Chapter 3

"Who in the fuck thought such delicate leaf shutters were a good idea." Harry mumbled as he idly transfigured the tip of his screw-driver into a smaller variation thereof, so that he could unscrew the fastening of the lens from the camera to get at the shutters underneath. The chrome steel easily popped off and he got to see what had been blocking the shutters from locking. Solidified oil.

"How German," Harry muttered, "designing an intricate mechanical system and to then have it fail you because you used the wrong sort of oil." He tapped his wand on the fastening and the screws that he'd taken off, one after the other, "scourgify." Then he began disassembling the rest of it. It was slow tedious work but there was a reward there, a financial one of a few hundred pounds for this rare camera in perfect condition, but also a symbolic one. Harry liked the idea of photographs and the photo-album of his new life was safely tucked inside his trunk hanging overhead in its small compartment. Not being able to afford a magical camera with the left-overs of his muggleborn stipend and not knowing how electricity would work within a place as magical as Hogwarts had left him the option of a purely mechanical camera. Contaflex 1948. Very beautiful chrome, once scourgified a few times. It would help commemorate his time in Hogwarts. He paused at the thought. Wasn't there something to commemorate right now? His first train-ride to a magical school. Reality truly was stranger than fiction.

Harry cast a distracted repair charm at the camera that he'd picked apart and cleaned and wound it up a few times without a film-roll in it to check if it really worked. Once satisfied with the quality of his repair he stepped out of his compartment. Flagging down the first student he saw, taking care to avoid green ties. Harry ended up engaging a young boy with brown hair and blue eyes who, by the lack of a colour on his robes, also seemed to be a first year.

"Hello, I'm Harry Evans." He said to the boy, who started before turning to him and smiling.

"Hi, I'm Cedric." The boy introduced himself, extending a hand which Harry shook politely and firmly. "Cedric Diggory." The boy blurted out with a slight flush to his face after the hand-shake.

"Nice to meet you Cedric Cedric Diggory. Would you mind terribly taking a picture of me in my compartment? I want to commemorate my first train ride." Harry said, at which the boy brightened up again.

"That's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that." Cedric exclaimed as he followed Harry into his compartment. "Wow, that's a really shiny camera." He remarked as the chrome was pressed into his hand.

"Just make sure I'm in the picture and press the button on the upper right corner." Harry said as he let himself fall down on his seat and lean on the little table he'd pulled up with one arm, the other lazily holding his wand to his temple as if he was thinking, or extracting a memory.

"You're not gonna move?" Cedric asked confusedly once he'd gotten into a position to shoot the photo in.

"It's a muggle camera, no point in doing that. It's gonna be a still." Harry remarked and without much preamble a click was heard.

"That's so cool, how does it work without magic and wait, where's the photo?" Cedric said as he lifted the camera up and checked underneath, looking for a photo. Something Harry would have to develop in his trunk once they'd gotten to Hogwarts. Not that he would bother until he'd actually finished the camera roll.

"Muggle cameras need the photo developed first, it's not instantaneous. Magical cameras make them immediately?" Harry asked.

"Yeah! It's super-fast. Less than a minute, no, less than thirty seconds, no, less than fifteen," Cedric said, jittering in his seat. "Wait, do you think you could take a picture of me? Nobody I know has a camera." He suddenly said before posing, before perking up and jumping to his feet. "Wait, no, you think you could do it in my compartment? I want my friends to be in the picture."

Harry watched, amused to a certain extent, how energetic the 11-year old boy was. It made sense, he guessed. It was the train ride to Hogwarts, a magical school in the Scottish highlands where they were going to learn how to shoot lightning bolts.

And if lightning bolts weren't in the curriculum? Well, that's what self-study existed for.

"Sure, lead the way." Harry acquiesced and explained all about how muggle cameras branded light reflections onto a dark sleek material.

That was how he found himself taking a picture that made him feel a tiny bit apprehensive. Looking through the small lens at the two identical red-haired twins hugging each other and making stupid faces, Cedric sitting on the ground and a girl he didn't know trying to look haughtily into the camera. Four eleven-year old children. Two Weasleys, one Diggory, one unknown, but happy looking girl with a life, a dream, a future, a family.

Two of four children, supposed to die in the original time-line.

Harry snapped the picture. "I'll get this to you guys when I end up developing the film." He said, quickly excusing himself, but not before being hugged by one of the twins.

