– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 16 – – – – –

A few days later was another full moon and Harry, once again, joined Remus for the night in the shrieking shack, in his animagus form. The following morning, which was fortunately a Sunday, the two sat talking quietly in the hospital wing with a small privacy ward around them. Remus had asked Harry more about his form, since the man found the whole animagus thing rather fascinating. The most widely accepted theory behind an animagus' form was that the animal you were able to assume the form of was somehow representative of you as a person.

When people took the animagus potion and experienced the vision of being in their animal form, not everyone was able to instantly know exactly what they were. They would be seeing through their eyes as their form, and wouldn't necessarily be in any sort of position to see themselves. So many animagus texts spent a good portion of the start of the book going over animal symbolism to help the wizard try and figure out just what sort of animal they were. It was necessary, after all, to know what you were, in order to change into that thing.

Harry himself had taken a bit of time to figure out exactly what sort of bat he was. In the end, he had determined that he was a 'Greater Noctule Bat'; the largest bat that was actually native to the United Kingdom. But it wasn't any symbolism books on animagi that had helped him to finally make this determination; it was a muggle book on bats.

The foundation behind the idea that the symbolism descriptions would be helpful was that you would already have the gist from the visions – as in, 'I was some sort of feline, I think?', or 'I was able to fly and had feathers and talons.' From there you would look at the cats, or the birds, and see which one's symbolism fit you.

Heri and Tom had both scoffed at that portion, since it was all relative and up to interpretation, anyway. And yet, despite this, Harry couldn't help but find it amusing that in the magical world the bat was most widely seen as symbolic of rebirth. He had to admit, that it was fitting. Just the same, no matter what animal he might have possibly ended up being able to turn into, he would have likely been able to find something in its 'symbolic description' that could fit him.

There was also the fact that each and every culture had different descriptions for every animal. Some shared similarities, but many were different. To most orientals, bats were seen as good luck and bringers of peace and happiness. That one made Harry snort. To the Japanese, the bat symbolized chaos and unrest... that one generally made him smirk. The Finish believed that bats were the form the soul took when people's bodies were asleep. Many alchemists, a thousand years ago, had believed that bats were in some way related to dragons... which Harry really didn't get, aside from the webbed wings part. And of course the many popular notions that bats were symbolic of desolation, the Underworld, hypocrisy, melancholy, revenge, or wisdom... wisdom? Really? Talk about a one-eighty from all the death and decay. Every time Harry read about all the different symbolism theory behind animal forms, it really only served to amuse him.

In the end, Harry honestly doubted that what animal a person turned into had much significant meaning at all, aside from whatever significance you gave it yourself.

But he knew that no matter what, he would always be amused by what Tom's form turned out to be. It was certainly not something that he or the other wizard had honestly expected. Harry knew for a fact that when Tom had first realized exactly what his form was, he had honestly considered not even trying to achieve the transformation at all. But it was a challenge and he was set on proving that he could and would do it. Especially since Heri had every intention of pursuing his own form. Tom's pride was at stake and he wasn't about to let Heri accomplish a magical challenge without him.

Just the same, even after Tom had succeeded, he almost never actually assumed his form. He claimed that he saw very little value in it, even though Heri had thought it had a lot of potential value. He knew that the real reason Tom refused to take on his animagus for was because of one simple fact.

Heri had told him that he was cute, and Tom simply could not abide by such a thing.

Heri's form at least had all the stigma of desolation, death, rebirth, and all that. Tom's form didn't exactly have that sort of stigma among wizards. Harry had been quick to point out that many cultures did actually consider Tom's form a bad omen. It was believed that seeing one was bad luck. They were associated with devils and demons. However, it was mostly muggles that saw his form in that way. Among wizarding kind, his form was incredibly common, and even quite well liked. It was, in fact, the most common magical pet, outside of owning an owl. That was actually why Heri had thought it had a lot of potential value. There were just so many of them, that it would be easy to go about unnoticed in his form.

Tom's form was a small, black, cat. The only thing about him in his animal form that stood out as unusual, was that his eyes were blood red. Other than that, he looked like any other pet cat. Short, midnight black, hair; a long tail, a very common cat face. But he was also relatively small for a cat. Not kitten-small, but a small-ish adult cat, just the same.

