30 Chapter 30— Trouble Draws Near

~Fun Fact: Did you know that there's a House-Elf Placement Agency in Carkitt Market, in the wizarding quarter of London, that provided services of house-elf allocation.

**************************************

(Albus Dumbledore's PoV)

Once again in his office, Albus Dumbledore gazed out of the window at the trees of the Forbidden Forest in the distance. The comfortable silence of the office was disturbed by the calming trill of his Phoenix familiar, Fawkes as he attempted to soothe his Master's discomfort. Idly stroking Fawke's tail feathers in an attempt to appease his eccentric companion, Dumbledore turned back to looking out of the window, his piercing gaze seeming to see through the very heavens. An unbidden sigh escaped his lips, he was at wit's end at the moment. When the school year had started, he was prepared to see a Harry who would be on the way to being the perfect saviour the Wizarding World needed. Instead, the boy who entered these halls was one who knew how to play the game of life and he didn't know what to do.

The boy bowed and smiled when needed, but he also exercised his social and political power when he knew it would give him the edge. An example of which being when he publicly challenged Minerva's instructions on a technicality that he couldn't be sanctioned for. Naturally, Dumbeldore knew he had to step in, in order to save his Deputy Headmistress some face. After all, it wouldn't do for a master in the art of Transfiguration to be shown up by an eleven year-old boy not even a year into his stay at the school.

On the subject of the matter, Dumbledore was somewhat suspicious of Harry or more specifically his close friend Aayan Barak. The boy, according to both Flitwick and McGonagall, was an exceptionally talented student who sought both to help himself and those around him excel yet Dumbledore couldn't help but feel a twinge of suspicion and doubt about the boy.

He was perfect. Too perfect.

And many years ago, he knew a boy who was the same— Tom Marvolo Riddle. Every time he thought of his wayward ex-student turned Dark Lord, Dumbledore felt a pang of regret. For all his power and influence, he felt as if he always seemed to fail at the things that mattered the most and now for there to be not one but two students in these halls who were eerily similar to his ex-student, it unsettled him to say the least. He would not allow for the tragedies of the past to repeat themselves, Dumbledore knew he would have to meet the boy in order to sort out his suspicions of him and ironically, the boy's exceptional skill and talent had given him the perfect excuse to do so.

*****

(Aayan Barak's PoV)

"So Shorty," I asked the diminutive House Elf. "What are the limits of your apparition?"

Having finished my daily run, I once again found myself in the kitchens. What use would magic be if you couldn't even run a flight of stairs without gasping for air. My many expeditions to the Hogwarts kitchens was at first a one-off encounter that had become part of my daily routine. I would wake up, go for a run and then go to kitchens where I would be cleaned by Shorty in less than a second. The wonders of magic at its finest.

The Elf shifted nervously before hesitatingly answering my question. "Shorty is not being sure. Shorty knows that Shorty can apparate to anywhere in the school, it is how House Elves is being able to clean but Shorty is only ever apparating inside Hoggy school."

"That fine Shorty," I said, patting his head as he calmed down substantially. "Is it okay if we test the limits of your apparating during the holiday?"

The holidays in question were set to go from the twentieth of December until the third of January meaning I had two weeks to test out the limits of Shorty's apparition, go and meet Hagrid as well as keep tabs on Quirrell. The man had been far too quiet for my liking however that didn't mean I was going to offer my throat for him to slice, no, I was going to have Shorty keep tabs on him when he wasn't busy. After all, Voldemort returning whilst Harry was eleven would be bad for everybody.

"That is being fine, Young Master Yan," Replied the Elf, bowing slightly before looking at me with his abnormally large eyes. "Would you be being interested in having breakfast here?"

Now, I knew I had to word my next few words carefully. House Elves are quite the volatile creatures when it comes to disappointing who they perceive as their owners.

"Not now, Shorty," I said placatingly. "Instead, I'd like to taste your wondrous food at breakfast with all of my friends."

The Elf perked up at the compliment, his eyes swimming with tears as he was overcome with emotion.

Dread spread across my chest as I readied myself to spring onto the elf in order to prevent self harm. Instead, the Elf rushed forward, clinging to my leg as he began to bawl.

"Y-Young Master Yan is being very kind; Shorty is very grateful," He sniffled, once his bout of joy had come to a close. Spotting his tears and snot on my shirt, he rushed backwards, his eyes darting around in search or something to punish himself with. When he couldn't find anything, he collapsed to his hands and knees and began slamming his head on the stone floor, the sickening sound of flesh being hit reverberated around the kitchen— the other elves went on with their business completely unperturbed.

"Bad Shorty! Evil Shorty!" He howled, accentuating each sentence by slamming his head onto the floor.

I gazed at the sight below me with pity, before I used the bond between us to its full extent.

