Chapter 3 - Halloween (I)

"Accio Marauders' map!"

"Accio James Potter's map!"

"Accio Prongs' map!"

Harry had cast the Summoning Charm several times around the Weasley twins over the past few days and now he was casting it near the entrance to the Gryffindor common room too but to no avail.

'Looks like the map doesn't exist in this world.'

He was not that surprised. Ever since he had learned that he was not the Chosen One and that Sirius Black had ended up in the Slytherin House and that he was not his godfather, Harry had resolved himself to never assume without checking to be sure that someone or something would be like in his previous life.

'My knowledge of the future means very little. In fact, it could be dangerous. Bad information is worse than no information at all.'

In spite of that thought, Harry smiled as he headed back towards the Ravenclaw Tower. In a way, knowing a future that may or may not come to be could be more challenging than not knowing anything at all.

'Interesting.'

About one month and three weeks passed since he started the new year and things have been very dull for him. Nothing in class required any effort from him, he was too young to be playing Quidditch, and the rest of the students were simply too young for him to become friends with them. He was extremely bored. However, it looked like things were picking up as of late. The unexpected murder of Severus Snape had certainly spiced things up a bit - further confirming for Harry just how different this world was compared to his.

'There's a killer on the loose too.'

He was walking with a spring in his step as he thought of that. It was the most exciting thing that happened ever since he had been reincarnated.

'How am I going to find her though? All I know is that she's a girl and that she wore a perfume that smelled like spring, fresh. But there are over 500 students in the school currently and about half of those are girls. I can't go around sniffing little girls like a deranged pervert now, can I?'

In the first place, that is what had spurned him into trying to get the Marauders' Map: to regularly check it and see what students were acting strange by going to places they were not supposed to or wandering the corridors after the curfew. But that plan went out the window.

⁂

Thinking about the Potions Professor's killer, Harry arrived at the Ravenclaw Tower without noticing the passing of time. When he arrived there he saw three first year boys standing in front of the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. They were cussing something fierce. Not the words one would expect to hear from an 11-year-old child's mouth.

"This bloody eagle beak, fucking hell! Let me go, Michael, I'll bash this nasty door to bits, believe you me!" one of the boys, a blonde-haired one, shouted incensed.

"Merlin, calm down, it's just a door!" the black-haired boy that was holding him back tried to reason with him.

"Shut your mouths for fuck's sake! I'm trying to think!" the third boy yelled at the other two irritated as well.

"Some thinking is that! We've been here for 40 minutes! How the hell has nobody come in or out of the Common Room for so long?!" the blond-haired boy shouted again.

The first year Ravenclaw trio were Anthony Goldstein (the blonde one), Michael Corner (the black-haired one), and Terry Boot (the one that was trying to think). Ravenclaw first-year students angrily threatening to blow up the door after being forced to wait by the entrance for 30-40 minutes - that was not an unusual sight at all. Unlike the other three houses of the school, the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room did not require a password. Instead, one had to guess the answer to a riddle. For young and untrained minds some riddles could be very difficult to solve.

"What's with Anthony, who twisted his nuts?" Harry said and chuckled.

But the three boys looked like they were about to cry from happiness at the sight of him.

"Harry!" they yelled and rushed at him to give him a group a hug.

"Our saviour!"

"Merlin the third!"

"Who's Merlin the second?" Harry asked while struggling to keep the three boys away.

"Dumbledore, of course. And you're the third. Have I told you how much I love you?"

"Ew, why are you being disgusting? Goddamnit, stop hugging me!" he yelled while pushing Terry's head with both of his hands.

They all ended up laughing.

"You're all stuck by the riddle again?" he said in derision, making them look at him resentfully.

"The riddle this time is really hard!" Michael said in a whiny voice.

"Who the hell thought this was a good idea? We wasted almost an hour!" Anthony also complained, exaggerating a bit the amount of time they have been standing in front of the entrance for.

"Rowena Ravenclaw did. And it's your fault for choosing the House of the Wise." Harry said.

Before the other three started complaining again, he went to the door and knocked the eagle-shaped bronze knocker. The beak of the eagle opened and a melodious voice sounded:

Only one colour, but not one size,

Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies.

Present in sun, but not in rain,

Doing no harm, and feeling no pain.

What is it?

"You weren't lying. This is a bit hard." Harry muttered when he heard the riddle.

He thought for a while about several possible answers. It was the first and the third verses of the riddle that helped him guess the answer.

"A shadow." he said and the voice coming from the bronze eagle replied: "Correct."

After entering the common room, Anthony slammed the door with a vengeance and let out another string of cuss words.

"Pipe down you little runts." an older student chastised them.

It was almost the curfew and the Ravenclaw common room was filled with students. It was a large circular room with wide and arched windows and a tall and domed ceiling painted like a deep blue night sky with countless golden stars. The carpet on the floor, the sofas, the chairs, and even the tables were of various shades of blue too. The bookcases littering the walls of the circular room made it look like a mini-library.

Despite that it was not any less crowded than the Gryffindor's common room, the Ravenclaw common room was mostly silent. There were no people playing Exploding Snap, no Weasley twins pranking first and second years, and no Percy Weasley to scream at other students for breaking the rules. Everyone was either reading a book, playing chess, doing their homework or other activities that did not disturb the others around them. It was not that the Ravenclaw House did not have wilder and more rambunctious people too but those people kept their antics to their own dormitory or to outside the Ravenclaw Tower.