For a very long time, after Tom had achieved his transformation successfully, Heri had taken to calling him Tomcat in private. He'd even played with the pet name of referring to the other man as 'kitten' from time to time in bed, and boy had that pissed the man off!

Thinking back on that time still brought a smile to Harry's face and a small snicker to his lips.

And then he would sigh, and slip back into a self-imposed moody stupor and he wondered for the millionth time, where the hell Tom was, and when he would find the man again. Sometimes, when he was feeling especially melancholy, he would wonder if he would find the man again.

But he would quickly shove that thought away. He knew that Tom was still alive, and as long as Tom lived, he would eventually come out into the public eye again. Tom was far too ambitious to disappear and live a quiet life somewhere.

He would come back. Harry had to believe that.

And so he stayed focused on the things that he could do at that moment, instead of stewing over the things that lay beyond his sphere of control.

For the last month, he had been observing and recording the precise comings and goings of professors and staff to the third floor corridor. They had a set schedule and it was all obscenely predictable – which was nice. Hagrid came at the same time every week to feed whatever was in the first room. Hagrid and Professor Sprout came the same time three days later, every week so that Professor Sprout could do whatever maintenance was necessary on the plant in the second chamber.

Harry did not think it would be wise to make a move on the Stone this early in the year, but he didn't want to go in there blind at the last minute either. He wanted to know what the beast was, exactly, and what it was the Hagrid did to disable it. He also wanted to know what plant it was, so he could come prepared later.

It was the last night of November – a Friday – and Harry had decided to make a move towards these two goals. It was the day that Hagrid and Sprout would be going into the room at the end of the third floor for their maintenance. Harry chose an empty classroom on the fourth floor, conjured a mirror on the wall, and created a disillusionment area effect circle. He quickly transformed into his noctule bat form and flew into the circle before it dissolved away. As soon as he had entered the circle, the spell took hold of him, and he felt the familiar sensation of having an egg cracked over his head.

He flew over to the mirror and saw only the faintest shimmer of distorted light as he flapped his wings, but nothing else. For all intents and purposes, he was invisible. If someone was looking straight at him, they might be able to tell that something was there, but chances were slim that they would ever guess what he was.

Since he was so small, the disillusionment spell would last even longer than it would on a full-sized human, so he knew he had several hours before he had anything to worry about. And even if it wore off, he was a bat, inside an ancient magical castle. It really wasn't that rare. Hogwarts had anti-pest charms all over it, but many of them were old, failing, or had gaps in them. When you had as many students with pets as Hogwarts had, pests, vermin, and escaped pets were inevitable and unavoidable. There were always rats, toads, insects that were there to feed the rats and toads, cats, various kinds of birds, small non-poisonous snakes, oh... and bats, all over the castle, all the time. It was one of the most convenient things about his form; flight, and the ability to blend into the background.

He flew out the door that he'd left partially open for his own convenience and made his way to the third floor corridor. He flew all the way down to the end, and perched himself on a stone gargoyle not far from the door at the end. There he sat and waited patiently for Hagrid and Sprout to make their appearance.

It took about twenty minutes for them to show up with Filch in tow, muttering and grumbling under his breath, like he always did. He unlocked the door with a key, which made Harry internally snort. Even professor Sprout looked a little impatient as the man fumbled with the ring of keys he carried with him. No doubt, she wanted to simply pull out her wand and cast an alohomora and do it the quick and easy way, but didn't for fear of angering the stupid worthless squib. Then Hagrid shuffled a large sack of his shoulder and pulled a small flute out of his pocket to make sure he had it and then slid it back in.

Harry flew over and clung to the rough stone wall just above the door and slowly climbed down to the outer door frame. Hagrid pushed the door open, ducked, and shuffled his way through the doorway. Harry quickly followed, climbing up onto the stone wall above the doorway, only now he was inside.

He twisted his body and head and got his first look at 'Fluffy' and nearly fell off the wall with his shock.

It was a bloody Cerberus! An enormous, monstrous, three-headed dog-beast! It was chained to the opposite wall, and unable to actually get to Hagrid, but it had full range of motion around the trap door, and could no-doubt rip anything that got too close to shreds.