"Shorty, stop," I said calmly. Immediately, the Elf stopped punishing himself and looked up at me, a welt quickly forming on his head as blood trickled down his face. "It's okay, you could just use magic to clean me. There's no need to hurt yourself."

The Elf nodded mutely, snapping his fingers and cleaning my previously soiled shirt.

Looking at the Elf, I realised that I should set a precedent now since I didn't want this to become a regular occurrence. No matter how bizarre this world was, my morals were those of a man without magic yet I was well aware that they would have to change in the future if I had any hope of surviving here. For the moment, though, my morality could still hold.

Kneeling down until I was level with Shorty's head, I patted his head and offered the pitiful Elf a soft smile. "Shorty, you mustn't hurt yourself if you feel you've done something wrong. I know that it's a habit that you've instilled within you but do try to break it. If you harm yourself, how do you expect to carry out my orders properly?"

The Elf looked just about ready to break down into tears.

"But, you've been amazing Shorty," I said, switching the line of the conversation. "I really am happy that I bonded with you."

Shorty's response was to beam with happiness before rushing off to prepare breakfast. Turning around, I left the kitchen feeling with a feeling of warmth in my chest. It was the feeling one would get when they felt as if they did something good and it was one that I didn't mind at all.

*****

Sitting on the floor, I let out a sigh of contentment. At long last, the time it took for me to blank my mind had lowered from around 7 minutes, to three seconds. Despite the hecticness of the school, I had always set aside a portion of my time, often before sleep, to meditate and blank my mind and to my knowledge, Harry did the same. In fact, after a particularly interesting training session, I decided to reveal to him that both Snape and Dumbledore were accomplished Legilimens to which his response was to throw himself into training Occlumency with abandon. This wasn't the same as practising the Mind Arts in the safety of one's home. Here, there were people who could and would read his mind at the slightest suspicion and I made sure that he was well aware of that fact.

Some would call it cruel, however I was only being realistic. The chances of Snape choosing to skim over Harry's mind were quite high given his baseless hatred of him. In my opinion though, Snape wasn't as likely to read Harry's mind as Dumbledore was. The man wanted to fatten Harry up like a pig for slaughter and I would find it absolutely ludicrous if he didn't read canon Harry's mind. After all, he was a man who was able to commit atrocities as long as it fell into his conception of the 'greater good' the phrase was one that caused me to snort in derision.

Rising from my cross-legged position, I looked around me and found myself being watched by four pairs of curious eyes sitting in front of me.

"What were you doing, Yan?" Asked Wayne boisterously, the hyperactive ginger jumped up and grabbed my shoulders.

"I was meditating," I replied calmly as Justin nodded his head in appreciation. Wayne on the other hand titled his head, perplexed at my answer.

"But why would you want to sit down and do nothing?"

This prompted Zacharias to smack him upside the head.

"You dolt! It helps calm one down and may even help you control your magic better."

'You don't know how right you are…'

"Oh, let me try!" He exclaimed, plopping down next to me and crossing his legs.

I had the feeling that Wayne wouldn't be able to sit still for even ten seconds. Another ten seconds and he had proved me wrong but it wasn't long lived as he stood up from the floor, completely frustrated; much to the amusement of the rest of us. This prompted the others, barring Neville and Ernie, to try and "meditate" for as long as they could. Since Wayne had dropped out at twenty seconds, that left Zacharias and Justin on their own to compete for first place. After twenty minutes, I was surprised to see that their faces were completely calm and they sat perfectly still if not for the minute rise and fall of their shoulders; something that went beyond my wildest expectations.

Unfortunately, Justin was the first to crack at the thirty minute mark, soon followed by Zacharias who got up at thirty five minutes. Once they gathered their bearings, I clapped their shoulders. "You two did amazingly. I thought that you wouldn't be able to stay for even ten minutes let alone half an hour!"

This prompted the two of them to smile.

"Now, who's ready for some breakfast?" I asked, causing Wayne to shoot upwards and run out of the dormitory, presumably off towards the communal area of the common room.

There was a moment of silence before it was interrupted by Neville's snort which soon devolved into full-blown laughter. He was soon joined by the rest of us as we slowly made our way towards Wayne.

*****

After yet another monotonous day, I was waiting in the Room of Requirement for Harry to arrive. Earlier on in our training sessions here, I had remembered that it would be possible to make the room accessible to others so long as they thought of going to the same room as the other person. By that logic, depending on one's wording, it would be possible to access the rooms of other people depending on how you word your request. I was currently cross-legged near the fireplace waiting for Harry.

Although I had finally reduced the blanking time to something optimal, I had long since been able to delve into my mind and review my memories. It was especially useful when going over material from earlier class lectures and also the reason why I was probably held the top spot amongst my year cohort.

My reason for reducing the blanking time as much as possible would be so that we could completely blank our minds in case of invasion, however I quickly realised that we would need to practice noticing unwelcome guests in our minds since it had been a while since we'd done so.

