them. Sirius suggested that maybe they should have everyone Harry wanted to invite around for a fun Boxing Day, and then after that Harry would stay over until the new year 'if we can stand living in this place for that long'."

Having met Sirius, and had a few letters from him, Harry wasn't quite sure how bad it would be. It could all be jokes and it was a nice place, or it could be that only one room of the house was really habitable and they'd be camping in…

...well, Harry's tent, really.

Since that sounded like a good idea, Harry started asking his friends if they'd be available. Hermione said she'd have to ask her parents – and asked to borrow Hedwig to send them a letter – while Dean shook his head, saying apologetically that it was pretty much usual for his family to go and visit relatives over Christmas so he didn't think he'd be able to come along.

Ron and the other Weasleys (from Percy to Ginny) all sounded enthusiastic about the idea, though, and Neville liked the sound of it, so Harry let Sirius know roughly how many people to expect.

It was an odd and quite nice feeling to be inviting other people around, even if in this case it wasn't to his house. The fact the house he was inviting people to was on a street called 'Grimmauld Place', though, was vaguely worrying.

The Black family had apparently included all sorts of shady people, though. And Draco's mum.

At the final Quidditch practice before the end of term, Harry was sort of anticipating a long and slightly cold series of practice games in the snow which – for all that flying was pretty fun – would be a bit of a slog simply because everyone else would be getting cold and a bit miserable.

Oliver surprised them all, however, by informing everyone that they'd be using the snow to practice falling. That was a bit confusing, and he elaborated that there were some basic levitation spells – they only lifted you up a few feet and stopped working if you were too high up, but you could use them to slow down how hard you hit the ground.

His idea was that if anyone did end up having to hit the ground, they'd hopefully be able to at least sort of "roll" with it.

In the event, it was great fun. The snow was thick enough that everybody could land in it without getting hurt, and the idea of using the levitation spells quickly went away as instead everyone flew low to dive off their brooms and crunch into the thick drifts.

Then an airborne snowball fight started, which quickly became even more confusing when the Smith twins turned out to have been hiding under the snow. Oliver was briefly worried about spying, until Katie pointed out that if the Slytherins were spying on their training they wouldn't get any use of it at least until next year and that the more likely explanation involved the ongoing and increasingly public prank war.

Fred and George won that particular round, largely by using their wands to lift vast amounts of snow and completely plaster the area the Smiths were hiding. Harry wondered if they would turn into foxes to burrow out, but realized that they probably wouldn't let themselves get found out even if they did.

During the last Herbology lesson of the term, Harry asked Justin what his plans were for Christmas.

"Oh, well, I'm not really sure," Justin admitted, trimming the flowers off a Giant Hogweed. One of the flower clusters fell the wrong way, and Harry caught it before it could hit Justin's arm below his gloves. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Harry replied, putting it in the basket they'd been using. "Want me to grab that stalk that's at the back?"

Justin nodded, and Harry pulled the stalk down so Justin could reach it with the secateurs.

"Mother's said that we might be going to visit relatives," Justin clarified. "I'm not entirely sure how that's going to go if it's my cousin once removed, he went to Eton and he was really hoping I'd do the same."

"What have you told him?" Harry asked.

"We've just said it's an exclusive Scots boarding school, which is certainly true," Justin replied. "The trouble is if he wants to know what we learn here..."

Harry nodded. "I can see that," he agreed. "I'm not sure what my Aunt and Uncle would say if they got asked where I go for school… actually, they've probably already been asked."

"Oh, I remember this," Justin mused. "They don't like magic at all?"

"Not at all," Harry nodded, as they finished trimming the Giant Hogweed. "I think they just wanted to be perfectly normal, but I think everybody's a bit odd really."

"All right, everyone!" Professor Sprout called. "If anyone got touched by the Hogweed, please come up here and I can give you the potion that counteracts the poisons!"

It was odd, when Harry thought about it, but the thing he liked about Christmas was not getting presents so much as giving them. Both were new experiences for him, or mostly new experiences – he had got a few presents at Privet Drive – but it was overall more pleasant to see how much people enjoyed what he got them than it was even to get something particularly good.

Maybe it was just because he could buy most things that he wanted – he didn't have any particularly expensive tastes except for books, and even then the spell Hermione had taught him let him stay quite well-supplied. It would probably mean he'd have a very big hoard eventually.

In any case, that meant that – despite the days leading up to Christmas proper leaving Hogwarts festooned in snow outside and decorations inside, with a snow-whatever making contest one day and a snowball fight the next that involved almost the entirety of the remaining student body – Harry was actually impatient for Christmas.

On the night of Christmas Eve, the normal four tables in the Great Hall had all been pushed together into a big rectangle for dinner instead of forming four long lines. June and her entire extended family came to visit, two dozen Wargs all enjoying a slap-up feast with the Hogwarts inhabitants as the snow fell gently outside, and Professor Lockhart turned out to be quite good at casting Charms that sent sparkling bubbles of gold and pearl floating around the Great Hall.

Harry wondered if silver ones would have been vaguely insulting to the Wargs, but that was sort of an idle thing. The rest of the time he was enjoying his food, and listening to a conversation going on a little to the right where June was translating for her father on one side and Professor Kettleburn on the other.

It was interesting that the Wargs didn't have their own language as such, they'd started out speaking English, but the difficulty they had saying the words with their lupine mouths had sort of naturally led to a drift towards a more wolf-like way of speaking.

It did explain why it had been so easy for June to quickly learn English, though.

Christmas morning dawned bright and clear, and Harry yawned and stretched before sitting up on his bed with his tail twitching.

Ron was still asleep, and Harry checked the time. It seemed like it was time for presents as far as he was concerned, and he knew Ron hadn't got to bed too late last night.

He could try shaking Ron awake… or he could try a simple, harmless prank. Nothing like what Fred and George sometimes did, and certainly nothing like Sirius had occasionally mentioned he and the other Marauders had done to people.

But he did kind of like this idea…

Eventually, Ron yawned, rolling over in bed.

"Mrf..." he mumbled. "Not time to get up yet..."

Harry waited, wings slightly furling and unfurling, and then Ron noticed.

"Bloody hell!" he yelped, jumping to his feet. "Aguamenti!"

A spray of water doused his merrily burning bed, and the water didn't do anything to the bright blue flames.

Harry tried not to giggle.

"...prat," Ron muttered, shaking his head, and dispelled Harry's bluebell flames with a muttered Finite. "How long ago did you do that?"

"Twenty minutes," Harry admitted.

"Yeah, okay, that's pretty funny," Ron allowed, tapping his model griffin to wake it up. "What's the time… blimey, I slept in."

"I thought that would wake you up pretty quickly," Harry replied, inspecting Ron's presents to make sure none of them had got wet. "Then I just sort of… waited, because it was funnier to watch."

"I'd probably have done the same thing," Ron admitted. "...I probably will do the same thing. Possibly to Fred and George."

He picked out a present from the pile at the end of his bed. "Blimey, this one's big… wonder who it's from?"

"That's me," Harry answered, opening one of his own presents. It was the one from his Aunt and Uncle, and it was a toothpick.

Harry wondered if they had some sort of unmentioned financial problem.

There was a great tearing noise as Ron tore off the paper from his present, and his griffin dove into the papers and began to make a nest out of them.

Ron was too busy gaping at the box.

"It's some model rockets," Harry explained happily. "Not fireworks – they're more serious than that. I found some that were reusable if you could get the right fuel, and I think we use everything it takes to make them as potions ingredients."

"Cripes," Ron said, turning it around to look at the back. "How high do they go?"

"Not sure," Harry admitted. "I did get the biggest ones I could find, though."

"That makes the thing I got kind of pathetic," Ron replied, sounding a bit gloomy.

"Honestly, I'm just happy to get you something," Harry told his friend, and removed the paper.

It was a book about the Chudley Cannons. Harry was quite pleased by it, telling Ron that of course getting him a book he hadn't read yet was perfectly fine. (He thought it was probably going to be quite funny, but he didn't say that because he wanted to be polite.)

Hermione had got him a sort of reference book about Muggle stories about dragons, which was somewhat understandably called The Book Of The Dragon, and a little note told him that this way it would be A Book Of A Dragon. Then Neville had got something neat as well, an enchanted bookstand which would turn the pages for you if you told it to go forwards or back.

Dean's present for Harry was a stuffed toy – a deer – which Ron snorted at at first until hearing that it was the first time Harry had ever actually owned one, and then he went a bit quiet and opened his own gift from Dean. That was a set of table football characters, repackaged, but because Dean had painted them all in Chudley Cannons vivid orange.

Putting the stuffed toy by his bedside with his other things, Harry was about to move on when Ron coughed.

"What did you get the others?" he asked. "I hope you didn't really splash out just for me..."

"Well, I wasn't sure what to get Hagrid, at first, because the shops in Fort William don't sell exotic creatures and he's a bit big for most Muggle clothes," Harry replied, starting to count off on his talons. "So I got him some chocolates, and I also sent him a Haggis for Nora. Then for Hermione I found something that lets you emboss books with your own little markings, so she can mark books she's got as hers."

He nodded over at two of the empty beds, as Dean, Neville and Seamus had all gone home for the holidays. "I got Dean a West Ham shirt, then I asked Professor Flitwick to charm it so it'll change sizes and always fit him. He was very nice about it… and Neville was kind of tricky, but I found a book in the Ravenclaw library about learning sword fighting."

Ron blinked, tilting his head sightly in a way Harry sort of recognized as one of his own mannerisms. "You gave him a library book?"

"No, I couldn't have done that," Harry replied. "Besides, it was in… I think it was Latin or something? But I talked to Professor Flitwick about it and got permission to take it into Fort William, and I photocopied all the pages with a Muggle machine."

Harry paused, waiting to see if Ron would get it, and after a moment the other boy's eyes widened.

"You made a Muggle book out of it," he realized. "And then you translated it?"

"Yeah, I've got about thirty duff translations lying around my hoard," Harry agreed. "I think one of them is in Quenya. But I got an English one as well, and that's what I sent."

"You don't do this presents thing by halves, do you?" Ron said, shaking his head. "I'm almost afraid to ask what you got your Aunt and Uncle."

"I got them a nice book with pictures of Scottish lakes," Harry replied. "Or Lochs? I'm not sure if English people like us are supposed to say Lochs."

"I really don't get why you're so nice to them," Ron muttered. "They're not very nice to you."

"Well, I've never actually felt like they did anything bad to me," Harry replied, and started thinking about it. "Maybe that's because they couldn't, but still. And there are people who have done worse, like Tom Riddle."

He shrugged. "I just… like to think everybody is nice at first. Maybe that means I'm disappointed sometimes, but it seems nicer to me."

After that slightly odd conversation, Harry opened the rest of his presents.

Sirius hadn't sent him a present, but had told him that he'd be getting his present at Grimmauld Place because that way he could see Harry's reaction. Harry sort of wished he'd thought of that, but what he'd actually got Sirius was several Asterix books because Sirius seemed like he needed a good laugh.

Remus had sent Harry a collection of the old notes the Marauders had had when they were in school, detailing some of the odd things they'd got up to, and apologized for not getting a more traditional present. That made Harry feel quite sad, especially as what he'd got Remus was a kit for taking care of the fur of a dog (with a letter saying he wasn't sure if it was Sirius or Remus who actually needed it more). He'd also thought to mention that it would have helped a lot of First-Years coming to Hogwarts if they'd been able to buy or look at a map that showed the Castle, even if it didn't show any of the properly secret secret passages, and asked if Remus had any ideas about that.

It was one of those times when Harry was quite proud of being a little bit sneaky, because Remus and Sirius could probably make a copy of the Marauder's Map with less abilities, and that way they would have something that they could sell to all the first-year students at Hogwarts.

Rather than a second Weasley jumper, Mrs. Weasley had sent an apology note for not knowing how much Harry had grown over the last year along with a striped red and gold scarf. Harry quite liked the scarf, and wound it around his neck so the fringed ends dangled to his waist.

The last thing Harry got to was a present from Dumbledore, which was a pair of very nicely knitted socks patterned with moving flames that seemed to alternately burn up the entire sock before dying down to embers.

Harry was really quite pleased with how the morning had gone.

The Christmas Feast was just as wonderfully made as it had been last year, with sugary snow drifting gently down from the ceiling and all kinds of unusual foods to try, but on top of everything that Harry had seen last year there were a few new things as well.

There were foods from other parts of the world that brought a little taste of an Egyptian or Greek Christmas (Harry especially liked the odd bread, rice, lamb and garlic soup), then there was an indoors fireworks display by Professors Dumbledore and Flitwick under the warm, dry enchanted snow, and between the main courses and the pudding a dozen students stood up to give the first performance of the Hogwarts Choir.

They did Jingle Bells very well, Harry thought, and Come All Ye Faithful as well. By the time they got to doing Simple Gifts he was actually tearing up a little – this was much more like what he'd imagined music at Hogwarts would be like, compared to the school song.

Then everyone joined in with We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and as that came to an end the puddings appeared.

The next morning, after a night packing his things into his tent and then sleeping in the tent, Harry took the Floo from Professor McGonagall's office to Twelve Grimmauld Place.

Green fire swirled all around him, fireplaces whizzing past in that odd way the Floo did, and then Harry came out all at once and flared his wings – which almost stopped him tripping over and falling to the floor with a crash.