Hagrid was cooing at the snarling monstrous beast as if it were some sort of cute little puppy as he fumbled with the bag and began to pull out large slabs of meat. The three heads were apparently each picky in different ways because one head got a huge chunk of boar, another one got what Harry assumed was a sizable portion of a cow, while the third was apparently partial to turkey.

Being fed was obviously not the way to calm the beast down because it seemed to be in a near frenzied state after that. Harry knew form his time observing the map that Hagrid tended to take about fifteen minutes before Sprout was directed to come in, so Harry sat back and waited patiently. Finally all the meat was gone and nothing but bones were left. The three-headed beast returned it's full attention Hagrid and the snarling and growling resumed in full force. It was at that point that Hagrid brought the small wooden flute out of his pocket again and up to his lips. He began to whistle out a tune that was clearly intended to be some sort of lullaby.

Shockingly enough, the beast's eyes began to droop and within a minute, it was sound asleep on the floor beside the trap door.

So music soothes the savage beast. Harry snorted internally. He flew down silently to land on the floor beside the door and slowly made his way across the floor and came to a cautious stop next to the trap door, keeping his attention split between Hagrid and the enormous beast that was snoring just a few feet away.

Hagrid was still playing the little flute but stepped back to the door and tapped it with his foot before standing aside. The door slowly opened and Professor Sprout poked her head through, looking around alertly. She came in, closed the door behind her and used her wand to levitate the heavy wooden trap door open. Harry quickly slipped inside, but took to hovering almost instantly and stayed just beside the opening of the door. Sprout used her wand to create a bright ball of magical blue flame and lowered it down the hole. She then used a higher level levitation charm to lower herself down the trap door and safely onto the floor, about fifteen feet below.

But Harry realized that what she landed on, almost couldn't qualify as 'floor'. It was an enormous mass of soft springy tendrils and vines that were wriggling along the floor and trying to wriggle their way away from Professor Sprout and her bluebell flame.

Harry grinned internally as he realized what it was. Devil's Snare. How simple.

Harry flew around the room to get a better viewing angle and Professor Sprout began to tend to the plant. He realized that she never actually canceled her levitation charm, nor did she actually land on the plants. Where ever she was hovering above, the vines were trying to get away from her feet and Harry realized that as they parted he could see an opening beneath them.

A swoop around the room and Harry came to the conclusion that there were no doors on any of the walls, so it was most likely that the only way out was through the plant. His Black Sight didn't work particularly well as a bat, but it was still there to some extent. In compensation for his lessened magical sight, however, he gained a rather powerful sense of echo location. He was hesitant to use it since it required making some noise, but Professor Sprout seemed rather lost in her work, and the plants were making quite a bit of writhing noises of their own, so he decided to chance it.

He sent out some waves of high pitched sound and bounced it off the mass of vines directly beneath the Professor. As he suspected, he could tell that some of the sound passed straight through to another chamber below them.

Harry hesitated, debating with himself how idiotic he would be if he pressed on. Sprout's tending to the plants always took about a half hour and it had only been about two minutes, so if he was quick, he could scout out the next room.

Resolved to at least try, he swooped down and dived through the mass of vines that were trying to escape the witch's magical blue-bell flame and found himself in a downward sloping passage. About twenty feet of passage continued on before the passage opened up into a large chamber filled with tiny flying objects, soaring and flitting all around the ceiling. On the far end of the chamber was a large wooden door.

Harry flew through the room, narrowly avoiding several of the flying objects as they nearly ran into him. As they got closer, he realized that they were charmed keys with tiny little wings. He eyed them curiously for a moment but decided to press on to the door first.

He got there and landed on the floor in front of it. He hesitated for a split second, knowing that if he shifted back into his human form it would cancel his disillusionment spell. Coming to the conclusion that he could simply cast another one on himself, he shifted back into his human form to find himself sitting on the cold stone floor, blinking owlishly as he regained his equilibrium.

After a moment to sort his bearings out, he stood up and looked the door over. His Black Sight told him it was locked with an extremely powerful locking charm – one that could only be unlocked with the proper key spell. He pulled out his wand and cast several detection and revealing charms to see what other spells and alarms might be cast upon the door.

There were several rather powerful spells on it that he would have to work around before he dared mess with it. One was obviously an alarm that would alert the caster – undoubtedly Dumbledore – the moment the door was opened, whether one used the appropriate key spell or not. He made mental note of the magical signature of all the spells so he could spend some time figuring out exactly how to dismantle them without setting them off and then turned his attention to the mass of flying keys.

