Back to Hogwarts

Dumbledore had convinced Harry not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again and for the rest of the holidays the Invisibility cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk. Harry wished he could forget what he had seen in the Mirror as easily but he could not. He started having nightmares. Over and Over again he had dreams of his parents disappearing in a flash of green light while a high voice cackled with laughter.

Hermione, who along with Neville had come back the day before the term began, took a different view of things.

She was torn between horror at the idea of Harry being out of bed, roaming the school three nights at a row("If Filch caught you") and disappointment that he had not at least found who Nicolas Flamel was.

Neville on the other hand didn't care much about the "Mirror of Erised" as he had no mission related to it. He was very close to completing his research mission for which he had delayed the search for Nicolas Flamel.

Fortunately, Harry and Ron had not consulted their Dumbledore Chocolate frog Card during the holidays.

They had almost given up hope of ever finding Flamel in a library book, even though Harry was still sure that he had read the name somewhere.

Once the term started, they were back to skimming through books for ten minutes during their breaks.

Harry had even less time than the other three as Quidditch practice had once again begun.

Wood was working the team harder than ever. Even the endless rain that had replaced the snow could not dampen his spirits.

The Weasley twins complained that he was becoming too much of a fanatic, but Harry was on Wood's side.

If they won their next match, against Hufflepuff, they would overtake Slytherin House in the House Championships for the first time in seven years.

It was during one particularly wet and muddy practice session that Wood gave them a bit of bad news: Snape would be refereeing for their next match.

The rest of the team hung back to talk to each other as usual at the end of the Practice, but Harry headed straight back to the Gryffindor common room where he found Neville and Hermione playing chess while Ron watched the match in glee.

He had found those two hanging around each other a lot more after the holidays.

Ron who caught the sight of Harry's terrible face while Neville was thinking about the next move enquired:- "What's wrong mate?"

Speaking quietly so that no one else heard he informed them about Snape's sudden sinister desire to be a Quidditch referee.

"Don't play," said Hermione at once.

"Say you're ill," said Ron.

"Pretend to break your leg," Neville suggested.

"Really break your leg," said Ron .

"I can not," said Harry. "There isn't a reserve seeker. If I back out, Gryffindor can't play at all."

Neville knew he had to cheer them up, and as he had already gotten his reward, so he took out the Dumbledore Famous Wizard Card he had drawn a while ago and gave it to Harry, "You will be fine! As even Snape would not do anything as long as this man is alive."

Harry looked at the Famous Wizard Card.

"Dumbledore again," He said. "He was the first one I had ever...

He gasped. He looked at the back of the card.

"I have found him!" he whispered. " I have found Flamel! I told you I read the name somewhere before. I read it on the train coming here.

Listen to this:- "Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel!"

Hermione jumped to her feet. She hadn't looked so excited since they had gotten back the marks of their first homework.

"Stay there," she said, and she sprinted up the stairs to the girl's dormitories. The boys barely had the time to exchange mystified looks before she was dashing back, an enormous old book in her hands.

Ron had been very suprised when she called it a light read.

Soon, they found out about the Philosopher's stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone could transform any metal into gold. It also produced the "Elixir of life", which will make the drinker immortal.

Ron was finally enlightened

Ahh!

I get it now!

So he was a six hundred years old antique!

No wonder, we couldn't find him in "Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry " from the library.

He is not exactly recent if he is sick hundred years old, is he?

Next morning, in Defence Against the Dark arts while copying the different ways to treat a werewolf bite, Neville heard Harry and Ron chatting about what they would do with a Philosopher's stone if they had one.

It wasn't until Ron said that he would buy his own Quidditch teams that Harry remembered about Snape and the coming match.

Neville had a good laugh at Harry's one track mind when they were not looking at him.

He looked at his recent mission's Reward details.

< Legilimency(Novice version) >

Even though it was only Novice level you had to know that only 1 out of hundred people could enter this stage and that too after countless hours of hardwork.

It was much harder to master this mind art than Occlumency as it required you to project your consciousness into others mind rather than working at your own home turf.

Occlumency on the other hand could be trained by everyone although their achievements depend upon their hardwork and talent.

A natural Legilimens had greater talent in Occumulency than a non natural one who in turn had greater talent than the uninitiated.

Legilimency could be divided into 3 stages based on their probing abilities

Novice: They could only read the surface thoughts which arise as the person thought about a certain topic. It was mostly useful on Muggles as Occulumens with novice mastery could counter it as long as they weren't terribly mentally exhausted.

Intermediate: They could read deeper into an individual's mind and dig out the information they needed but still could not access anything that the targeted individual may not remember.

Advanced: They could live through the memory of the targeted and even recount details that the person themselves may not have noticed. They could access all the visual, auditory, sensual signal received by the body. Without a strong enough foundation in Occlumency such a person could easily go dark.

If he now tried he could get into other little wizards minds, he would be able to read their surface thoughts.

Neville had recently noticed that they seemed to keep running into Snape no matter what they went. Potion lessons were turning into a sort of a weekly torture, Snape was so horrible to Harry.

He didn't need his Legilimency to tell that Harry was probably thinking if Snape could read minds.

He also guessed that Snape may have used novice level Legilimency on Harry during Potion classes when he got ticked off suddenly and found an excuse to take away points or it could also be James' debt that his son was paying.

Who told him to bully his son's future potions teacher?

He thought that perhaps he could gift Harry a book on Occumulency someday.

His other missions were coming along nicely too; he would probably be able to harvest all but a few rewards at the end of the year at this pace.

He only wanted the 3x limited time turner as he didn't know if things could go wrong with his butterfly effect next year.

Also he wanted to keep it for a rainy day.

With the basilisk and a Dark Lord's diary things could get pretty ugly.

Hogwarts Explorer mission was pretty much slow at the completion rate of 55 percent with the holidays and homework.

He had gained the recent increase by visiting the Room of Requirements.

Now he only had the girls dormitories and toilets left in the Gryffindor house while other houses still had exploration left.

He almost reached the next reward on the spell proficiency mission with which he had many plans he could put to fruition.

He estimated that he would be able to reach it in this week and then Hahaha....

Bye!