"Harry!" Sirius said, sounding concerned, and Harry shook himself as he got up. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Harry assured him. "I just don't get on very well with the Floo."

"You should have said," Sirius replied. "I could have Apparated to pick you up."

Behind Harry, there was a whoosh as Ginny came through the Floo, and Harry took a moment to look Sirius up and down.

His hair was long, but washed, and had ended up as a sort of shaggy mane. There were a few grey hairs mixed into it, but they didn't look bad really, and he'd also filled out a bit and looked generally healthier. The change was enough that Harrry could see freedom was agreeing with him, and there was a light in his eyes – like he'd been enjoying himself for the first time in years.

"Apparating doesn't work at Hogwarts, Sirius," Remus pointed out.

"And it doesn't work on me, either," Harry added. "Professor Dumbledore and I think it's my magic resistance."

"Fair enough," Sirius said, then stepped back a pace and bowed as Ron arrived. "And welcome to the home of the Most Ancient And Noble House of Black! Welcome to Grimmauld Place!"

He paused. "Just… don't go upstairs. Or downstairs. We've spent the last month clearing out this floor and we think we got everything that might get us first."

Neville arrived about twenty minutes later, just ahead of Hermione. Hermione's parents had taken her by Tube, planning to go into the City for the day, and Neville had just taken the Floo like Harry himself and the Weasleys.

Hermione's arrival led to a quite amazing amount of shouting from a very loud and rude portrait in the hall, which Sirius said was of his terribly unpleasant mother. She called Hermione a 'Mudblood', Sirius a 'wastrel' and Harry a '...what?'

Harry didn't feel like being polite to her, so he just explained that he was a dragon and then pulled the curtain shut.

"I know she's your mother, but that's terribly rude," Hermione said. "I didn't think anyone actually said 'Mudblood', I thought it was only in books. How long has she been like that?"

"All my life. But if you mean the portrait, at least for the last few months," Sirius replied. "I think there's a permanent sticking charm keeping the portrait in place. I've tried everything."

"I caught him trying to use his wand to lever the portrait off the wall," Remus confided. "At that point I think it really is everything."

Hermione frowned. "I think at least people without magic can just ignore their relatives," she said. "It's a lot harder when they're stuck to the wall."

"I'd say I wanted to just ignore all my relatives, but Andy and her family are all right," Sirius shrugged. "Plus, if you look far enough just about everyone in Pureblood society is related to the Blacks somewhere."

"Glad you could make it, Hermione," Neville called. "Did you get the warning about where you can't go yet?"

Hermione looked over at them, and Harry answered first. "Upstairs, I think?"

"Or downstairs," Sirius added. "From what I've been hearing about you, Harry, you might be okay, but I've heard there's Boggarts around and I don't want to see what your worst fear is."

Harry actually wasn't sure what his worst fear would be. Maybe something from a book?

Or did it have to be a real thing?

With Hermione, that was everyone, and once they were out of the hallway Sirius clapped his hands.

"All right, everyone!" he said. "Come to the drawing room!"

Fred and George exchanged looks.

"I thought we were already in the drawing room," Fred said. "Or is the drawing room a room you use for drawing?"

"That sounds more like Dean's thing," Ron interrupted. "Pity he couldn't make it, if so."

"It can't be that, unless the easels are being hidden somewhere," George replied. "He said come to the drawing room. So this is the drawing room."

"I still don't understand why he'd want us to come here," Fred shrugged.

"I think Padfoot might be slipping," George agreed.

"Since you two want to argue," Sirius said, pointing at first one twin and then the other. "You two can go into the kitchen, and then come back into the drawing room."

"We asked for that, Fred," Fred said.

"That we did, George," George confirmed.

Remus started to choke.

"Are you okay, M-Mr. Lupin?" Sirius asked. "Something go down the wrong way?"

"I'm just thinking about Marauder twins," Remus explained, coughing a few more times. "I feel sorry for Professor McGonagall and the rest already."

After the Twins had trooped out to the kitchen and then back in, Sirius waved his wand and lit up the sparkling lights on a big pine tree that looked like it shouldn't have fit through the door.

"Merry Christmas!" he announced. "Now, in case some of you don't know who I am, well done for not reading the Daily Prophet. My name is Sirius Black, and this is my acquaintance Remus Lupin. I used to be in prison, but I got better."

"Do you mean you got let out?" Neville asked, frowning. "I thought it was an illness you got better from."

"Well, being in prison did seem to be contagious," Sirius shrugged, teeth flashing in a grin that made him look years younger. "Everyone I met had it for quite a long time. Anyway, it is my distinct pleasure to have inherited an enormous amount of money from one of the most prominent Dark Families in the country, and to have not one single moment for any of that blood purity nonsense."

He swept his hand around, taking in all the children present from Ginny to Percy. "So if you think your present cost too much, it didn't. It really didn't. Think of it as… as… how long was I in Azkaban, again?"

"Eleven years, give or take," Remus supplied.

"Eleven years' worth of spoiling my godson, spread out across all of you," Sirius summarized. "Now, who wants to go first?"

As it turned out, Sirius had sort of had to guess what people would find interesting, and he'd based it off his own deep knowledge of what teenagers were into. That meant that there were four Nimbus Two Thousand And Ones, which went to Fred, George, Harry and Ron, and after the fourth one was opened Ginny raised her hand.

"Are they all going to be top line brooms?" she asked.

"I'm not that uncreative," Sirius replied, sounding hurt.

"You are that uncreative," Remus said. "You wanted your Marauder name to be Doggy."

"Hey, nobody needs to know that!" Sirius protested. "Anyway, no, that's all the brooms."

"That doesn't seem very fair," Ginny said. "Why do all the brooms go to the boys?"

"Well, I know Harry's in the Gryffindor Quidditch Team," Sirius checked off. "And the same for the Twins. And as for Ron… well… it was that or get him a replacement for Peter, and I couldn't think of a good pet to get him."

Remus snorted.

"Hey, none of that," Sirius told him. "And on another note entirely, this one's yours."

He waved his wand, and the cover came off a small cage. The cage turned out to contain an extremely hyperactive little owl who began chirping as soon as the cover was off, and Ginny did a double-take as the cage floated over to her.

"Hold on," she said, frowning. "You couldn't think of a good pet to get Ron. But you did get a pet for me."

"Yes," Sirius agreed. "That's it exactly."

Hermione tapped Ginny on the shoulder. "At this point I usually find it helpful to huff and say 'boys'," she confided.

"Boys," Ginny huffed. "Wow, thanks, Hermione, that is good!"

"I'll get you a broom next year, when you're actually allowed one?" Sirius suggested. "I am guessing here, I'll be totally honest."

Ginny looked like she was thinking about it, and she opened the cage door to let the little owl out. It immediately began circling her head, making several circuits before finally landing on her knee – where it stayed for about a second before taking off again, hovering more like a hummingbird than an owl.

"Why did you get such a hyper one?" Ron asked, as the owl started hunting around. Harry wondered if it was looking for a letter to deliver.

"I'm sure I had a very good reason," Sirius told him. "Unfortunately, I can't remember for the life of me what it was..."

"He is growing on me," Ginny admitted. "I'll see if I can think of a name."

"What about Snitch?" Ron suggested. "He's about as bouncy as one.

Sirius snapped his fingers. "That's right! It was because it was funny. Forgot about that."

Hermione got a bag that was bigger on the inside, which Sirius said was fitted with shelves, and Percy's present was something that Sirius described as 'chosen by Remus' – an enormous quantity of Muggle-style stationery.

Percy ultimately turned out to have eight reams of high-quality paper, half lined and half unlined, two dozen Muggle pens and forty pencils, a complete set of coloured highlighters, plenty of spare ink, and several ring-binders to keep the whole thing together.

When the while pile was laid out, Ron blinked. "That… uh… not to sound ungrateful on Perce's behalf, or anything, but that seems kind of… dull… to me."

"I think it's great," Percy replied.

He looked around at his astonished brothers – and one sister – then smiled. "I know. It's kind of boring, just what you'd expect. But this is going to make it so much easier to keep everything organized."

A shrug. "Besides, I don't think I'd want a broom. I'm not very good at Quidditch, and the only reason I know as much as I do is because I've spent more than five years in the same dorm room as Oliver Wood."

"He's got a point," Fred said.

"He's got forty of them," George countered, pointing at the pencils.

"No, they're not sharpened yet," Fred replied.

Sirius said he had an idea for what to get Dean, as well, and then asked everyone what they thought of what they had – and whether there was anything they wanted to change.

"I'm afraid you can't really try out the brooms today," he added. "But if any of them turn out to be duff, just let me know and I'll sort it out."

"This is… crazily generous, Mr. Black," Ron said. "I don't even..."

He shook his head, looking at his new Nimbus.

"Well, then," Sirius added. "It sounds like it's time for lunch."

"It's only about eleven in the morning," Remus pointed out.

"It sounds like it's time for brunch," Sirius corrected himself.

Much to Harry's surprise, the food that Remus had got them was not only fundamentally Muggle but what he'd heard referred to as 'party food'.

There were little cut sandwiches, cocktail sausages, little slices of pizza and plates of onion rings, chicken nuggets, sausage rolls and odd little breaded things that turned out to be full of cheese. There were garlic mushrooms, cut pork pies, lamb kebabs, donuts, slices of cake and eclairs, all mixed up together on the same table.

"I thought about trying to put together a big, impressive meal," Sirius said, getting out a dozen silver plates from one of the cupboards. "But then I decided not to, because the whole point of this is to kind of poke my awful family in the eye."

"I'm not sure how long you can keep doing that," Hermione frowned, taking a plate and starting with a mini pasty, three onion rings and some carrots on sticks. "Before it gets boring, I mean… or unhealthy, at least."

"I'm still going through the stages of coping," Sirius told her. "Besides, eating Muggle food like this off the Black Family Silverware is its own reward."

Harry got a box of old motorcycle parts to nibble on – apparently Sirius had been making himself a second flying motorcycle – and then Remus got out an old Wizarding board game about a game of Quidditch.

Interestingly, it was about a specific game of Quidditch – the monumentally foul-ridden Flanders-Transylvania World Cup final of 1473 – and everyone divided into teams to play what was basically a kind of battle game as much as it was about sports.

There wasn't an option to release a live dragon onto the field, though.

The afternoon was a kind of cozy, pleasant experience.

Sirius dug out a wireless which he left on at a low volume, Remus had plenty of other board games to play from a strategy-battle game to one where everyone was trying to build a tower together.

None of them were really all that good at any of the games, which was half the fun, as everyone argued over what they should do on their turn and then it all went horribly wrong anyway. It reminded Harry a bit of the times he'd enjoyed playing games with Dudley, during the times when Dudley hadn't been able to get one of his friends to come around, but with so many more of them and… without Harry being sort of the last choice, anyway.

There was a quiz game, and because it was a Muggle copy of Trivial Pursuit that meant it was essentially a three-way contest between Hermione, Remus and Percy. That was okay, though, because Sirius just put one of them on each team and mixed everyone else up so all the teams had someone who knew something on them.

Then there was one where they were trying to get their explorers through a valley full of dinosaurs and lava, which wasn't quite as interesting until Ron had an idea and animated his little griffin statue. It promptly carried one of his explorers off, which put him out a bit, but soon the game turned into a frantic race for someone to get the treasure before the griffin stole all the pieces.

At about four in the afternoon, just after they'd spent half an hour making up their own much simpler rules for a preposterously complicated Muggle war game and decided that in the battle between "Axis" and "Allies" the winner had been "the griffin again", Sirius cleared his throat.

"All right," he said. "So it's time to talk about the big black dog in the room."

"Is there a big black dog in the room?" Percy asked. "I haven't seen it."

Fred and George gaped at him.

"Perce," Fred began. "Are you being obtuse?"

"Or are you being deadpan?" George followed up.

"Or do you just not know?" Fred finished.

"Know what?" Percy asked.

Sirius turned into Padfoot.

"Oh, that," Percy added. "Yes, actually. Why?"

"I think we've been played, Fred," George said.

Percy adjusted his robes, smiling a little.

Turning back to his human form, Sirius indicated himself. "So. I'm an Animagus. So was Harry's dad, and so was… the one we don't speak about unless there's no alternative."

"So you mean He Who Must Not Be Named?" Ginny asked.

"No, the other one," Sirius told him.

"The names Wizards use for things are a bit confusing," Harry said. "Why can't we just call Tom Riddle Tom Riddle?"

"I think that is a good idea, Harry," Sirius said, pleasingly. "But if we called the rat You Know Who and Tom Riddle Tom Riddle, it might make people think the rat was the person who everyone else thinks of as You Know Who and who we think of as Tom Riddle and they wouldn't know Tom Riddle was He Who Must Not Be Named."

He stopped, and mouthed words to himself for several seconds before shaking his head. "I think that was right."

"Hermione?" Ron checked.

"I think it made sense," Hermione agreed.

"So, anyway!" Sirius resumed. "Here's the thing that I want to discuss."

He pointed at Harry. "Obviously, I'm most concerned for the safety of my godson, but Harry is by all accounts preposterously hard to hurt so I probably shouldn't be. But you're all his friends, in some way, and you're also all Gryffindors so if anyone's likely to run in if he gets in a dangerous situation it's you. And that Dean kid, I haven't forgotten him."

Sirius steepled his fingers together and pushed them away from him, making a little krak sound. "So. Who wants to be an Animagus?"