He smirked and chuckled inwardly as his Black Sight set one of the keys alight with a bright purple glow, while all the others simply shimmered blue. That key was charmed to unlock the door, it was obvious.

A glanced around the room and Harry sat that there were several brooms lined up along the wall. He blinked at them with dumbfounded shock and confusion. What the holy hell was the point of putting those there? Obviously, flying and trying to catch the key by hand was one valid option, but only an idiot who didn't know any better spells would sink to such an option, and why the hell would they provide any options that would make it easier to catch the key and open the door? It was like they were trying to help whoever it was who came to steal the damn stone. What the hell?

At that thought Harry frowned deeply. Another thought struck him and he realized that Professor Sprout had actually been discussing Devil's Snare only two weeks prior in his first year Herbology class. She had told them exactly how to deal with it. Fire.

The dog was obviously the only legitimate threat so far... that and the fact that opening the door would set off an alarm.

What kind of ridiculous 'protections' were these? What was Dumbledore playing at?

Harry shook his head, deciding that he would need to ponder on this further, and do some more digging. He made a sweep of the room, checking for any magical detection spells and was glad to find none. He cast another circle of disillusionment, transformed back into his bat animagus form, and flew into the circle to activate the spell on himself. It dissolved from the floor and he flew back out of the chamber, up the hallway, and managed to dart up through a small gap in the Devil's Snare underneath a still-levitating Professor Sprout. He flew right up through the still open trap door and clung to the wall above the door to the room. Hagrid was still in there, still playing his flute.

About eight minutes later Sprout came back up, they closed the trap door, and left the room with Harry flying directly behind them.

– –

The next day was a Saturday, and it was also the day that Ravenclaw's Quidditch team had to play against Hufflepuff. By this time, all of Harry's dorm mates were more than aware that Harry didn't give a damn about Quidditch, so they weren't the least bit surprised when he expressed no interest in going to the game.

Once everyone had left and his dorm room was properly empty Harry decided to finally make a move on his goal to visit the Chamber of Secrets. Having had such success with using his animagus form to get into the third-floor passage so easy, he decided to go with that again this time. He opened one of the windows a bit, transformed, and flew out.

He soared around Ravenclaw tower, reveling in the glorious feeling of the wind in his wings and the absolute exhilaration of flight. He realized that with his new intuitive skill in broom flight, his ability and agility with winged flight was also improved. His instincts with the wind and the air currents transferred over, and he found he enjoyed his bat flight even more now than he had in his previous life.

Finally, he forced himself back on task and flew down until he spotted an open window on the second floor that he knew would be fairly close to the girls bathroom there. He flew into the open, empty room, and right out into the hallway, grateful for his luck, that the door to the room had been open. He flew down the corridor, not once even coming across a single person, and finally came up to the bathroom that he and Tom had ventured into so many times in their youth.

Sure that no one was around to witness it, and that any portrait paintings near by were asleep, he transformed back into his human form and quickly pushed the door open and slipped inside. He wasn't worried about there being anyone in there since he'd come to learn over the last couple months that the bathroom was never used anymore. Apparently the stupid, unfortunate, mudblood that Tom had killed all those years ago had taken to actually haunting the damn loo as a ghost.

Harry turned and looked around the bathroom with hesitant trepidation. He really didn't want to have a run in with Myrtle's ghost if he could help it. A tense moment passed before he had scanned over the whole room with his Sight and determined that there was no ghost in there. He sighed and finally took in his surroundings more.

The bathroom was in considerable disrepair, in comparison to the last time he had seen it. It's wooden cubicles were worn and ill-maintained. Even the stone sinks were chipped and grimy. Said sinks formed a row along one wall under a large cracked and spotted mirror. Harry walked over to the sinks and his eyes landed immediately on the one that he knew hid the entrance to the Chamber.

He bent down and saw a tiny snake was scratched into the copper tap and focused on that image before speaking in a quiet, hissing voice, 'Open'.