The door creaked open as the sound of footsteps against the concrete floor echoed around the hall. I turned around motioning for Harry to sit down next to me.

"So, are you ready to try fending me off again?" I asked him, not bothering to turn my gaze away from the dancing flame. "It's been a while since we've done this so I hope you're not rusty."

At this he grinned, turning to me.

"That's the wrong question," He said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

It seemed like he'd been taking pointers from Snape in that regard. I took a moment to savour the serene environment with nothing but the crackling of the fireplace to fill the silence before replying.

"Oh, what's the right one?"

"The right question," He said, his grin widening even more. "Is, do you really want to find out?"

That signalled the start of our mental tug-of-war as I felt the barest hints of a probe inching towards my mind. I let him get close before repelling him, destroying whatever hope he had of entering my mind. His once cocky grin vanished from his face as did the glint in his eye, being replaced by a look of complete concentration. A moment later, I sent out a probe of my own, making sure that it was as faint as I could make it. I almost reached his mind before my excitement got the better of me and the probe became stronger, resulting in Harry noticing.

All the while, the room was completely silent as Harry and I stared at each other, battling for supremacy into the other's mind. As time went on, Harry's probes became harder to track and eventually, I chose to blank my mind causing him to look away and huff in annoyance, our mental spar coming to an end.

"Oh come on," I said in an attempt to goad him into coming back. "It wasn't that bad was it? You can go over everything you did wrong later in your own time, we're here to keep people out of our heads."

It worked as he turned back to face me, a determined expression on his face. This time around I didn't feel his probe so I blanked my mind, hoping that he would make his probe stronger and he did. I immediately banished him from my mind as Harry flinched. He set his jaw, this time waiting for me to enter his mind. I sent out the weakest probe that I could, entering a void. I couldn't find any hint of Harry's mind. Knowing that I had no other option, I made my probe stronger and sensed his mind becoming more apparent. Unfortunately, so did his resistance causing me to strengthen my probe even more. Eventually, we reached a stalemate after which Harry successfully cast me out of his mind.

"You know what?" He snapped, getting up and dusting himself off. "I quit!"

I laughed somewhat cockily, getting up and looking at him. "You did manage to cast me out of your head that one time, I call that progress! Sure you may be talented at Legilimency, but you really need to brush up on your Occlumency since all the Legilimency in the world will be useless if you can't defend your own mind properly."

He sent me a withering look before stalking off towards the shelves.

"Hold on," I called out, swallowing before speaking some more. "I promised that I'd tell you about why Snape hates you so much, no?"

He froze before turning around, his curiosity apparent.

"I'm going to give it to you in the shortest way possible," I said. "Snape and your mother were childhood friends who grew distant after he was sorted into Slytherin and your mother Gryffindor. Over the years, her friends fed her lies and assumptions they had about Slytherin, tainting her image of him. It didn't help that Voldemort was on the rise and he was bullied into helping his Pureblood roommates torment Non-Pureblood children. He was also bullied by your father who was jealous of him due to his crush on your mother as he constantly pined after her. All of this boiled to a single point where he was publicly humiliated by your father and completely fed up with the bullying from him and his estranged relationship with your mother, he called her a Mudblood after which she cut all ties with him and began dating your father."

Harry's mouth opened in shock as he tried and failed to say anything. Eventually, he seemed to get out a single sentence.

"So he's been treating me this way because he thinks I'm my father?" He said in no more than a whisper.

I nodded at him. "The only redeeming thing to him is that you have your mother's eyes."

At that, Harry got up and walked towards the door.

"Hey," I said, concerned. "Are you alright?"

"I need to clear my head," He replied, opening the door and walking out.

In all honesty, I didn't blame him. He assumed that Snape had a valid reason to treat him the way he did but what he found out was that he was being treated like the scourge of the earth for little more than looking like a father he never knew.

I'd give him his space, after all, I wasn't his babysitter. He needed to sort these things out on his own but if he showed the initiative and ambition to go and change it, then I'd lend him my help. Although we grew up together, I wouldn't coddle him since he needed to come to terms with the reality of this world sooner and that applied both to his current situation and the far ahead future. If he couldn't understand that life wasn't fair then I doubt that he would become anyone worth a damn.

After all, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

**************************************

*A/N: Hullo everyone! Rejoice, for it is a new week! I have once again returned with another chapter. How are you all doing, how have your weeks been? Not much going on this Chapter outside of a little training and a Dumbledore (or Fumblewhore) PoV. Next Chapter will (hopefully) be more interesting.

I have had quite the splendiferous week though it has been riddled (hah!) with essays but what can a man do?

I've also noticed that we're approaching six figures in the viewer count and I'd be lying if I wasn't hyped. Thanks for reading my very first story and I hope you all stick around to the end!

*Cough* Shameless plug to join my discord below, it would be nice. ↓↓↓

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.gg/HT3VeC26fb (See paragraph comment)