"That sounds really cool," Ginny blurted, then blushed. "I mean, um..."

"Hey, there's no need to be embarrassed by that reaction," Sirius assured her. "That was about how I reacted when James told me he and Remus had managed to work out the process."

Remus nodded. "I have a disability that means I can't become one," he added. "But there's four main things you need in order to become an Animagus, if you don't have something that prevents you from doing it at all."

He counted on his fingers. "Firstly, you need willpower. That's both something you need to manage the transformation, and something you need for one of the essential components of the process – a mandrake leaf you need to hold in your mouth for an entire month, from full moon to full moon."

He went on to explain the whole process. The mandrake leaf was necessary for a potion which was personalized to the witch or wizard, and the potion then had to wait for a lightning storm. There was a spell to cast twice a day at sunrise and sunset during the waiting period, and then finally during the lightning storm the potion had to be drunk.

There were several things about it that could go wrong, but they were mostly about the last two steps – the spell and actually drinking the potion during the storm. Harry was mostly listening for interest, but he did put up his paw to ask a question.

"Go ahead, Harry," Remus smiled at him. "This isn't a class, I'm not your professor."

"Is this one of those times astronomy matters for magic?" Harry asked. "You mentioned the full moon a few times, and how it had to be a full moon with the moon visible for the potion to work, and then there was that spell at sunrise and sunset."

"It's quite possible," Remus admitted. "Though I'm not sure if it affects anything else. James, Sirius and Peter all became quite different things when they first transformed."

"Any idea what one of us might be?" Fred asked.

"Or two of us, for that matter!" George added. "Would George and I be the same thing?"

"That's a good question," Remus said.

After a long pause, and just when Fred looked like he was about to ask for the answer, Sirius took over. "So! No need to decide on it now, but think about it. Officially, you'd have to register, of course."

"Can you move somewhere else part way through the process?" Hermione said, looking down at some notes she'd taken. "There are places where the weather is really reliably clear – like at Hogwarts, if you use the Astronomy Tower for having the full moon bit – and there are places where there are thunderstorms all the time. I think there's somewhere in Africa where there's a thunderstorm on two out of every three days in the year…"

Sirius pointed at Hermione. "Why didn't we have her when we were doing this? It took two months of waiting to get a thunderstorm!"

"That would be because of time, Sirius," Remus sighed. "She's a bit young to have been at Hogwarts the same time as us."

"Oh, yeah, good point," Sirius agreed.

Everyone thought becoming an Animagus would be at least somewhat neat, but there were risks too and so it didn't seem like a good idea to rush into it. Percy did seem quite contemplative of the idea, though, and Harry remembered that – if they were assuming that Hogwarts would make the process much easier with guaranteed clear full moons – Percy would only have this year and next year to do it unless he came back just for that.

That discussion took them through to dinner, and Remus went out to get it – it turned out that this was another part of the plan Sirius had to be as 'Muggle' as possible, because what he brought in was the first time any of them except Hermione had had Chinese Takeaway.

The dozen or so little foil boxes with cardboard lids contained all sorts of odd foods like special fried rice, sweet and sour chicken and spring rolls, and the three-or-four bags with extra things like prawn toast and onion bhaji all went down very well, everybody trying to have a little bit of everything to find out what they liked best, and it seemed to Harry like Hermione spent half her time telling everyone what everything actually was.

Harry didn't have much at first, trying a bit of things like the bhajis and the prawn toast, and about halfway through the meal Sirius came around to sit next to him.

"Are you okay, Harry?" he asked. "You don't seem to be eating enough. Did I get the wrong thing?"

"No, it's really tasty," Harry assured him, worried that he'd given Sirius the wrong impression. "But I can eat the aluminium foil as well, so I can have any of the boxes that everybody else has already had most of the stuff out of."

Sirius snorted. "We used to joke about Craddock being the House dustbin – that's someone who was a year below us," he clarified. "Fantastic Beater, massive appetite, he kept asking to finish anything someone had put on their plate but hadn't finished. But it sounds like you could eat the plates as well."

"Maybe," Harry replied, thinking about it. "Gold seems like an expensive taste to have, though."

Sirius chuckled.

"I wanted to check, Harry," he went on. "Your friends are going home after dinner, but you're staying for a few days?"

Harry nodded.

"Good," Sirius said, sounding relieved. "I'm… still not very good at this uncle thing."

He snorted slightly. "I was all set to help you learn to walk or give you your first broom flight… not really something you need help with now."

"I actually took a really long time to get to where I could ride a broom properly," Harry confided, spreading his wings a little to indicate them. "I can fly with the wings, I learned that when I was six, but flying with wings and a broom was… a bit harder. Madam Hooch started me off on two brooms."

"Rolanda Hooch is still the flying instructor?" Sirius asked, before snagging a spring roll. "She taught us."

"I think Hogwarts teachers do that," Harry guessed. "Wizards live a long time, and there aren't all that many people who are good enough at a subject to teach it."

"This is really good," Ron said, loudly enough to get Harry's attention. "Hogwarts food is good, too, but this is a different kind of thing. Why can't they do this stuff?"

"Maybe they will if we ask," Fred mused. "I don't imagine house-elves at Hogwarts have much experience with Muggle takeout."

"Well, it's hard to blame them, Fred," George said. "We don't have much experience with Muggle takeout, and we're men of the world."

"Boys," Hermione sighed.

"Boys of the world," George corrected himself.

"The only question is..." Fred began, then trailed off.

George gave him a look.

"Well?" he asked. "I don't know where you were going with that. I can think of at least three questions, and one of them is about how they'd decide how hot to make it."

"I was going to ask how we get them some takeout to experience," Fred said. "Any ideas, anyone?"

"Why can't you just get them some cookbooks?" Ginny asked. "That seems obvious enough to me."

"By Jove, I think she's got it!" George gasped.

"Who's Jove?" Fred replied. "And why do you want to buy him?"

Finally, the time came for everyone to head home. Hermione left out the front door, which prompted another round of shouting from the portrait of Sirius' mother, and the Weasleys filed one by one through the Floo to get back to Hogwarts.

Neville left by the Floo as well, saying goodbye to Harry, and then he and the two Marauders were alone in Grimmauld Place.

"How do you think that went?" Sirius asked, looking hopeful.

"I think it was great," Harry replied, tail flicking a little and occasionally thumping against the floor.

"That's good," Sirius said, relaxing a bit. "That's… yeah, I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I've never done anything like that before, except a couple of boozy meetings after we graduated from Hogwarts."

"That was before I caught Responsibility," Remus contributed, and Sirius laughed.

When he'd mostly stopped – though he did still giggle a bit – he rubbed his hands together. "Okay, Harry! So what do you want to do for the rest of the evening? We've got some sleeping bags, and the sofa's not bad… Remus and I have been doing it, but if you'd rather not we could head back to Remus' place… though that would be pretty crowded as well."

"You could stay with me," Harry suggested, going over to get his tent. "I thought I mentioned that in one of the letters?"

"You probably did," Sirius agreed readily. "My memory's not the best, Henry."

It was a bit of a stupid joke, but Harry found it so funny he nearly snorted flame.

A few minutes later the tent was up, and Sirius and Remus had a good-natured argument about which room each of them was going to sleep in. Harry checked on Hedwig, making sure she'd had enough to eat and drink, then sat down at the kitchen table to write out a letter to Dean about the topics they'd discussed – everything from Animagus things to how Sirius wanted to meet him – and also mentioned Sirius' mother's portrait and how much trouble they were having with it.

Looking over it again, Harry decided that he'd covered what he had to, and blew on the ink to dry it before folding it up for Hedwig.

"Don't forget," he added. "If he's got relatives around or he's not in, don't fly to him and give it to him. That might look suspicious."

Hedwig cuffed him with her wing, making a prek noise, and Harry chuckled.

"Maybe you could put it though the letterbox?" he suggested. His owl nodded, contriving to roll her eyes, and Harry had the distinct sense he was telling her something she already knew.

Chapter Text

Harry had a good night's sleep.

He sort of wondered sometimes whether he should be having meaningful dreams, they happened a lot in the fantasy books he read, but he couldn't remember having any and that seemed like the sort of thing he'd notice.

Without any meaningful dreams, though, he didn't wake up until about seven in the morning – whereupon he yawned, stretched, and wandered out into the kitchen to get some breakfast.

Picking up a cereal packet from the cupboard, Harry poured himself out about half a bowl of Cheerios along with a plastic water squirter. The water squirter he frowned at, but then decided it would just mean some more plastic in his diet and that was probably good or something.

"Morning, Harry," Sirius said, some minutes later. "Have you got any tea?"

"I got some to try," Harry replied, scooping up the last bits of plastic and cereal with his spoon. "There's some peppermint tea?"

"Not really my taste," Sirius decided. "Still, it's your kitchen."

He sat down at the table, and groaned. "I'm not awake enough yet."

"Bad night's sleep?" Harry asked.

"Just tired from dealing with so many kids yesterday," Sirius mumbled into his hands. "I think I just realized I'm not twenty any more."

"You're not that old, Padfoot," Remus called from the bedroom he was using.

"That's what I told myself," Sirius replied. "But I'm refusing to listen, which is very impolite of me."

Ten minutes later, and after having some toast, Sirius seemed a bit more awake.

"Okay, Harry," he said, gesturing with one of the crusts he'd cut off his toast. "Just so you know, the rest of this house is basically dreadful. A lot of what's here is really dangerous, but you're a dragon so you should be okay if you're careful."

Harry nodded.

"Dumbledore asked me to check on a couple of things for him, because I know some of how it works, and Remus wanted to see how good you are at spellcasting," Sirius went on. "But we've got all Christmas Holiday to handle that stuff and honestly it'll probably take a few hours."

"Finding out how good Harry is will take a few hours," Remus corrected. "Doing anything else will take longer."

"Good point," Sirius nodded. "So, what do you want to do first?"

"Well..." Harry began. "Does this place have a library?"

Remus chuckled.

"Yes, but it's mostly full of books about Dark Magic," Sirius told him. "You know, horrible things like curses and hexes and jinxes and dark rituals… and historical romance novels, my mother really liked those, there's at least fifty of them and they all have the exact same plot."

"Which is worse?" Remus asked his friend.

"Definitely the romance novels," Sirius replied easily.

"Well, I could help you clear out some of the next floor up?" Harry suggested. "Then after lunch we could do one of those things you talked about that Dumbledore mentioned. Or we could go out into London to do something, though it is just after Christmas so I'm not sure how many places will be open."

"I'm starting to think I didn't really think this idea through," Sirius mused. "It sounded so simple before I actually thought about the problems that come from trying to live in this stupid place."

He paused. "Not your tent, Harry. This isn't a stupid place."

Harry had been fairly sure that that was what Sirius had meant, but it was good to get a confirmation.

When Harry led the way out of his tent, there was a ragged-looking house-elf peering at it and poking one of the slack guy ropes. He had nothing on but a loincloth, had some scraggly white hair growing out of his ears, and a deep hunch.

"Stupid Master," the house-elf muttered to himself. "Tents don't go indoors, they go outdoors. Bringing in children… he should have stayed in prison, oh, my poor mistress, if she knew… new master's dirty habitses..."

"Good morning," Harry said.

The house-elf jumped, then stared.

"What is a dragon doing in my mistress' house?" the elf demanded. "Stupid dragon… dragons get used for potions ingredients-"

"Creature!" Sirius bellowed. "What did you just say?"

"Is this something all House-Elves do?" Harry asked, tilting his head. "I've only really met three, but two of them have done death threats."

Saying that seemed to get the attention of both Sirius and the house-elf, who Harry assumed was called Kreacher or Creature or something like that.

"I'm a bit confused about why wizards like to keep them, actually," Harry went on, as he wondered about that. "Though the times when that other elf tried to hurt me really weren't very good, and house-elves do do really good cooking, so maybe it's just that wizards don't mind the attempted assassinations if the cooking is good?"

It certainly sounded like the sort of thing people did in Ankh-Morpork.

"...Kreacher does not know what the dragon is talking about," Kreacher said eventually.

"Oh, are you sort of like Gollum?" Harry asked. "Gollum sometimes talks about himself in the third person, and you look a bit like I imagine Gollum looks."

"What?" Sirius blinked. "Who's Gollum? That doesn't sound like a house elf name."

"Oh, no, Gollum is from some books," Harry explained. "Gollum is all obsessed with something he calls the Precious, which is actually a ring that keeps the Dark Lord alive."

Kreacher stared at Harry, then ran off towards the stairs.

"I've never seen him act like that before," Sirius muttered. "He doesn't like me very much."

"Be fair, Sirius, you don't like him much either," Remus said.

"I'm fairly sure he started it," Sirius replied. "I'm not completely certain about that, though."

He sat down on the nearby sofa, rubbing his temples. "So that other house-elf… that would be that Dobby one, right? You said he was worried about you."

"That's right," Harry agreed. "His master wanted to… do something? Dobby thought it was to do with the Chamber of Secrets, but I don't know if that's true or not."

He tilted his head a little. "I wonder if it was because of how there are other non-human students at Hogwarts now."

"Yeah, probably," Sirius agreed. "Old Slytherin is supposed to have wanted to drive out muggle-born students, so who knows how he'd react to a dragon or a sphinx or whatever."

He lay down and put his feet up on the sofa, paused, then reached over to put his shoes on and did it again. "It's a pity Dobby isn't here, we could probably work out who his master is by asking the right questions. There aren't that many wizards… well, in Britain, especially not ones who are rich enough to have a house elf."