The word successfully came out in parseltongue because the sink suddenly began to drop down out of sight to expose a large pipe leading down into darkness. Harry knelt down and hissed 'Stairs' into the darkness, causing the smooth pipe to transfigure into a long, steep set of stairs. Harry cast lumos with his wand and used it to illuminate the way as he quickly began to climb down the stairs. As soon as his head was clear of the top, he hissed 'Close' and the sink slid back into place, blotting out all light from the tunnel, except for the glowing light on the tip of his wand.

Harry had ended up spending several hours in the Chamber's library. It was nostalgic in a way that even being back at Hogwarts hadn't been. The Chamber was something that he had only ever shared with Tom. It had been theirs and theirs alone. Some of Tom's things were even still down there. Nothing terribly important, but some notes were scattered about, along with some quills. An essay that Tom had started and then stopped half-way through, and left there. He had probably rewritten it on another sheet of parchment since this one appeared to have a large blot of ink staining the bottom.

Harry had run his fingers reverently over the old, dusty, piece of parchment, feeling sick with loneliness as his eyes trailed over Tom's familiar elegant scrawl.

For obvious reasons, Harry did not approach the basilisk in any way. He was no doubt it was in a magical slumber at the moment, and Harry had no reason, and absolutely no desire to wake the beast. It could continue to sleep for another thousand years for all he cared. The library, and the books within it, were all that Harry cared about.

The temptation was significant to take some of the books out with him so he could read them elsewhere and yet he was hesitant to get caught with anything written in parseltongue. In the end, he decided it was worth the risk and that he would just have to be smart and cautious. Plus, he knew that he'd be taking and keeping quite a few of the books. Tom had always regretted not having more opportunities to make off with some of his ancestor's library. As far as he was concerned, they were his by inheritance, and he had every right to keep them, but after the fiasco with Myrtle, Dumbledore's watch on the bathroom where the girl had died had been so strict and constant that they'd had a very hard time getting back down there at all, let alone enough to start hauling up books.

Harry sifted through the books and found it incredibly difficult to narrow down his selection to just a few since they all looked so damned fascinating. He had dreamed about being able to read these books, but had accepted that it would never happen... and now it had.

Once he knew his time was running out and he was preparing to leave, he put the books he had chosen into a small knapsack and then cast a shrinking charm on the knapsack and slipped it into his pocket. He left the library and made his way back out, down the tunnel to the stairway-pipe.

Deciding that climbing all those stairs would be incredibly annoying – he remembered it vividly from his youth – he decided to try flying up and transformed back into his bat form. Once he'd reached the top, he transformed back, re-opened the entrance with a hissed 'open' and left. He was relieved to see that Myrtle was still missing in action, and wondered how long he could successfully continue to dodge that bullet. He propped one of the windows to the bathroom open and cast a spell to prevent it from being shut along with a small charm that would prevent too much wind, rain, or snow from getting in and potentially drawing someone's attention to the open window. He transformed back into his bat form, flew out and made his way directly up to the Ravenclaw Tower and into his dorm room.

The window was still open and the room still empty. In the end, he decided that his little trip had worked out incredibly well and decided to repeat it as often as he could manage without drawing attention to himself.

– –

As the end of term drew near, Harry had to decide what he was going to do for the winter break. Draco invited him to come and visit him for the three weeks they had off from school, but Harry knew he had to decline. While it was apparent that Dumbledore was willing to sit back and watch Harry develop a friendship with the Malfoy heir, Harry knew that Dumbledore would never remain silent if he thought there was a chance that Harry would be spending significant time in a Death Eater's home.

Although, Harry did think that arranging such an event would force Dumbledore to personally confront Harry in order to put a stop to such an arrangement. If Dumbledore came to him with objects to Harry visiting the Malfoys, Harry would have an opportunity to ask him why. To personally question Dumbledore, and ask him why he didn't want Harry to visit the Malfoys. He would be interested to see what sort of excuses Dumbledore would give him.

Despite the curiosity of all this, Harry knew it would not be the best idea. He would be too tempted to go on the offensive, and that would put Dumbledore on his guard, far too early.

And so, Harry put his name down on the list of students who would be staying over the winter holidays. He could have just 'gone home to the Dursley's', and then spent his winter break back at Godric's Hollow, but willing going home to the Dursleys would be highly odd to several people since Harry had made it no secret that he did not have a positive home life. He didn't usually go out of his way to flaunt it unless he had a specific goal in mind, but he didn't hide it either.