He passed by Rowena Ravenclaw's statue and climbed up the stairs to his dormitory. The first year boys' dorm was rather spacious, indicating that it had been built originally with more occupants in mind. Hogwarts' student body was at an all-time low, culminating with Harry's year when there were less than 50 new students. It was all due to the war from a decade ago. But Harry did not think about that. When he fell asleep, his mind was still full of thoughts about how to uncover the identity of the killer.

⁂

It was Halloween. A feeling of nostalgia came over him when he exited the Ravenclaw common room and a delicious smell of baking pumpkin filled the corridors. For better or worse, his first Halloween at Hogwarts had been the most memorable. It had marked the start of a long string of adventures and life-threatening situations, it was the day when Harry made his most loyal friend in the previous life, Hermione Granger.

'She's not the Hermione I know.' he reminded himself. And even if she was the same Hermione, what friendship could someone of his age entertain with a girl 30 years younger than him?

'It's unlikely she'll be in danger this year though. Neville is a good friend for her...probably better than I was.' he admitted it to himself. 'She won't have any reason to go and cry alone in a toilet.'

Nevertheless, even if she was a different person, Harry did not want to see her get hurt or worse, die. He kept an eye on Hermione and paid close attention to her interactions with her friends during the Charms class that day. Ron and her still did not get along, like in his memories, but this time she partnered up Neville Longbottom who, unlike in Harry's past life, was a rather decent student, above the average. Together with Hermione, they got their feather to float around in the classroom in no time.

In contrast, Ron Weasley had partnered up with another boy from his house, Seamus Finnigan. When he saw the two boys teaming up, Harry let out a not-so-quiet guffaw.

'That's a recipe for destruction.'

True to his prediction, a few seconds later, an explosion startled everyone in the classroom. Ron and Seamus's feather had been turned into cinders, their faces became black and their eyebrows were scorched.

⁂

"How are you always the first in every class, mate, I never ever see you study!" Anthony Goldstein whined as he plopped himself across the table on the seat in front of Harry, in the Great Hall.

"Shh, don't disturb our resident genius, his thoughts are far beyond our understanding," Terry said, making Anthony and Michael snigger.

Harry finally stopped staring at the Gryffindor table (he had been looking at Hermione to make sure that she was in the Great Hall) and glared in annoyance at them.

The three boys seemed to have taken a liking to him. Harry knew that nobody liked a know-it-all that always corrected someone when they made a mistake (he had learned that from Hermione's negative example in the past) so he had kept his thoughts to himself when people did not ask for his help. However, he had quickly become known as the best student in their year and his housemates began to ask for his help in various matters. He did not shoo them away. When children came to ask for his help, Harry felt (and acted) almost like a teacher rather than a classmate. His kindness quickly made him became very popular among the first year Ravenclaws.

Nowadays, even if he tried to sit and eat alone in the corner of the table, the three boys would often come to sit next to him, actively trying to get him involved in their conversations.

"Have you seen Finnigan? He blew up his feather again!" Michael said and laughed.

"Weasley too, he looks like a bald rooster now!" Terry added, making many of the students that were sitting close to them start giggling.

Harry had been so preoccupied with pretending that he was paying attention to the boys and secretly watching Hermione at the Gryffindor table that he had not noticed that a few very eye-catching students were missing from the Ravenclaw and the Slytherin tables. If it was another day, it would be nothing worth thinking twice about but today was the Halloween feast. Nobody would miss out on such a special occasion without a good reason.

"Oi, what's with you, you're eating as if you haven't seen any food in days!" Anthony laughed but Harry kept digging in with a speed that one would think he was at an eating contest.

'If this Quirrell is anything like the one from my past, he's bound to do something.' he thought.

Harry had just finished eating the first course when the large wooden doors of the Great Hall were opened with a bang and Quirinus Quirrell rushed in, his face pale white from panic.

"Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know!"

Yelling those words, the Professor of Defense Against Dark Arts fainted dramatically in front of the professors' table.

⁂

Guided by a ghost, Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick ran as fast as they could through the corridor leading to the dungeons. When the terrified scream of a boy and an angry roar reached their ears, the tiny Charms Master looked as if he had gotten a second wind because he started running so fast that his short legs appeared like a blur. Professor Flitwick burst through the door, into the bathroom, his wand drawn and ready to fire a spell at any moment.

However, he was just a little too late.

Fresh blood flowed and pooled on the bathroom floor. It was coming from the lifeless body of a first-year boy. Half of his skull had been smashed open by the troll's gigantic club. He was almost unrecognizable but there were not many first-year students that year. The boy's green and silver tie and his platinum blonde hair gave away his identity. It was Draco Malfoy.

Rage filled Professor McGonagall's eyes. A 20 feet long iron spear as thick as a man's forearm was conjured out of thin air and with a flick of her wrist, the large spear stabbed the troll's head and went through its thick skull bone as if it was paper, impaling it into the wall.

The troll had been dealt with easily but they had not been fast enough to save the Slytherin boy. Killing the creature would not bring him back. Draco Malfoy was dead.