"...there's basically two parts to it," Sirius was explaining, crouching in front of Harry. "Or three if you want to be picky. The first bit is actually noticing someone is performing legilimency on you at all, and it's kind of the equivalent of learning to wiggle your ears."

Harry flicked his ears.

"For humans, I mean," Sirius amended, and demonstrated. "Humans can learn to do it if they work out where the muscle is, but it's one we don't normally use so most people can't do it – but that's the only reason most humans can't do it. Once you know how it feels, it's much easier."

He counted on his fingers. "Which number were we on?"

"One," Remus said.

"One, right," Sirius nodded. "The next bit is making sure someone doesn't actually get anything useful. The book I read said that you could do that either by focusing on nothing, so your mind is clear, or by focusing on something irrelevant."

That sounded interesting to Harry, and he wondered if it was more like using a Palantir or more like psychic powers in The Rowan and Pegasus In Flight. Or maybe like something else entirely.

Before he could try describing how those worked, however, Kreacher came back down the stairs.

"Kreacher?" Sirius asked, turning to look. "Where did you head off to?"

"Kreacher went to get the locket, Master," Kreacher replied, sneering. "Kreacher would not expect Master to understand. Master never understands, no..."

"Why were you gone twenty minutes?" Remus asked.

Kreacher looked down. "Kreacher hid the locket, so no filthy thieves would get it. Kreacher forgot where he hid it."

"A locket?" Harry asked. "Do you mind telling us why you went to get the locket?"

"Of course Kreacher minds!" Kreacher replied sharply. "Kreacher has not hidden the locket for ten years because Kreacher wanted it to be a conversation piece! Stupid dragon!"

"Kreacher," Sirius growled. "Manners."

"Manners?" Kreacher replied. "What are manners? Master doesn't say please. Master doesn't say thank you."

Harry turned to look at Sirius, who seemed a bit uncomfortable.

"In my defence," he began, "Kreacher is the sort of house elf who'd have been happier if Voldie was still-"

"Kreacher is not!" Kreacher snapped, pointing one of his long bony fingers at Sirius. "Kreacher does not like the Dark Lord! But new Master never bothered to ask!"

"You don't like Voldie?" Sirius asked, blinking. "Are you serious?"

"Stupid Master should know master is Sirius," Kreacher muttered. "Kreacher is Kreacher."

Remus snorted. "He's got you there, Padfoot."

"Kreacher does not have Master," Kreacher replied, sounding befuddled. "What does the werewolf mean?"

Harry saw the House-Elf give Harry a sly glance, then look disappointed for some reason.

"The locket?" he prompted.

"Oh, yes," Kreacher said, shooting another glance at Sirius. "Kreacher will tell the story to the polite dragon. Kreacher cannot tell any of the family, Kreacher was ordered not to tell, but Kreacher will tell the dragon."

He clenched the chain of the locket with both hands, so it swung gently back and forth. "It was after new Master ran away, because he was a bad boy."

Kreacher paused, glancing at Sirius, and Sirius nodded – a little reluctantly, perhaps.

"I've got to admit, I was quite a bad boy," he admitted. "I… don't regret running away, but I did some things I do regret."

Harry shifted around a little, spreading one of his wings out to cup it around Sirius, and Kreacher went on. "But Master Regulus was a good boy, and he was eager to help the Dark Lord… who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding, to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns..."

Remus gasped softly.

"What is it, Moony?" Sirius asked.

"Just… I don't think we ever really confirmed that was what Voldemort was going to do," Remus explained. "If we had, it would have brought the whole ICW down on him like a ton of bricks – statute breaches are taken very seriously, especially on that scale."

"Stupid wizards never thought to ask the Dark Lord or his supporters," Kreacher muttered. "He said. He never kept it secret. They all knew."

"You said Regulus wanted to help the Dark Lord," Harry said, trying his best to keep this on topic because it sounded important – to Kreacher, at least.

"He wanted to help, yes," Kreacher agreed. "Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord, he was so proud, so happy… and one day, he came to see Kreacher. Master Regulus always liked Kreacher."

Kreacher didn't even give Sirius a glance at that point, his gaze focused entirely downwards on the swinging locket, and continued. "He said… the Dark Lord required an elf."

Slowly, the whole story came out. Sirius' brother Regulus had volunteered Kreacher to do what Tom Riddle had wanted, and told him to do whatever he was ordered and then to come home. Kreacher was insistent about the bit about going home, and they soon found out why – there was a cave by the sea, and in the cave was a lake, and the lake had a small island with a basin full of potion.

It was hard to listen to, and Harry thought it was hard to listen to for Sirius as well. Tom had made Kreacher drink the potion, which burned his insides and made him desperately thirsty, and then left him to die – surrounded by water, but the water was full of the undead.

Harry hadn't known the undead were a real thing, or at least not the zombie sort of undead called Inferi, and he wondered how they worked – but only in a sort of distant way, as he heard about the second badly-treated house-elf in the space of about a month and it made him feel angry at Tom Riddle even more than before.

Maybe it was because here he was hearing about it from a victim, and one that Tom had left to die – and who had only survived because Kreacher had followed Regulus' order to come home.

Slowly, haltingly, Kreacher finished the tale. Regulus had gone with Kreacher back to the cave, with a copy of the locket, and had drunk the potion himself – ordering Kreacher to switch the lockets, and then to leave without him and destroy the locket.

And he hadn't been able to make so much as a mark on it.

When the old House-Elf had finally finished, Sirius was quiet for a long time.

"So," he said, eventually. "Was that a more Gryffindor thing, or a more Slytherin thing?"

"Really, Sirius?" Remus groaned. "That's what you took away from that?"

"It's a legitimate question," Sirius protested. "I want to know exactly what kind of mental shift I should be going through about my unexpectedly amazing little brother."

Harry snorted.

"If that's something that's so hard to destroy, it's a lot like the One Ring," he added. "In the book, it took throwing it into a volcano, though I think Gandalf says that dragon fire might work if the dragon fire was hot enough."

"I think we should see what Dumbledore thinks," Remus suggested. "I imagine that's the sort of thing he'd know most about. Would that be all right, Kreacher?"

Kreacher looked at Remus suspiciously. "The werewolf will try to destroy it?" he asked.

"If Tom Riddle wanted it in one piece, we'll do our best to destroy it," Harry promised.

Kreacher blinked his big eyes. "Who is Tom Riddle?"

"You know him as the Dark Lord," Harry explained. "That's his real name. I think Professor Dumbledore said he was a half blood who didn't like that he wasn't a pure blood."

The elf's jaw dropped.

"The Dark Lord was a halfblood?" he demanded.

"That's what Dumbledore said," Harry confirmed.

Kreacher seemed torn, then crossed his arms. "Kreacher never liked him anyway."

The movement made the locket jingle, and after a moment Kreacher handed it over to Harry.

"Polite dragon must destroy it," he insisted. "He must!"

"If it can be destroyed, we'll do it," Harry replied firmly.

Sirius and Remus both agreed with Harry that the best thing to do was to ask Professor Dumbledore about it, and Harry suggested that Remus send a Patronus off to Dumbledore straight away. Remus demurred, saying that they weren't sure if Dumbledore would be alone and whether this should be kept secret, so they decided to send Hedwig instead as soon as she got back from Dean's house.

Harry thought about putting the locket around his neck, so he didn't lose it, but that sounded too much like what Frodo had done and that had made him gradually get controlled by the One Ring. So instead he put the locket in a box, and put that in his tent, and then asked Sirius what they should do while they waited.

Sirius didn't know everything about Occlumency, just what he'd read in a book, and he couldn't do Legilimency so they couldn't have Harry build up the ability to recognize when someone was trying to do Legilimency on him. Harry did wonder if he should learn Legilimency, but that sounded rude and more like the sort of thing an unpleasant dragon would do than the sort of thing a polite dragon would do. Instead, Remus suggested that they should try something to make Harry better at duelling.

That sounded interesting, but no sooner had Remus mentioned the idea when there was a knock at the window. Harry went over to open it, letting Hedwig in, and the snowy owl flew once around the room before landing on the back of a convenient chair.

"Thanks, girl," Harry smiled, taking Dean's reply. "I'm afraid you're going to be heading off up to Hogwarts in a bit."

Hedwig shook a few flakes of sleet from her feathers, and barked testily.

"Not until you've had brunch, of course," Harry amended, checking the time. "It's a bit early for lunch, but if you want to wait a couple of hours we can sort that out."

"I'm not sure we've got anything good for an owl in the fridge," Sirius said.

"Sirius, that fridge had two Boggarts in it," Remus noted. "It took us an hour to clear out the food after that, a lot of it was surprisingly resistant to just being Vanished."

"Yeah, and now there's nothing in there except some Butterbeer," Sirius agreed.

"I'll get some bacon from my fridge," Harry decided.

A few minutes later, Harry had crisped a rasher for Hedwig with his breath – which was much more convenient than getting out the frying pan – and opened Dean's letter.

He sounded interested in the Animagus stuff as well, and asked if it was something that you were allowed to do over summer. That was something Harry didn't know, and he asked it out loud.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure just doing the transformation isn't punished outside school time," Sirius said, looking into the air as he thought. "I remember doing it a couple of times here…"

Dean also said thanks for the shirt, and how he'd been able to show it to his family by having his dad try it on. That was something Harry was glad to see – he knew that Dean's family found magic very interesting, and they didn't get to see much – and it gave him a nice happy feeling which he needed quite a lot after the sad story about Regulus Black.

Then Harry got to the last bit of the letter, and had to smile.

"Dean's got about five different suggestions for what to do with your mother's portrait," he told Sirius, and counted them off one by one. "He says we could put something heavy in front of her, like a cupboard… or remove the wall her portrait is stuck to and put that bit of wall somewhere else… or hang all the coats in front of her… or vanish the wall the portrait is attached to… or cut the portrait out of the frame and reframe it somewhere else. And he says that he's guessing you don't want to just set fire to it."

"If he'd said that yesterday, I'd have been tempted," Sirius admitted. "But… well, Kreacher likes her. I'm wondering if I should do one of those and just move the portrait down to where Kreacher lives."

He shrugged. "Maybe I'll ask Kreacher what he'd like. I think the main thing is just to make it so she doesn't shout at anyone using the front door… or making a noise."

Harry began to write the letter to Dumbledore, deciding to keep it short and just say that something important related to Tom Riddle had happened and could the Professor let them know when he was available?

"Or in general," Sirius added. "Moony, do you think maybe I'm being too touchy about this?"

"You're asking a man who's lived in a flat," Remus replied. "I've had plenty of fantasies about consigning noisy neighbours to the basement."

"Good point," Sirius admitted. "But you do have that soundproofed room."

"That soundproofed room is covered in wolf fur and you know it," Remus pointed out. "I'm lucky I'm not allergic."

"Can a werewolf be allergic to wolf fur?" Harry asked, checking over what he'd written. "That sounds like it would either make things much worse, or it would just mean the wolf side spent the whole night sneezing."

He showed the letter to Remus and Sirius. "How does this look?"

"Looks pretty good," Remus told him. "I'd say that should cover it."

With Hedwig winging her way north with the letter, Remus got on to the thing he'd mentioned before about duelling.

"As I see it, there are two problems that would prevent you from being naturally very likely to win a duel," he explained. "Because, you know, dragon."

Harry nodded.

"Firstly, there's the thing that's a disadvantage," the Marauder went on. "That's that you're a quadruped – so it's harder for you to hold your wand in one… paw?"

"Paw's good," Harry agreed.

"In one paw," Remus resumed, "and still move around in a duel – or, if you have to have one, in a fight."

"In a fight, couldn't he just set someone on fire?" Sirius asked. "Or fly off or something?"

"Flame freezing charms exist, and so do buildings," Remus countered. "And sometimes, people with flame freezing charms in buildings."

"Point," Sirius conceded.

"What's the other problem?" Harry asked.

"Well, it's more of an advantage," Remus told him. "Sort of. Your hide can deflect spells, but unfortunately your eyes can't and everyone knows it – they're the traditional weak point on dragons."

Harry asked about whether the Voonerables were another traditional weak point on dragons, then had to explain how that idea turned up in Guards, Guards, and that was followed by explaining Smaug's waistcoat of jewellery in The Hobbit.

Sirius liked the idea of Harry wearing something to cover his vulnerable eyes, and after a few minutes of discussion they all realized that, actually, glasses probably qualified so that was all right then. And Remus pointed out that Harry could always use a wing as a kind of face shield.

"What about the thing with my having four legs?" Harry said, then. "June and Tanisis are apparently getting on okay. And I don't think I could carry my wand in my mouth, I might bite through it."

"No, I wasn't thinking about it being in your mouth," Remus corrected. "We'll need to practice with it, preferably when one of us visits Hogwarts during term, but I was actually thinking about you having your wand on your tail."

Harry saw where Remus was going straight away. "So, sort of like a Manticore's sting, except I'm casting spells from it instead?"

"Exactly," Remus smiled. "It'll probably be difficult, but it's an alternative to wandless casting."

"I can cast some spells out of my mouth," Harry reminded him. "Just not many of them. I think having a freezing spell would be good."

"Dragons breathing ice?" Sirius asked. "Preposterous!"

There was a sharp pop as Kreacher appeared next to them, holding a notebook in one hand.