It wasn't like he was ashamed, as he had been in his youth. Back then he had been ashamed of the fact that the weak, pathetic muggles at the orphanage had been able to wield such power of he and Tom. Disgusted with his own weakness, and his lack of ability to fight off his abusers. Now he knew damn well that none of his treatment at the hands of the Dursley's during his first five years there was something that he should feel the need to hide. It certainly wasn't his fault, it was Dumbledore's fault.

One day, during the tail end of his Transfiguration class while everyone had been practicing some simple transfigurations after an hour long lecture, that a group of muggleborns had gathered towards the back and having a potentially interesting conversation. One of them had recently learned of some political issue from an older muggleborn in Ravenclaw, and was now sharing it with the others. Apparently Lisa Turpin had recently been reading up on some of the history of wizard-muggle relations, and the prejudices that propagated in wizarding society in regards to muggle inferiority. The older muggleborn had noticed this and shared some current-events with the girl that she thought seemed related.

Harry noted that McGonagall was hovering to the side, watching with a bit of anxiety on her face. It was a tender subject, and there were a few purebloods in the class who were also discreetly listening in, who were clearly wary of the topic the muggleborns were discussing quietly.

However, all those involved had already successfully completed their assignment, so at the moment, McGonagall had no excuse for ending their discussion.

Apparently there was some legislation currently in the works in regard to identifying magical children at an earlier age then was currently standard. As things currently worked, a child was identified around age ten, just before they would receive their Hogwarts acceptance letter. The old spells for identifying magic in children only worked once the magical core had finally begun to stabilize – which happened around ten. However some new spells had been developed in recent years that could identify a child with magical potential at the first incident of accidental magic.

Harry had to admit that he had not heard such an advancement had been made, and was intrigued.

The group of mugleborns – made up Ravenclaws Kevin Entwhistle, Lisa Turpin, and Hermione Granger, and two Hufflepuffs, Justin Finch-Fletchly and Addison Reid, were mostly talking about how nice it would have been to have known what they were at a younger age. To have had someone come, when they were much younger, and explain about magic, so that their bursts of accidental magic wouldn't have been so scary or confusing.

As they were talking, they were suddenly interrupted by Susan Bones – a Hufflepuff. "Yes, but you do realize that there are those in the Ministry that would want to use this legislature to take muggleborn children from their families – right?"

The five muggleborns turned and looked at her with varying degrees of confusion, and shock.

"What do you mean by that?" Addison Reid asked.

"Well, there are many who don't like that muggleborn are growing up in the muggle world and bringing in your traditions to our world once you come in for your magical education. They would want you all raised by magical families instead." Bones said.

"But they couldn't do that!" Lisa Turpin exclaimed.

"That's not the worst part," said Ernie MacMillan, eagerly jumping into the conversation as well. "There are some that say that Dark wizards would make use of the spell to find young muggleborn children and then kill them, or put magical blocks on them when they're still really young so that their magical core could never develop far enough to become a full-fledged witch or wizard!"

"That's just stupid paranoid conspiracy nonsense!" exclaimed Casandra Moon. "No one would do that! Besides, the spell to identify muggleborns at the first sign of accidental magic is controlled by the Ministry. Not just any Dark wizard could do it."

"And you just trust the Ministry with something like that?" MacMillan responded haughtily and folded his arms over his chest.

Moon responded by rolling her eyes and turning away from MacMillan as if he weren't worth her time.

"What were you saying about children being taken from their homes?" Granger asked Bones, now that the other two seemed to be finished with their interruption.

"Oh, well there are those that thing that once a child with the potential for magic is discovered that they should be removed from the muggle world and put into a magical family home instead. That a magical foster system should be put in place to take in children. But there are others that don't like the idea of approaching them at all, because not all children who may be identified at an early age are guaranteed to have full magical potential. So if we approach them when they're still really young and tell them and their family about the magical world, and then they end up not turning out to be a witch or wizard, we've just exposed our world that much more for absolutely nothing." Bones explained.

Granger and the other muggleborns frowned and looked thoughtful. Harry opted to join in the conversation at this point, seeing it for a potential opportunity – especially since McGonagall was listening in so intently.