A seemingly heart-warming gesture, until Harry noticed something struggling inside of his pocket when he reached his compartment. He pulled out a chocolate frog and stared at it as he stood in the middle of an empty compartment, only his books, his wand, his trunk and his camera to keep him company.

He popped the chocolate into his mouth. Despite having lived a very long life and having tried many abominable chocolates, this one somehow managed to be the worst one that he'd ever tasted.

It was bitter.

-/-

It was Hagrid that received them at the train station and it was a Harry that was slightly busy admiring his new clothes that went onto a boat. The robes were so breezy, so elegant. Wizarding fashion wasn't one of the things he'd expected to get excited about. But it was definitely a vibe. He thought he looked quite fetching in his new ensemble plus wizard's hat. He had always managed to pull off a hat, no matter the body. Apparently that was a spiritual quality. It was because he was too busy admiring his own reflection, per say, despite there being no reflection, that Harry found himself in a boat with the Weasley twins and Cedric.

He sighed as he forlornly looked around for the other boats, seeing that none of them had a free spot.

"Thanks for the chocolate frog, I guess. My pocket is full of chocolate now." Harry said to the twins sitting in front of him, in lieu of a greeting, accepting his fate.

"Got you good, didn't we?" The one on the right cackled, "I knew it was a good idea to practise slipping things in people's pockets." The other one said, before they introduced themselves as Gred and Forge.

"Interesting names your parents picked." Harry noted, while leaning on the edge of the boat and admiring the perfect clear sky and the reflection of the bright moon on the placid lake. "Is it intentional that if one switches the first letters of your names one gets Fred and George?

"Their names really are Fred and George. They just think they're funny." Cedric interjected.

"Haha," Harry deadpanned, "How do you guys know each other, if I may ask?"

"Oh, we're neighbours," Cedric explained, but the conversation was interrupted by Hogwarts coming into view as the boats passed a bend. The rest of the ride remained silent, everyone being too busy admiring the beautifully lit castle contrasted against the night sky. Harry felt touched, as if he'd travelled to another world and seen something not meant for his eyes. He could certainly understand the aesthetic appeal of studying magic in an old fairy-tale castle.

They eventually stopped at an underground pier and all the students exited and formed a crowd around a stern-looking older woman with emerald green robes, who had been waiting for them. "All there?" She asked, turning to Hagrid. She received a nod and off they were.

"Must be nice being neighbours, you can hang out in the summer." Harry remarked. "Hard to keep older friendships alive if you end up in different houses, otherwise, I imagine. So many new people to get to know. Don't get me started on the different schedules." He mused, not remembering that it had ever been mentioned in the books that the Weasley twins and Cedric had any significant connection.

"Yeah, Cedric's gonna be sorted into Puff and then he'll be too lame to hang out with." One twin said, "a real tragedy."

"Hufflepuff is not lame!" Cedric protested and made to lightly shove one of the red-heads, who quickly dodged back.

"You guys already know where you want to be sorted then?" Harry asked.

"Gryffindor rules!" The twins shouted.

"My whole family has been in Hufflepuff for a while now. I heard stories about the common house and it sounds really nice. I wouldn't mind. Do you have a preference?"

"Anything but Slytherin is fine, muggleborn and all." Harry replied blasely, only for someone to shove him from behind.

He stumbled forward but righted himself before he could fall. Turning around angrily he saw a pale, dark-haired boy scowling at him. "We wouldn't want you there anyway, mu-" The boy spat, paused, before growing even paler than his already pale complexion. Dude really needed a week in the sun.

Harry rolled his eyes at the situation and turned around in the sudden silence and stillness that had formed to see professor McGonagall standing behind him, glaring at them both. He huffed. Good that he wasn't impulsive enough to retaliate, physically or verbally, or else they'd both gotten detention. Harry was perfectly fine with not being locked in a room like he had that much time to waste, thank you very much. "Now, now," He said instead, "There's no reason why we can't get along, we're just here to finish our magical education. Wasting our precious time here fighting each other seems contradictory to the fact that school is supposed to be fun." He said, before taking a step towards the boy and extending a hand. The boy looked between him and his hand, confused, but couldn't back away due to the throng of students surrounding them. He looked at the glaring professor standing behind Harry and shook his hand with a scowl. "See," Harry said, "and suddenly we're all friends and don't have to waste several hours of our lives in detention because we broke each other's noses. I'm Harry Evans, by the way."

"Montague." The boy ground out.

"It was nice meeting you Montague." Harry replied and turned around.