"What would polite dragon like for lunch?" he asked, a quill ready to take down the answer.

Harry was a little surprised, and thought about the question. "Um… I'm not sure what you have here?"

"Kreacher is not sure either," Kreacher said. "When Kreacher checked the pantry it tried to eat him. Kreacher is going shopping before making lunch."

Kreacher's first attempt at pasta wasn't very good, but it was the thought that counted. Harry suggested that maybe he should teach Kreacher to make some of the dishes he'd done at Privet Drive, and Kreacher seemed to find the idea a bit strange.

Maybe it was because there weren't any cooking classes at Hogwarts, so most wizards didn't know how to cook, or if they did it was because they didn't have house-elves in the first place.

After that, the afternoon was mostly taken up by a combination of trying to successfully attach a wand to Harry's tail (Spellotape worked if they used enough of it, but it was difficult to do in a hurry, while sticking charms didn't do what they were supposed to) and, after that was written off as impractical for now, clearing out part of one of the upstairs rooms.

There was a big tapestry which had the entire Black family on it, or it had before most of them got blasted at with wands. Apparently anyone who had offended Sirius' mother got their picture blasted off the tapestry, though Regulus had escaped because he'd been sneaky enough that nobody had actually known what he'd done except for Kreacher.

Harry was a bit surprised to see 'Charlus Potter' on there, as apparently he'd married Dorea Black, but Sirius said it was a different branch of the Potter family. Seeing Lucius Malfoy was a bit of a surprise as well, but that made Harry frown as he started checking the names.

"Is everyone named after stars?" he asked. "A lot of people are, but I can see some that aren't."

"Most of the people born into the family are," Sirius agreed. "And before you ask, no, I don't know what was up with Cousin Narcissa."

He looked over at Remus. "There isn't a galaxy called Narcissa, is there?"

"Don't think so," Remus replied, waving his wand to vanish an unpleasant stain.

Then a nest of Doxys came flying out of a chest of drawers, and that sort of occupied them for the next hour or so.

Dinner was a roast, something Kreacher said he definitely knew how to make, and Harry had to agree – it was nice and tasty, and after looking torn for a bit Sirius complimented Kreacher on his work as well.

It had been so much trouble to mostly-clear that one room that they didn't really feel like doing any more of the house, and so Harry dug into his collection of books to find ones that Sirius and Remus were likely to be interested in. Sirius seemed like the sort of person to enjoy a story about heroes and villains, so he got Pawn of Prophecy, while Harry gave Remus Equal Rites because it seemed more like Remus would enjoy a bit of a laugh.

Harry himself was reading a book called Mutineer's Moon, which started with the idea that the moon was actually secretly a giant disguised spaceship. It was odd, but nice, and Harry wondered where it was going to take the ideas in it.

He also wondered when The Last Command was going to come out, the third of the books about Admiral Thrawn, because that was probably going to be a lot of fun to read as well.

Then there was a flash of white light, and a beautiful pearly-white phoenix appeared in front of the three of them

"I just got your letter, Harry," the phoenix said, with Professor Dumbledore's voice. "If it is urgent, then the Floo to my office will be open for the next half an hour; if not, then I think it would be best if you came tomorrow after breakfast. There are of course things more urgent than breakfast, but I leave it up to you to decide."

The phoenix dissolved.

"What do you think?" Remus asked.

"I think it'd be better if we did it as soon as possible," Harry said. "We did promise Kreacher, and it'd be good to know what Professor Dumbledore says."

Nobody seemed to disagree with that, and Harry picked up the locket before following the two grown-ups through the Floo.

When they arrived, Professor Dumbledore was inspecting a collection of dressing gowns held up as if supported by invisible pegs.

"Ah, so good to see you," he said. "Tell me, which of these do you think would go well for our discussion?"

Harry looked from the alchemical-symbol dressing gown he'd seen before, to one which had dozens of threads of brass woven through it, and then to a brilliant blue one which seemed to glow faintly.

"I think any would do, Sir," he answered, and Dumbledore selected one from the rack before shrugging it on over his pyjamas and tying the cord in a bow.

"It's always best to be comfortable when you discuss something important, I find," he explained, before waving his hand to send the dressing gowns away and sitting down in one of the armchairs. "How has your Christmas been, Harry? I must apologize for the socks, it quite escaped me that you might have trouble wearing them."

"That's okay, Sir," Harry replied. "And… well, I met Sirius' house-elf today, and he told us about something that happened with Tom Riddle."

"I sort of wondered what happened to Regulus," Sirius added. "I knew he vanished, but… I wondered whether he'd fought against us. Especially against James."

"Ah, Regulus," Dumbledore agreed. "I remember him well. And no, I do not believe I know what happened to him either."

"We don't know all the details," Harry began, and then laid out what Kreacher had told them – about the locket, and how Regulus had decided to replace it with a fake, and died with an instruction to Kreacher to destroy it.

When he finished, Dumbledore closed his eyes and put a finger to his chin.

He sat there for several minutes, until Sirius coughed uncertainly.

"Is he asleep?"

"No, no, I am quite awake," Dumbledore told him. "I am just thinking about the implications of this. Do you have the locket?"

Harry took it from his pocket, and Dumbledore waved his wand once and tapped the locket. There was a little flicker of red light.

"I see," he said. "It is as I feared."

He looked up from the small object. "Unfortunately, Harry, I must explain something quite difficult to you. You see, I fear you will have to be involved in fulfilling the request made by Regulus Black, and it is something you cannot do yet."

"I'm not sure I understand, Professor," Harry admitted.

"No, but that is a temporary problem," Dumbledore replied. "Easily fixed, though I must ask that you not share it around much – you see, Tom does not know some of this, and he does not know that we know any of it."

He chuckled. "The problem is a Riddle that it took me quite some time to puzzle out."

Dumbledore reached into a pocket, and produced the diary Harry had given him some months ago. "Doubtless you remember this, Harry, but – Sirius, this is something that Harry found in his collection of books before coming to Hogwarts. Neither of us is at all sure how he got hold of it, but it is the school diary of one Tom Marvolo Riddle."

Sirius whistled, then snorted. "What kind of stuff is in there? I know it could be full of really evil stuff, but maybe he had a crush on a Muggleborn from Gryffindor and that's what got the whole thing started?"

"I had a look, and it was empty," Harry replied. "But that didn't seem right – I thought it might be hidden by magic."

"Alas, it is not the diary of a normal school child," Dumbledore replied. "Harry is quite correct. This diary is not simply a diary, but is a black magic object in its own right – and a foul one indeed. It is of a type that can only be created by a dark ritual, which includes the murder of a helpless individual as part of the process."

He looked down at the diary sadly. "I always thought that Tom was a troubled child, but I had hoped that the stable environment of Hogwarts would allow him to put that aside… alas, it has turned out that he was doing terrible things while still in school."

"What kind of dark object is it, Professor?" Harry asked. "Is the locket another one?"

"Well reasoned, Harry, well reasoned indeed," Dumbledore said, with a quick smile. "Both of these objects are examples of what is known as a horcrux. The Horcrux is a kind of home for a part of the soul, that prevents the owner from truly dying so long as the Horcrux exists."

"I understand, Sir," Harry said, thinking about Isildur's Bane. "So does that mean we're going to Mount Etna?"

Dumbledore blinked. "Pardon, Harry?"

"Oh, um, in The Lord Of The Rings there's an object called the One Ring which holds a lot of the power of the villain, Sauron," Harry explained. "He can't die until it's destroyed, but once it's thrown in the volcano Mount Doom he's destroyed. The problem is that the ring is so evil that nobody wants to do it."

"Well, that is interesting," Dumbledore said, thinking. "Though I fear we cannot throw these Horcruxes into a volcano, if only because it would be very hard to get them out again if we turned out to be wrong."

"That is a good point," Harry admitted. "So how will we destroy them, Professor?"

"That may be up to you to do, Harry," Dumbledore replied. "You see, there was a prophecy made shortly before you were born."

"Oh, a prophecy too?" Harry asked, quite glad to be on familiar ground. "They've got all sorts of treatments in the books I've read. One series has a prophecy which speaks to someone."

"This one is a little less loquacious," the Professor said.

"Professor, I don't think Harry understands that word," Sirius interjected. "I know I don't..."

"I've heard the word," Harry said, thinking. "I think it was in an Asterix book, though, and they didn't explain it."

"It means to be talkative, my boy," Dumbledore explained, and went on to tell them the text of the prophecy.

It was a bit vague, really, a lot more vague than the Darine Codex from the Belgarion books or even Boromir's dream about seeking the sword that was broken. But since Harry had been born at the end of July, and he had a lightning-bolt mark given by Voldemort, it seemed clear enough that it did relate to Harry.

"And you think this means I'm the only one who can stop him?" Harry asked.

"Well, you see..." Dumbledore paused, smiling. "I don't think prophecies are all that likely to be true."

He winked. "In fact, I don't believe a word of this one, except perhaps the word 'seventh'. But, as you have no doubt experienced, sometimes you don't have to believe in something for it to work anyway."

Harry nodded, sort of following that.

"So let us recap," Dumbledore went on. "Each of these Horcruxes is a piece of Tom, and we must destroy them if we are to be free of him… but it may be that they all count as a piece of him, and if so you must be the one to destroy each one."

"How is Harry supposed to do that?" Sirius asked. "Eat them?"

"Alas, I fear not," Dumbledore said. "I remain unsure exactly what might destroy a Horcrux, and I believe the only things that could destroy a Horcrux are very powerful magic… for example, I have my hopes for the spell Fiendfyre."

"So I need to learn that spell?" Harry asked.

"It would be most helpful," Dumbledore agreed. "Though it is a tremendously powerful and quite dangerous spell, and I would advise you learn some merely very difficult spells first."

He frowned. "Though it does trouble me as to how many of these terrible things Tom actually created. I have never heard of anyone creating more than one, and here we have two."

Dumbledore was silent again after that, then smiled. "Oh, yes, and I was wondering if you have managed to practice Occlumency?"

"Sirius explained how it works," Harry said. "But he's not able to do the mind-reading thing yet so I can't really practice it."

"Well, I have not practiced Legilimency for some years," Dumbledore confided. "I'm already quite good at it, so I see no need to practice. With your permission, Harry, I'd like to give it a go?"

Harry nodded, trying to blank his mind, and Dumbledore peered into his eyes.

"Legilimens," the Headmaster incanted.

There was a sort of itchy feeling, and Harry blinked reflexively. The itchy feeling promptly went away.

"Well, now, that was quite the interesting experience," Dumbledore said. "I saw a most strange image of a young man with a very large sword, and then I was ejected in less than a second. I must commend your excellent skill."

"I just blinked," Harry admitted.

"And a fine blink it was, my boy," Dumbledore replied with a smile. "If you do that when you are under Legilimency, you shall have nothing to worry about."

Chapter Text

Harry had a lot to think about for the rest of the holiday. On top of the question about Dobby, and how to help him – if that was possible – there was now this whole other thing about how Tom Riddle had done awful things to his soul to make it so he couldn't be killed.

On the other paw, on that matter Harry was sort of in the position Frodo was in during the several years after Bilbo had left but before the Nazgul came. Which was a fairly comfortable position to be in, all things considered.

He told Kreacher some of what they'd discussed – about how he couldn't yet destroy the locket but he was going to learn until he had exactly that skill – and Kreacher gave him an uncharacteristic hug that surprised both of them before backing away and going back to cleaning.

Over the next few days, the impact on the house was quite a sight to see, with rooms shedding their clutter and beginning to look more like you could actually live in the house itself. It was still the middle of a damp, slushy London winter, but it lifted Harry's mood and it seemed like Sirius was under a bit less stress as well.

As for the other project they had, Remus tried transfiguring some of the material lying around into a wand-holder that could be strapped to Harry's tail. It took a few tries before they had something that would stay securely attached to the tapered tail – unlike some dragons from books Harry didn't have a spade, which would have made the whole thing much easier – but by the twenty-eighth of December it seemed like they had something that would work.

"All right, Harry, let's give it a go," Remus decided, stepping back. "You don't have to cast any spells – that's something to do back at Hogwarts – but see if you can get the wand pointing where you want it."

He waved his own wand, and a dozen little coloured motes of light appeared in the air.

"Point at one, and I'll tell you which one you've got it pointed at," the Marauder instructed.

It turned out to be a lot harder than Harry was expecting. He could point his tail in roughly the right direction, but then Remus would tell him that he was actually pointing it at the green one instead of the yellow one he was aiming for – or none at all – or now he was aiming at the yellow one, but he'd been aiming for the blue one instead.

Half way through that an argument started between Sirius and Kreacher, but it sounded like this one was just about whether to put new wallpaper up, so it probably wasn't so serious.

By the beginning of January, Harry was sort of feeling like he was getting the hang of it. It'd be something to practice back at Hogwarts, certainly, and with only a couple of days to go until the start of term he packed everything up (including several new books, some of them duplicated by Remus from library books, so he had a reserve of books he hadn't read yet) and said his goodbyes before going back to Hogwarts via the Floo.

It was much more snowy this far north, and when Harry flew over the castle after putting his things away a little smile forced itself out onto his muzzle.

Hogwarts really was a beautiful place, especially blanketed in snow. The Black Lake was a smooth expanse of ice with deep black-looking water under it, marred only by patches of snow that hadn't blown off and a melted-looking hole at the corner nearest Hagrid's hut, and the lawns were criss-crossed by trodden-down patches where people had gone out to the broom sheds or just to have a snowball fight.