"I still think they should do it," Harry said, not looking up from the book he had on the desk directly in front of him. The others looked over at him with slight surprise since it didn't look like he'd been listening to their conversation.

"What exactly do you think they should do?" Granger asked.

"All of it, really..." he said absently before closing his book at looking up at them all. "I think they should identify children as early as possible, and that there should be home visits. Inspections to make sure that nothing bad is happening to the children in response to them being magical in a muggle home. And if they're being mistreated, then they should be taken from the muggles and placed in a magical foster home with an approved family."

"Why would you think they'd be mistreated?" Turpin asked, looking confused.

Harry shrugged. "Fear. It's human nature to fear something you don't understand, and muggles don't understand magic. It's outside their sphere of what's reasonable and what's not. Muggles could easily see accidental magic as 'devils' work'. I heard of a boy once who was raised by muggles who forced him through an exorcism because they were so scared and confused by what he was able to do. They were scared of him, and so they hurt him. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to violence." Harry smirked and rolled his eyes at himself for using a bloody Star Wars quote. He'd spent far too damn much time with muggles during the last decade of his life.

Kevin Entwhistle apparently caught the quote because he snickered.

"They put him through an exorcism?" Granger asked, looking appalled.

Harry nodded. "A proper home visit could have caught it. I know I wish someone had come and checked on me."

"But you're not muggleborn," Bones said.

"No, but I was raised by muggles. After my parents died, I was dumped on my muggle aunt and her muggle husband's doorstep. They actually knew about magic, and hey they were still afraid of me. They hated me with a fiery passion. They hated my 'unnaturalness' and my 'freakishness'. My uncle thought that if he tried hard enough, that maybe he could 'beat the freakishness out of me'. By the time I was five, he'd dislocated my shoulder several times, fractured the bones in my forearms, probably cracked a couple ribs, and given me several concussions. I certainly would have appreciated a Ministry official showing up on our doorstep to put a stop to it. To take me away from those people. But no one ever came."

Several gasped and Harry noticed quite a few of the other students that had been pretending not to listen, suddenly looked up at him with widened eyes. Harry pretended not to notice them, or the look of angry fury that was quickly glowing in Professor McGonagall's eyes.

"Your aunt let him do that?" MacMillan replied appalled. "But she's your blood relative, right? How could she let that happen?"

Harry scoffed bitterly. "She hated me just as much, if not more, than her husband did. She hated my mum. Hated that my mum was magic and she wasn't. She was bitter and angry, and even more angry that she'd gotten landed with me after my parents died. Muggles aren't like witches and wizards. You almost never heard of a wizard family who abuses their own. Family and blood lineage is everything. Your heirs are so important that the idea of causing them physical harm is just beyond our culture. But it's not like that with muggles. Besides, my uncle didn't see me as his blood. He just saw me as a freak. But we're getting off track. I mean, the point is muggleborns and their family right? I'm curious..." Harry paused and turned his body so that he was completely facing the group of muggleborns. "Tell me, have any of you had any negative reactions from your family members in regards to your magic? Both before you found out about the wizarding world, as well as after?"

Several of them looked thoughtful. Turpin was the first to speak.

"My... my cousins – they don't know about the wizarding world because we were told that we couldn't tell any extended family... just me, my parents, and my younger sister know – but when I was younger and I did some accidental magic in front of my cousins they were... they were really scared. Called me lots of names, and every time they came over to visit, the oldest one – Joshua who's four years older than me – he would... well he'd usually throw rocks at me or... yeah..." her voice trailed off and she ducked her head.

Granger was frowning and looking away as she chewed on her lower lip. Kevin Entwhistle had an unreadable expression for a moment before he spoke up. "My mum and dad got a divorce when I was little. I live with my mum and step-dad most of the time now and they're both great about the whole wizard thing but my dad, who I see during some holidays... he got real angry when my mom told him. He kind of trashed our living room and threw a right fit. He said some things... well, it wasn't pretty. In the end, someone from the Ministry said that it was necessary that he be oh-obl..."

"Obliviated?" Harry offered.

Kevin nodded. "Yeah, that. They made him forget. Said he couldn't handle the truth and that we shouldn't try telling him again."