"I'm glad you managed to sort that out." McGonagall said approvingly, "onwards then, we've wasted enough time."

"That was wicked." One of the twins whispered to Harry once they were on their way to the great hall again. Cedric seemed like he wanted to add something as well, but a well-timed backwards glance from McGonagall convinced him not too. Overall it was a sombre group of first years that eventually arrived at a great set of wooden doors leading to the great hall.

It wasn't long before the wooden doors opened with an ominous creaking sound. Truly completing the contradictory reality of a castle that was somehow magical, but had rusty hinges. It was definitely a sombre aesthetic, an impression that was immediately ruined by youthful chatter and a bright hall illuminated by countless candles.

-/-

"Hufflepuff." The sorting hat shouted and was promptly removed from Cedric's head by professor McGonagall.

"Harry Evans." She read from the scroll in her hand and the red-hair slowly began making his way to the stool sitting right in front of the staff table. He used this opportunity to observe the professors, the only unknown being a stiff woman that looked to be somewhere in her fifties and in desperate need of a proper meal. Otherwise it was as he remembered. Hagrid, Kettleburn, Slughorn, Dumbledore, Quirrell, etc. No Snape.

He smiled forlornly as he climbed the steps to the hat, closed his eyes and cleared his mind.

Nothing existed as he sat and had the hat put upon his brown.

Nothing was thought as the hat whispered into his ear, "Look, It's a nice trick, but it'll just hurt if I have to actually break in. So give me something."

Harry sighed and released his hold on the void, it probably would have been too much to hope for to have mastered Occlumency without formal instruction or learning material. 'Not Slytherin,' He thought at the hat, before thinking about how going to Hogwarts to a potentially dangerous unknown exhibited bravery and how his perpetual learning and practice exhibited a thirst for knowledge and an astounding amount of hard-work. 'Take your pick,' He thought at the hat, not really having a preference.

"Well," The hat said, out loud this time, so the entire hall could hear, "it better be, Hufflepuff!" It shouted.

And once Harry stood up from the chair, the yellow and black table burst into applause, joined by the corpulent monk floating atop it.

"The applause feels undeserved." Harry whispered to Cedric, who he'd sat down next to. "I just sat on a chair."

"It's more that the house wants the new students to feel welcome I think." Cedric whispered back, before they both turned to watch the next sorting.

It wasn't long before all the students were sorted and the headmaster, a man with an impressive silvery beard and garishly purple robes stood up and gathered the attention of the room onto himself. Dumbledore, of course, gave a lengthy speech, not anything particularly mention-worthy being situated within it. The only thing Harry paid attention to was when the man introduced the new Defence against the Dark arts professor, a certain, "Professor Twix." Her background was curiously not elucidated upon and nobody in the great hall seemed particularly excited, the applause being rather middling.

Harry perked up however, when the headmaster ended his speech with. "Nitment, Bobbsi, Smithens," which caused the food to appear. "Those must be house-elf names." He muttered before quickly securing some roast beef, caramelised carrots and roasted potatoes. In addition to this he poured a clear tomato soup into his goblet and sipped from it in between bites.

"Does it taste good? Drinking tomato soup like that?" A blonde girl, with her hair in two braids sitting on his left asked.

"Penny, right?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, sorry. Your name is Harry?" She asked, at which he nodded.

"Well, I like tomato soup, and I like keeping food interesting by switching tastes." He glanced at her plate. Mashed potatoes with gravy. He smiled. "I see you know what you like enough to stick to a single something though."

Penny turned her nose up, "Hogwarts is awesome, no parents to badger me into eating vegetables," she proclaimed, as if being a picky and difficult eater was something to be proud of.

Harry hummed and looked at her sceptically. "Well, I imagine having your gums start bleeding and your teeth falling out will be lesson enough to get some vitamins." before returning back to his meal, noting the girl getting a green tinge and gently adding a single slice of red beet salad onto her plate. Harry felt oddly proud. "I like your braids, by the way." He added, so as to not end the conversation on a bad note. The braids were indeed very cute. Penny had very bright blonde hair, half of which she tied into three braids, two of which rested on her front making sure her tie wasn't lonely. The last one ran from the top of her head to the back, where it joined the follicles that were allowed to swing freely down her back.

"Thanks," Penny muttered with a blush before diving face-first into her mashed potatoes.

Harry returned to his own meal, thinking sardonically that Penny was what his daughter would have looked like, if his chance of having one hadn't been stolen away.