That line of thought led Harry to notice that one was going on right now, and that the Weasleys appeared to be gamely holding their ground against what looked like half of the lower four years of Slytherin.

Turning back towards Hogwarts, Harry alighted on the snow-covered castle roof and considered what he should do about the snowball fight.

The obvious thing to do would be to join in, and that did sound like a good idea, but… how exactly to join in?

Twenty minutes later, Harry had decided that sneaking up on the Slytherin team and hurling big lumps of snow at them with his wings, while entertaining, led to getting hit by too many snowballs himself.

Clearly the better option would have been to just join Ron and the others. But it was easy to work that sort of thing out after you'd already tried.

A few days later, when term started again, Harry reshuffled his unofficial timetable as best he could to try and fit in everything he wanted to.

It was kind of surprising how much time was still available to be moved around, with how he'd felt last term, and Harry wondered if that was just how it was – you could always find more time, and find more time, until instead you were stressed out – but he was able to arrange with Hagrid to really start teaching the big man some words of Dragonish. (Or Dragonese, or Dragonnish, or whatever the word you wanted to use was.)

On Saturday afternoon, every week, Harry began flying down to Hagrid's hut. The two of them would sit in a porch that Hagrid had built out of wood and canvas, with Harry turning his attention between Nora and Hagrid to make sure that he could keep demonstrating Dragonish to Hagrid (and to Hermione, who quickly started joining in the impromptu sessions).

Harry found the whole thing quite relaxing, really, and after the first week's session Hagrid offered to spend the time teaching Harry to knit as well. It transpired that Harry's talons could work quite well as knitting needles, though it was obvious by the end of the first hour that it would take a lot of work for Harry to produce anything other than 'misshapen lump'.

The contrast with Oliver Wood's enthusiastic Quidditch practices couldn't be greater, especially with how Oliver was sure that the Nimbus 2001 brooms about half his team was flying on would give them a massive advantage against Hufflepuff towards the end of the term.

Harry did enjoy them both, but he thought he'd enjoy the Quidditch a bit less without this to balance it with.

"Hmm..." Harry said, checking the textbook and then looking back at his homework essay. "Do you think it's fair to say that the Black Death had a bigger impact on Wizard-Muggle relations than the other plagues?"

"I dunno," Ron replied, frowning as well. "We don't know all that much about that other one from the six-sixties, do we? So maybe that one was just as bad."

"I'll say it had a significant impact," Harry decided, writing that down. "Such as… people asking their local magic users for cures…. Or thinking that the witches and wizards had caused it…"

"Don't forget that a lot of them were hiding even before the Statute of Secrecy," Hermione said. "And that the Black Death hit all over Europe, so some people could tell it wasn't an attack on them or even on England and Scotland."

"Good point," Harry agreed. "Wasn't there some plant that the local people thought was a cure, only it wasn't?"

Neville nodded. "They thought it repelled the miasma… hold on..."

As he started to look it up, Fred came over and sat down next to them.

"Oi, we're working here," Ron complained. "Shove off."

"I'm worried about Percy," Fred explained, as George came to stand next to them – Harry assumed that was because of the lack of free seats.

"He's worried about Percy," George agreed. "So, as you can tell, we're both worried about Percy."

"But, hold on..." Dean said. "Hold on. So you're worried, and you said he's worried."

"Exactly," Fred nodded. "Both of us. I'm Fred, and I say I'm worried."

"And I'm Fred," George went on. "And I say George here is worried. Since that means both Fred and George are worried..."

"Okay, what's this about?" Hermione asked.

"Percy's not his usual self," Fred explained.

"I asked him whether he thought a woollen sheep soaked in food dye would be an appropriate pranking tool, and he just grunted," George clarified.

"Why did you ask him that in the first place?" Ron said. "He's a prefect?"

"I like to include all our family members in planning," Fred said.

Harry looked between the twins, confused for a moment, then decided it was a Fred And George Thing.

"Is it possible he's being a teenager?" Neville said. "I've heard that that sort of thing happens when you're a teenager."

"Hey!" Hermione protested. "I'm one of those now."

"That's okay, girls are different," Dean nodded. "Or that's what my mum keeps saying. I've got sisters, so she'd know."

"No, I don't think it's that he's a teenager..." Fred mused. "I'm pretty sure Percy was born middle aged."

Harry was still wondering vaguely about whether Percy was ill or something during the next Defence class, which still wasn't really what he'd expected Second Year Defence to be like.

"Of course, fighting dark creatures is important," Professor Lockhart said, with a winning smile. "But just as important is making sure people know dark creatures can be beaten! And the best way to do that is for them to know that Gilderoy Lockhart – your beloved professor – is there to help."

He clapped his hands. "So! Today, I want you all to design special greetings cards including a scene from one of my many adventures, and write up why you chose what you did. I'll be taking them in at the end of the lesson, and next time – next time – you'll be provided with the materials to make those very same cards."

Dean grumbled something, and he wasn't the only one who seemed unimpressed. Harry had to admit that, while he could see the point of something inspirational, this seemed more like the sort of thing he'd done in primary school with glue and magazine cutouts.

Besides, he wanted to practice spellcasting with his tail, and doing it in Charms was better than nothing but it was still done at a desk. If there was any subject where you'd be moving around, Harry thought it would be Defence.

Still, Professor Lockhart presumably had some kind of general lesson plan for everyone.

After thinking about it a bit, Harry decided that the one that really interested him was the one about werewolves. The full moon had been only a couple of days ago, and he wondered if Remus had stayed at Grimmauld Place or gone back to his flat with the soundproofed room.

Maybe having Sirius around helped? Harry sort of remembered that that was why they'd learned in the first place.

By the end of the lesson, Harry had a sort-of-diagram drawn for what he wanted along with a few hundred words about why the card design would be good for making people more comfortable with werewolves. Dean had done better, actually sketching out a punch-up with a Yeti and making the greeting 'you're a knock-out!', but then he was the one who liked doing art.

It seemed like he'd enjoyed the lesson that way, at least. Though the Yeti was the one knocking out Lockhart in the sketch.

When everyone else set off for their free period, Harry stayed behind for a bit, and Professor Lockhart smiled.

"Ah, Harry!" he said. "Good Christmas? I notice you didn't get me that World Peace I said would be my ideal gift!"

He winked.

"I thought you said that was an ideal birthday present, Sir," Harry replied, understanding it was a joke but getting a bit distracted.

"Well spotted, nothing gets past you," Lockhart chuckled. "Looking for advice, Harry?"

"I was wondering when I'd get a chance to learn the Patronus charm," Harry explained. "I was hoping we'd start doing practical work this term."

"Well, it is practical work, isn't it?" Lockhart asked. "But I know what you mean, Harry, though… these spells… a lot of them are quite dangerous! Especially the Patronus charm, that's a very risky one. Very risky spell."

"That's why I want to learn it with someone helping," Harry replied, quite reasonably as far as he was concerned. "It's safer than learning it by myself."

"Of course, of course," Lockhart agreed, considering. "Hmm… what about if I walk you through a different spell instead, Harry? One that's a bit more appropriate for you?"

That sounded like a good idea, so Harry nodded. "If you think so, Professor. I'm just kind of worried about how many spells we're learning in Charms and Transfiguration but not Defence."

Professor Lockhart took out his wand and flourished it, spinning it around his fingers, then nearly dropped it. "Ahem! Yes, well… this is quite a tricky charm, so do pay attention. You move your wand like so."

Harry watched closely as the Professor moved his wand in a quick up-and-down motion before incanting 'Homorphus!'

Nothing happened, obviously, because there wasn't a werewolf, but Harry did like the idea a lot. He got his own wand ready, and watched as Lockhart did the wand movement again.

"So you do that wand movement and end it pressed against the throat of the werewolf?" Harry asked, to be clear on it.

"Well remembered, Harry!" Lockhart agreed, making Harry smile. "And then the incantation is Homorphus!"

"Homorphus," Harry repeated, and it certainly sounded right. Professor Lockhart had him say it a few more times, then said he'd done very well indeed and gave Gryffindor a point.

It was a pity it would take so long for Harry to have a chance to actually try the spell out, though, and Lockhart reminded him that it was best not to rely on it at all because a mistake would leave a dangerous werewolf right there.

Two days later, at dinner, Harry was muzzle-deep in Domes of Fire – and trying not to giggle at the description of the nacre-sheathed city that had to be resheathed every time there was a storm – when Ron whooped.

"Hey, Harry, look!" he said, pointing. Harry lowered his novel, and blinked in surprise at the sight of plates upon plates of pizza.

"I wonder who got the House-Elves all those Muggle cookbooks?" Fred asked, out loud.

"I wonder who had such a good idea," George agreed.

Harry took one of the nearest slices and inspected it. It had a crisp base, quite thin, and he was fairly sure there was bacon on top of it along with the cheese and tomato mixture.

On the plate next to it was one with a much deeper base, and Ron took one of those slices first. He cut a piece of the base, then blinked and looked closer.

"Wait, is this bits of sausage?" he asked. "Can you do that? Have bits of sausage not inside a sausage?"

"I think Muggles came up with that somehow," a Sixth-year Gryffindor said, taking one of the slices for himself. "I've had something like it before, Mum's a Muggle and she got us two of these for my birthday dinner last year."

Looking up and down the table, Harry could see all kinds of mixtures of toppings and crusts and bases – there didn't seem to be anything that wasn't pizza, but he could see one that was made with lamb chunks and apple slices, and another that seemed to have strawberries and black pepper, and it looked like that one had beef and mushrooms… it was hard to see any two that were the same, at first, but then he started to catch sight of them.

"How do you eat these?" one of the fourth-years asked.

"You just take a slice!" Colin Creevey told him, loudly enough that half the hall heard. "Then you can cut it up with a knife and fork, or roll it up, or fold it up – whatever you find easy!"

He demonstrated by taking a slice of one that had chicken, chorizo and lemon on it, folding it up lengthways, and eating the tip. His eyes went a little wide because of the sourness of the lemon, but it seemed like it meant that everyone else got the idea, and soon there was a low buzz of conversation as people began trading around bits of pizza to get a nice combination of flavours.

There was a little one that arrived for Harry with 'zinc zest', which meant they'd gone to the trouble of shaving off bits of metal and sprinkled it over the pizza. That was nice of them, and Harry checked to see whether Tanisis and June were both coping with the unusual food menu before smiling and folding his slices together.

He did notice Percy didn't eat much, though.

That day sort of set a pattern.

Harry assumed that it was the Twins who'd given the House-Elves all those ideas, and it was nice of them but it sort of seemed like they got really enthusiastic about a new kind of making food and just did loads and loads of it all at once. There was one day when everything was curry (from the very mild, through normal, to a bright green one where Neville looked like he was about to be the one breathing fire), another day when they made about a hundred different combinations of paella, and then there was the time there was nothing but muffins.

That didn't mean that lessons stopped, though, and now they were into the second term of second year they were starting to expand on the concepts from first year as well as learning new spells.

"Remember," Professor McGonagall said, putting some boxes with snails in them down on the tables – one per student. "When you are casting a set of spells in a chain, you must make sure that each of the intervening steps is properly cast. If you use a spell intended to turn a duck into a pillow, but you are casting it on something that is still partly a shoe, then you will not find yourself with any of a shoe, a duck or a pillow and you will have to reverse the transfiguration all the way back to the beginning!"

Harry made a note about that, then had an idea.

The first half of the spell chain they were going to be doing today was turning a snail into a teapot, and then they were turning that teapot into a tortoise. Both of those were first-year spells, so maybe it was a good time to try out casting a spell with his tail?

He rummaged in his bag for the thing Remus had made, and flexed his tail around to where he could reach it. It took a couple of minutes to put the wand holder on his tail and get it strapped in place, then he put his wand in place.

"What are you doing?" Su Li asked.

"I want to see if I can cast with my wand on my tail," Harry replied, tightening the strap which held his wand in the holder.

"But you don't even have it touching you like that," the Ravenclaw frowned. "Wouldn't that make it work less well?"

"Well, in Herbology we always have those gloves," Neville pointed out, from Harry's other side. "Those are magic resistant, and they still let you cast spells."

"Oh, good point," Su agreed. "Still, why do it?"

Harry moved his tail down so his wand was just about to touch the snail, then waved it three times and muttered the incantation. There was a little flash of light from his wand, and the snail changed shape most of the way into a teapot – though the spout wiggled a bit, and there was a definite sliminess about it.

"I want to be able to cast spells while I'm walking on all fours," Harry explained. "Reparifarge."

The reversal spell worked better, maybe because he'd done it more recently, and he was left with a slightly bemused snail.

Su turned to her own snail, and transfigured it into a teapot with a swirled pattern like the shell of the snail.

"Not a bad start, Miss Li," Professor McGonagall said. "Though you must try your best to ensure that no traits of the snail remain."

"Yes, Professor," Su replied, reversing the transfiguration to try again.

Harry tried again, doing his best to visualize a completely transformed teapot. It worked this time, with the whole teapot being an even black and not the least bit slimy, and he let out a sigh of relief.

It looked like he could cast spells with his wand on his tail, which meant the next thing to try and learn was aiming.

It wasn't really urgent, though, so it could probably wait until the next time there was a fire-fight. (Harry was quite looking forward to it – snow fights were all well and good, but so were fire fights, and they felt a bit more dragony.)