Harry nodded. "So even with blood family, the chance will always remain that the whole magical thing won't be taken very well. Thats why I think that home visits should be set up. An observation system or something. Just to make sure that they aren't getting beaten or abused because their family thinks that they're freaks." Harry shrugged and turned back forward in his desk. "Just my opinion, anyway."

Discussion was quiet for a few moments before it picked back up again. Harry could tell that quite a few of his classmates had been given some things to think about, but more than anything else, he could tell that McGonagall was just barely containing her raging fury until the end of class.

Harry distinctly remembered the adamant warnings that McGonagall had given to Dumbledore about the Dursley's being the 'worst sort of muggles' that night they left him on their doorstep. Despite the woman's hard exterior, he could tell from the soft glances she sent his way, and the small, proud, smiles she gave him during lessons that he had succeeded at making the woman quite fond of him. Several murmured comments about his 'father's skill in transfiguration', and his 'mother's cleverness' had also caught his notice. He knew that the woman would hold Dumbledore accountable for his choices regarding Harry having been placed with abusive muggles and never being checked on.

His assumptions were proven correct the very next day. Clearly, McGonagall hadn't wasted any time in confronting Dumbledore with what she had overheard, because the following day while Harry was walking down the hallway with Draco, they walked past Dumbledore and just as Harry and the Headmaster were facing each other from only a few feet away, Harry felt a compulsion enter his mind. Harry's Sight told him that Dumbledore's wand was in his hand, but discreetly hidden by his long sleeve of his robe hanging down low, but the fact that the man had cast the spell so easily and without it being at all obvious to anyone in the crowded hall, was a true testament to the man's skill.

Harry managed to keep walking without reacting in any way; giving no sign that he had noticed anything had happened. All the while, he put up walls around the compulsion so that he could examine it later before it had a chance to dissipate in the emptiness of his physical conscious mind.

Once they were completely clear of Dumbledore, Harry suddenly claimed to have forgotten something in his dorm and split off from the Slytherins. He quickly made his way to Ravenclaw tower and sequestered himself up in the first year boys dorm, which was fortunately empty. He sat down cross-legged on his bed and slipped inside his vast, empty, physical mindscape to examine the compulsion spell the headmaster had attempted to use on him. It only took him a moment to pull it apart and identify all the different layers to it. It was a very high level spell – again, a sign of the blasted old coot's immense power level and skill. The compulsion spell had several subliminal suggestions implanted within it. The most prominent was that Harry should feel the powerful need to hide what the Dursley's had done to him. That he should never tell anyone.

Within that was an emotional seed that would have grown over time. The emotion it was supposed to plant was shame. The feeling that he was less than human for allowing muggles to beat him down. As long as he felt ashamed, he would do whatever he could to hide his past, even lie.

Another suggestion placed in him was the idea that he needed to speak with McGonagall and any other teachers he might have told, and retract or 'clarify' his earlier statements. That he needed to dumb them down, or admit to having exaggerated earlier.

Harry scoffed angrily. He already had a profoundly deep hatred for the venerated old wizard, and had been sure that he couldn't possibly hate the man anymore than he already had.

Clearly, he was wrong.

Harry wondered for a moment if Dumbledore would have gone so far as to try and implant the subliminal compulsion into McGonagall as well, but the fact that Dumbledore's compulsion spell had included that Harry should go to those who he had told and retract his statements suggested that he hadn't. Besides, it was unlikely that Dumbledore could slip a compulsion spell past other adult wizards as easily as he assumed he could with Harry – a supposedly untrained child.

Harry had easily noticed the spell being cast on him, and he would have noticed the effects even if his mindscape wasn't empty and immune to such spells. Witches and wizards of a certain skill level would notice such a spell being cast upon them, and Harry knew that McGonagall was probably of such a level.

Still, he was left wondering what to do with what had happened. Even with his advanced skill level, it wouldn't make sense for an eleven-year-old to be able to tell he'd had a compulsion spell cast upon him, and impossible for one to fight off the effects of one cast by someone as powerful as Dumbledore was. So trying to accuse the man of what he'd done was pointless. Not to mention, there was no proof.

He also wasn't about to follow the spells instructions. There was no way he was going to go to McGonagall and deny what he'd said. If Dumbledore became suspicious as to why his spell hadn't worked... well, Harry would just deal with whatever came of that. For now, he would just continue on as planned.