The weather got better as they moved through January, and Harry was quite glad of it. He might not care much about cold (or rain, really), and snow was a positive good, but when doing Quidditch practice it was harder to keep coordinated with everyone if it was difficult just to see them halfway down the pitch.

Fred and George were having a great deal of fun whatever the weather, of course, flying around on their new top-of-the-line brooms and sending the Bludger all over the place – Harry wondered if maybe future brooms would be faster than the Bludger, and whether they had to turn the speed of the Bludger up when brooms got better.

It was the first really sunny Saturday of the year when Ron first tried out his present from Harry, and sent a model rocket four hundred feet into the air. It would have gone higher, but Nora caught it in her muzzle before bringing it back – still sizzling out smoke and flame from the nozzle – and depositing it at his feet so she could go and play Fetch again.

The fact that the rocket immediately shot off straight into the Black Lake – and that Nora plunged in after it, before bringing back the soaking rocket with a kind of gunpowder sludge in it – was probably a sign that Harry needed to teach Hagrid the dragonish for 'leave it alone'.

Or teach Nora the English for it. Either would probably work.

When the first Astronomy lesson of February rolled around, Harry noticed that the timing of the full moon that month was right about midnight on Saturday – just a few minutes before it turned into Sunday.

He sent a letter to Professor Dumbledore asking if he could leave the school that night, and he was going to send a letter to Sirius as well but then he remembered something he'd got from the shop in Diagon Alley months ago. So instead he put one of his pair of mirrors in the letter, with a note explaining what it was, and sent it off with Hedwig.

The next evening the mirror heated up, something Harry only just noticed, and he looked at it to see Sirius was peering into it. Remembering the instructions, he went down to the common room – it was pretty much empty that late at night – before tapping it with his wand to answer.

"You know, I completely forgot that James and I had a set of these?" Sirius asked, sounding distinctly embarrassed. "Next time you see me, we can swap them around and you can have another set for yourself."

"That's okay," Harry assured him. "I don't mind if you keep yours. I just got this set because I saw them in a shop and it sounded like a good idea."

"Oh, they are a good idea," Sirius agreed. "James and I used them to communicate when we were in different detentions-" he coughed. "Anyway. You said you had something you wanted to talk about?"

"That's right," Harry agreed, propping up the mirror. "It's going to be the full moon, soon, and I thought maybe I could help Moony. I've learned that spell that I mentioned."

"It'd be great if you could," Sirius agreed, but he was clearly thinking. "You know, I don't think we ever tried to see if someone could cast spells in animal form..."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Never really had anything worth doing that we couldn't just turn back to human for," Sirius shrugged. "But, well… Moony is a bit hard to handle once he's transformed. When he's around transformed Animagi he's calm enough, but if there's a human around as well he can be pretty violent."

He looked down, and his voice got a bit husky. "I… nearly made a very big mistake, back during our time at school, because of that."

Harry sort of wished he could give Sirius a hug through the mirror.

"It's worth trying," Sirius added. "It really is worth trying. And you're a dragon, so who even knows if you can be infected with being a werewolf at all."

"We do know how to treat werewolf bites," Harry pointed out. "It's in the Defence textbook from last year. Normally the problem is that you don't know that a werewolf is going to bite you, right?"

Sirius chuckled. "I suppose that's true."

"Besides," Harry added. "Couldn't you just get him some Wolfsbane?"

Sirius blinked. "Some what?"

"It's a potion that means that when you transform you just transform," Harry said, trying to remember the book he'd read it in – one of the ones about modern magical inventions. "So you keep your mind, and stuff. I think it's really complex."

"Hold on a moment," Sirius requested, and put the mirror down. Harry faintly heard him bellow 'MOONY!' and less than ten seconds later Remus came running down the stairs with his wand out.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Are we under attack? Is Harry all right?"

"Harry's fine, what about you?" Sirius replied. "What's this I hear about there being a potion that helps werewolves?"

"I'd almost forgotten about that," Remus said, then blinked. "Why is that urgent?"

"I'm as rich as Croesus, you twit!" Sirius retaliated. "I. Can. Buy. You. Wolfsbane."

"But it's not a big problem," Remus countered. "Not really. Is it? My, um, Moony side is going to be calmed down because there'll be a transformed Animagus there. We know that works, and it's less expensive-"

"Harry, tell him what you told me," Sirius interrupted, picking up the mirror again.

"You mean the bit about how Professor Lockhart taught me the spell that can revert a werewolf back to being human?" Harry asked. "I haven't tried it on anyone yet, though."

"Well… right," Remus said, blinking. "Now I have three ways to deal with my little problem and I'm not sure which is best."

"I think Moony and I are going to be having a long talk," Sirius said. "Contact me whenever you want, Harry, I won't mind."

Harry nodded, and the mirror changed so it was just reflecting him.

It was amazing the things you could forget to mention sometimes.

After several back-and-forth messages, Remus and Sirius decided that they would try out the spell next full moon in March – making sure that Remus was dosed up on Wolfsbane potion first, to make it properly safe.

That way, Harry could see if the charm worked, and if it didn't then the worst that would happen was that Remus would be a bit disappointed.

That month, the Quibbler had a new feature.

Hermione seemed to be sort of disappointed whenever she saw that Harry was still getting the Quibbler, but – as he pointed out when she did – it was really cheap by Muggle standards, and it was usually good for a smile.

The new feature, however, even got Hermione interested. There'd always been a puzzle section, but this month it had expanded to fill out four two-page spreads, and it was full of everything from crosswords to wordsearches to complex number games – but the really tricky thing was a puzzle in the middle of the second spread which had nothing but a string of numbers next to it.

It took them both all of breakfast to fully solve just a couple of the puzzles on other pages, and then Hermione noticed that the remaining letters on the wordsearch they'd done spelled out:

The word for this puzzle is Canoe.

Hermione seemed torn between excitement and exasperation as she realized that the entire puzzle section was a giant set of ways to find the clues for the middle puzzle. The wordsearch was puzzle number four, so 'Canoe' was the word represented by the number four on the numbers-only puzzle.

It sort of made Harry's head hurt a bit, but in a different way to the way Quibbler articles normally did. So that was probably an improvement.

Chapter Text

On Wednesday the tenth, a few days after the full moon (which had been tiring for Remus but not apparently as bad as they had been in previous years), Percy asked for Harry, Neville and Ron to come with him for a talk.

They picked up Dean, Hermione and Ginny in the common room, and headed out to one of the many disused classrooms that filled Hogwarts. This one looked like it might have been an old Astronomy classroom, with a sheet-covered orrery in the corner of the room and star charts plastered all over the walls and the ceilings.

Harry wasn't certain it was an Astronomy classroom, though. It could have been a Divination one.

"So I imagine you're wondering why I called you all here today," Percy said, clasping his hands behind his back.

"Kind of," Ginny admitted. "I'm also wondering why Fred and George aren't here."

"What?" Percy asked, a little distracted, then sighed. "I know you're in here."

"No you don't!" Fred shouted from behind the orrery.

"Well, now he does," George grumbled.

Percy waited for several seconds.

"Are either of you actually going to come out from behind there?" he tried.

"Nope," George said. "It's quite comfy here."

"We're quite happy where we are," Fred agreed. "I can see all the outer planets, like Jupiter and Neptune and Saturn and-"

"Anyway," Percy interrupted them, sighing. "As I was saying. I called you all here today to give you advance notice of something that might get into the papers."

"Why us?" Ron asked. "I get that about half of us are your family, but..."

"Oh, that's simple," Percy told him. "Harry's..."

The words trailed off.

"Not so simple after all?" Fred asked, trying not to laugh.

"It all made sense when I got them," Percy replied. "Besides, it would spoil the sense of drama."

"Drama?" Neville repeated. "Why drama?"

"And can there not be too much dramatic tension? We were in the middle of doing homework," Hermione added.

"Hang on, you were in the middle of doing homework," Dean corrected. "Some of the homework from third year so you could decide what subject you wanted to do. And Ginny was in the middle of doing homework. I was just sitting there because I had to pick an armchair somewhere while Nev and Ron were getting too into chess."

"As if," Hermione sniffed. "I'm not trying to decide which subject to do in Third Year. I already know, and it's all of them."

"Isn't that impossible?" Ron asked. "I mean, just in terms of workload."

"Percy got twelve OWLs in fifth year," Fred said. "Because he's a massive nerd."

"Thirteen if you count Hermes," George added.

"Ooh, good one," Fred complimented him.

Percy visibly decided to cut to the chase, and he did so in what Harry thought was a very effective way that was still almost as dramatic as he'd said he wanted to be.

He turned into a heron.

"...blimey," Ron said, after several seconds of silence. "Is that why you've been quiet?"

The heron nodded, and Harry noticed that there was a splash of flaming-red forming the crest along the top of his head instead of the black that a normal heron had. Then there was another blur of transformation, and Percy was standing there again.

"That idea about going to somewhere where there are thunderstorms every day was very helpful," he told Hermione. "Professor McGonagall helped out, of course, and I had my first transformation two days ago."

"That's amazing, mate," Dean said. "We only talked about this at Christmas. You've done all that in that short of a time?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't that hard, really," Percy told him, going a little pink. "Professor McGonagall says she thinks it might revolutionize the Animagus transformation, it's so much quicker to do it this way without having to wait for a lightning storm."

"Well, now I really want to do it," Ginny said. "How old do you have to be to become an Animagus?"

Harry was frowning to himself, trying to remember something he'd read, then snapped his claws together as it came to him.

"Issola," he pronounced.

Everybody else looked at him. Even the Twins stuck their heads out from under the dust sheet covering the orrery.

"What's one of those when it's at home?" Fred asked.

"More to the point, what's one of those when it's at Hogwarts?" George added. "And is it a thing at all?"

"It's from a book," Harry explained. "There's this book series where there are seventeen kind of noble houses, only one of them is actually more like a gang, and they each have an animal as their symbol. Like the Hawk, or the Phoenix, or the Teckla."

"What's a Teckla?" Neville asked.

"It's a mouse," Harry explained. "A lot of them are kind of odd, they don't always use the same word for things we do. So they call something a Dzur but we'd call it a panther."

"So what is an Issola, then?" Ron said.

"It's a heron, isn't it?" Ginny realized. "That's why you said it now."

Harry nodded. "There's this poem about what each kind of person tends to do, and for them it's, um… Issola strikes from courtly bow. So they're all about being proper and correct and still, showing respect and so on, and then you're reminded that they still have a sharp beak."

He shrugged his wings. "Anyway, I thought that it might be a good Marauder Name. Like how Sirius Black is Padfoot, and my father was Prongs."

Percy seemed to be considering it.

"Do you mind if I borrow those books?" he asked. "They sound interesting."

Over the next few days, Harry occasionally overheard George and Fred talking about whether they could trade off the speaking role so that only one of them had to speak much during the month that the other one was charging their mandrake leaf.

Apparently the problem with that was just that it would mean their first Animagus transformations weren't synchronized, or that the one who went first would have to use the Animagus sensitization spell for a solid month which sort of took away the point of doing it quickly.

The Twins being the Twins, they were busily talking about whether they could solve the whole problem by inventing a new kind of mouth, or maybe using a spell to produce sounds without needing to speak. It sounded like a lot of effort to go to, to Harry, and he was still wondering if there was a simpler way to get around the problem when the fourteenth of February arrived.

The Great Hall that Sunday morning was full of big pink flowers, of a kind of pink Harry wasn't really sure was actually natural, and it was raining heart-shaped confetti.

It took Harry a moment to remember that it was Valentine's Day – he certainly couldn't remember them doing this last time – and he shrugged before opening one of the books he had on the go.

He'd barely got more than a couple of pages further into Martin the Warrior (and only tried one slice of fried egg garnished with heart-shaped confetti) when Professor Lockhart stood to speak.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" he shouted, and Harry saw that he was wearing robes the same sort of couldn't-be-natural pink. "And thank you to the forty-three people who have so far sent me cards! I hope you all enjoy the little surprise I've arranged for you all!"

"Doesn't look like the teachers do," Dean muttered, and Harry did notice that Professor Snape looked like he was trying to squeeze something invisible very hard.

Maybe he was trying to do what Darth Vader did in Star Wars – Harry didn't think there was a spell for that, but Professor Snape might not let that stop him if he got annoyed enough.

"And it doesn't end here!" Lockhart went on, clapping his hands, and a dozen dwarves wearing golden wings and carrying harps trooped in through the doors with expressions of disdain.

The Defence teacher explained how the 'cupids' would be going all around the school delivering valentines, and some other things, but Harry was sort of distracted by the dwarves.

He'd already discovered that some of the most unlikely things from the Lord of the Rings books had turned out to be real – dragons were obvious, though Mr. Tolkien hadn't quite got some of the details right, but Horcruxes were certainly real even if that wasn't the word the author used for the One Ring. And now there were dwarves as well?

Maybe they were like the Dwarves in the Hobbit, scattered away from their original home and having to take jobs they didn't like. That was sort of a sad thing to think about, because they didn't really look like they were enjoying their current jobs.

It was probably quite a good thing that it was a Sunday, and there weren't any lessons, because enough Dwarves came barging into the common room to deliver their messages that Harry couldn't really imagine how any of the lessons could have gone without at least one visit. It seemed terribly embarrassing for the people involved, as well, though Harry did have an idea of how to find out the answers to some of his questions.

After one of the Dwarves had delivered an anonymous valentine to the Seventh-Year female Prefect, shouting it up the stairs at her from the bottom of the spiral staircase, Harry had accosted him as he began to stomp back to the portrait hole.

"What is it?" the Dwarf asked. "You've got one too?"

He looked Harry up and down. "You're an odd one. You'd be that 'Arry Potter bloke."

"Last time I checked," Harry agreed, who thought it was a sort of Dumbledoreish way to reply. "I was wondering how Dwarves live. I've never read much about you."

"Mostly we live somewhere else," the Dwarf replied with a shrug. "And not doing stuff like… this."

He shook his head. "Still. It's work."

"What's the somewhere else like?" Harry asked, still interested. "Do you live underneath mountains?"

"My mum does," the Dwarf agreed. "It's bloody cold up in Norway, I'll tell you..."

"So you're not trying to gain enough support to go and reclaim the ancestral halls of the King Under the Mountain?" Harry said, obscurely disappointed.

"No," the Dwarf told him. "Where do you get all these ideas?"

"Muggle books," Harry admitted. "I was hoping there were some interesting answers to what Dwarves are like."

They reached the portrait hole, and the Dwarf clambered out. "Ancestral halls… tch."

By the middle of the afternoon it seemed like the Dwarfs had sort of lost what little enthusiasm they'd had for the whole thing.

It turned out they were Dwarfs with an f, not Dwarves with a ve, which was something else Harry had been uncertain about. One of the others was a bit more willing to talk, and he explained that there had been a time when Dwarfs lived in underground mines and had their own societies, but that had sort of gone away about a hundred years ago when Muggles got better at mining. These days they mostly got work in the construction business, as they had magical ways to dig better than most people and you couldn't exactly bring a big Muggle digger onto the grounds of somewhere like Longbottom House for a month, but there wasn't much need for it in the winter which was why they were doing this sort of thing.

He said it had sounded a lot more fun when they'd agreed to do it than when they'd actually started to do it.

The last valentine Harry heard being delivered was by a Dwarf who was clearly thinking about being able to take the wings off, and who marched up to Kenneth Towler – who was in the same year as Fred and George, and took on a distinctly hunted look – before clearing his throat.

"Here is your valentine," he declared, in a voice remarkably devoid of inflection. "you are the most amazing person i have always admired you from afar and i wish i could tell you this to your face but i just wanted you to know that um are you writing this down or will you just remember the whole thing okay i that is i wanted you to know that i am always thinking of you."

The moment that was said, he took the wings off and put the harp down before marching smartly out the door.

The harp was tasty, at least.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Neville asked, a little worried.

"Don't worry," Harry assured his friend. "I don't think Ron's ever got this spell wrong, and I'm going to keep you safe from it anyway."

"I… guess that's okay, then," Neville said.

"Hey, don't worry," Dean told him. "We don't know who Ron's going to be aiming for. It might be me."

"Ready?" Hermione asked, looking down for a moment at a neat set of boxes she'd drawn on a piece of parchment with a ruler.

"Yep!" Ron agreed, raising his wand, and Harry nodded as well – his own wand back in the holder strapped to his tail.

"Whenever you're ready, then," Hermione said.

Ron stayed still for a moment longer, then pointed his wand. "Rictusempra!"

Harry's left wing flicked up, blocking Neville and Ron from seeing one another, and the tickling charm bounced off the black leather of his wings in a shower of sparks.

Ron's wand moved across in the other direction, pointing at Dean this time, and Harry tensed his wings ready to block.

Then Ron switched back to Neville, throwing a second Tickling Charm at him, and Neville jumped as Harry only just got his wing up in time.

Dean wasn't so lucky, getting hit and knocked backwards a little by the force of the spell, and started giggling until Ron cancelled the spell again.

"That's two out of three, so far," Hermione noted. "Okay, Harry, let's see how you do."

Ron gulped theatrically, and Harry tried to concentrate.

He'd done a lot of casting at things with his tail, but it was still tricky…

"Tarantallegra," he cast, and a jet of light flashed out to hit next to Ron's feet.

The second casting hit him, sending his legs dancing around until Hermione dispelled it, and Harry's third spell went a little bit high.

"Why aren't we doing Disarming Charms for this?" Ron asked. "We did that months ago."

"Because if we used Disarming Charms then whoever was casting would have to give the wand back to whoever wasn't casting after every successful hit," Hermione told him primly. "You're lucky I read about this way of training how to shoot things. Most people just sort of have to learn by luck."

"Isn't that what we're doing now?" Dean asked, as Ron fired another Tickling Charm at him and Harry blocked it with his wing.

"Of course not!" Hermione replied. "We're taking notes. Keeping score."

She frowned. "Ron, I think that last one wouldn't have hit even if Harry hadn't blocked it."

"Yeah, probably not," Ron admitted. "Okay, let's try this again..."

It was the sort of thing Harry thought they should probably be doing in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but because they weren't it seemed like a good idea to do it in their own time instead.

Maybe it would catch on.

It was several days after that – almost at the end of February – when Hermione told Harry that she'd managed to get permission for him to visit the Scottish dragon reserve.

Oliver Wood wasn't all that happy about the idea that Harry would be going off the next Sunday, missing out on some practice time, but Fred quickly pointed out that Harry's record in catching the Snitch was really good and so he shouldn't really complain. George weighed in by saying that that was one out of one, which was a hundred percent, and then they got sort of sidetracked for a while about whether you could really do statistics on a number like that.

The practical upshot of it all, though, was that Harry set off early that Sunday morning to fly to the Hebridean island of North Uist.

It was quite cold, but there wasn't any mist – which was good – and Harry flew steadily over the sea to Skye. He checked his map sitting on top of one of the Cuilin mountains, comparing it to what he could see around him, then decided he was looking in the right direction and took off again.

Harry did know that he would have been quite a lot faster if he'd brought his broom along, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun. He flew low over Portree, turning almost due west there and flying diagonally across the island, then raced down the hillside to the sea and struck out with his wings alternately beating the air for speed and hanging out stiff to glide.

It felt great to really stretch his wings for a long-distance flight, and he was almost sorry when the Outer Hebrides hove up out of the sea about twenty-odd miles later. Harry picked a high spot to land, bleeding off his accumulated speed to gain height instead, and touched down on a high rocky hill overlooking a great miles-wide expanse of little islands and black water.

Checking the map again, Harry decided there was only really one possible candidate for where he had to go. The Scottish Reserve was Unplottable, but that didn't make it hard to find if you were smart – the map was just a careful depiction of all the places in the area of the reserve that the reserve wasn't, and since it was a fairly hefty island hidden from Muggle view it didn't take Harry much time to realize that it had to be the half-mile-high cliff face where his map showed open water.

There wasn't really another way to hide enough land for a dragon population in the Hebrides.

After a quick misunderstanding where Harry had to explain that, yes, he was the one who was coming to visit the Clan MacFusty, and no, he wasn't an escaped juvenile, he was then introduced to the Clan as a whole.

Every one of them was a witch or a wizard, on a kind of smooth continuum from tough-looking twentysomethings not long out of Hogwarts with a patchwork of minor creases and scars all the way to the clan heads (who looked like they'd heard that you were supposed to get weaker as you aged and decided to sidestep the whole process by turning directly into teak).

A lot of them reminded him of Charlie, or perhaps Hagrid, in how they thought about the dragons they took care of.

After he'd met everyone, except Mathias MacFusty who was off in Canada doing something or other, he was led down a stone-floored path into the interior of the island by a middle-aged witch called Astrid MacFusty.

"This way," she told him, pointing out one of the crofts. "That's where my grandfather used to live. And down here is where we keep Niall, he's a little older than most now and a little easier with strangers."

She chuckled. "It's a full time job keeping so many Hebridean Blacks happy in a small space, I'll tell you now…"

"The book I read said that Hebridean Blacks needed as much as a hundred square miles of territory per dragon," Harry agreed. "I did wonder how you could fit many into the Hebrides, they're not that big."

"Well, we have our ways," Astrid told him. "Trade secrets, you ken?"

They were just reaching a wooden gate, and she opened it before holding it open for him.

"It's to keep the sheep and the deer in," she explained. "It all goes more smoothly if they each have their own animals, rather than trying to steal them from one another."

Harry nodded, then looked up as a pair of big black batlike wings spread atop a nearby hill.

Niall jumped, hammering the air for a single mighty downbeat, then came gliding down to alight with a thump in front of Harry and Astrid – sending the nearby sheep bleating and running in all directions. His mouth opened in a snarl as brilliant purple eyes regarded Harry, and a coil of smoke came rising gently out of the maw.

"Calm, now, Niall," Astrid said, one hand out to the side, and the bigger dragon huffed at Harry. He got sniffed, and then Niall snorted before accepting a sheep Astrid pulled towards her with magic.

"It's nice to meet you," Harry said.

"Now that's nae a thing I've ever heard before," Astrid admitted, which at least let Harry know he was speaking Dragonish rather than English.

Niall didn't seem to even notice, blasting the sheep with a jet of flame and then starting to eat a little messily.

"Can you understand me?" Harry asked, trying again. "Hello?"

Niall finished his sheep, and walked away to lie down for a nap.

"Did you get anything?" Astrid asked. "I don't know I'd have noticed the hissing if he'd done it, and all."

"No, nothing," Harry replied.

"Well, maybe Niall's a quiet sort," Astrid mused. "We'll try Flora."

It was a troubled Harry that set off to fly east that afternoon, away from the setting sun.

He'd been shown around most of the reserve, and met almost every single one of the dragons the Clan MacFusty took care of, but not one of them had either spoken Dragonish where he could hear them or even noticed him when he was speaking in Dragonish – except maybe as a noise.

Why would an entire reserve full of dragons not speak Dragonish?

Hermione seemed quite confused by the report, which at least made Harry feel a little bit better… or perhaps that should be a little bit more justified in feeling odd about it all, because Hermione was really very smart and she was just as lost as he was.

They wrote up what had happened and sent it off in a letter to Charlie, in the hopes that Ron's second-oldest brother would have some idea what to think about it, but apart from that there really wasn't anything else that came to mind.

Harry did go and have a long session teaching Hagrid Dragonish, this time as a conversation with Nora about colours and shapes, just to make sure that he hadn't been imagining things for the last several months, but while that did work it also led to the discovery that Nora liked incinerating coloured wooden blocks.

On the first Sunday of March, Harry decided to help Percy out by taking him for a flight over the castle.

In spite of having had his new form for over a month now, Percy had been a bit reluctant to take to the air, and Harry was all too glad to quietly talk him through how flying with wings worked – from where you could find the occasional dangerous downdraft to what the best angle was to glide with.

It was quite nice just to be able to teach Percy something he hadn't been confident about from the start, making gentle circuits around Hogwarts and the surrounds and explaining how to shed speed and height at the same time, or how to flare so your touchdown was slower and more gentle and it didn't strain your legs as much.

Percy definitely seemed nervous at first, but as they landed and took off and circled without any disastrous crashes it seemed as though he was starting to relax into it.

As they were coming down for a water landing, though, Harry noticed that Professor Dumbledore was sitting in a boat right by the lake shore. He was having some sort of conversation with what Harry supposed must be a merperson, with grey skin and dark green hair, and as they flew past the Professor broke off his conversation to wave merrily at them before continuing to talk as though nothing had happened.

Harry decided to be polite and ignore it.

"Okay, Percy," he said. "So the good thing about landing on water is that you can use the water to slow you down..."

That evening, Harry went up to Professor Dumbledore's office, and then through the Floo to Grimmauld Place.

"Harry!" Sirius announced, drawing him in for a hug. It took a lot of doing, given Harry's unusual body shape, but Sirius had clearly been thinking about it a lot and it actually sort of worked. "How have you been? How's Quidditch?"

"Wet," Harry replied, once Sirius finally let go and he could drop to the floor again. "Oliver Wood says that if we train in the rain, we'll go faster if we play in the sun and our robes are dry."

Sirius snorted.

"Everything okay with – with Professor Snape?" he asked. "Any more of your friends become Animagi?"

"I'm pretty sure we were talking last night," Harry said, confused. "Didn't we talk about most of this?"

"I've heard about how uncles are supposed to do this sort of thing," Sirius shrugged. "Admittedly I'm sort of guessing. Aunts are meant to do the kiss-you-on-the-cheek thing, but I'm not an aunt."

"But you aren't serious," Harry said, and was pleased when Sirius did a double-take before sniggering.

"That's a new one. Nice one, Harry."

That gave Harry a warm glow, and he followed Sirius through the house to a second-floor bedroom. Remus was there already, seated on a wooden chair with a big pile of somewhat-damaged pillows on the floor in front of it, and he nodded to Harry.

"I'm glad you could get off school for this," he said, self-consciously adjusting the long sheet he was wearing.

"I should be back by midnight," Harry replied, wanting to assure him it wasn't a big problem. "Professor Dumbledore says it's okay – and I want to help, if I can."

"I'm very grateful," Remus told him. "And Sirius, you'd better pay attention – next full moon night is Tuesday evening."

"Why is that?" Sirius asked. "Aren't they usually about four weeks apart?"

"This one's actually got the full moon tomorrow morning, about nine AM," Remus explained. "Next one has it Tuesday evening."

"Right, right," Sirius nodded. "When do you transform?"