Chapter 39: A Snowy First Year

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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20 December 1991, Hogwarts

Still, Harry slowly walked to his common room, with his head filled with questions. What was the Cerberus, really, how was it born, and if it was made of magic? And why did his magical crest burn when he looked deeply into it? Harry went to bed and dreamed of giant three-headed dogs.

The term passed quickly after the infamous Quidditch game. It was odd. Harry's first two months at Hogwarts were exciting, with one crisis after another. From the excitement of attending magic school to making new friends, losing a friend, experimenting with magic in general and fighting a fucking toll, Harry's initial impression of Hogwarts was that it was a place of excitement and adventure.

Alas, this wasn't to be. After the Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Slytherin, things started to stabilize, and Harry found himself having a daily routine that barely deviated. He woke up early, every morning, to take his ritual bath. The treatment was working. His magic had adapted to the change, and after two months, Harry barely needed a bath every couple of weeks. Harry's capacity to channel magic was increased, and the Potter scion found himself relearning his old spells to adjust the power output. After almost blasting a wall with a basic cast, Harry did learn that he had to hone his control over his magic, which took a lot of time. Every morning, if he didn't need a ritual bath, he would simply train his control even further.

Afterwards, he would go to class, study to maintain his grades, and then go to lunch with his friends. After classes, he would go to the library to self-study. He had bit the bullet and chose to start learning runes. It was a tiresome and boring endeavour, but it was the bottleneck in his magical education. Apparently, it was required for most students to learn two runic languages to start working on Alchemy, Warding, and Enchanting. Harry had chosen Elder Futhark and Norse Runes, which had the most potential to be used immediately. He was tempted to learn Hieroglyphics because of its involvement in impressive wards on their tombs, but there wasn't really any other use for them, and considering how complicated they were, it just wasn't worth the effort as his introductory runic language. Aztec runes were still being experimented on, which made them unpredictable, so Harry chose to stay with the basics for now.

Runes, by definition, were languages that were used to cast magic. Harry couldn't really find out why those symbols had power and there was practically no book about their creation. It was probably something to do with the fact that magic remembers. So, thousands of years back, someone used these symbols in some kind of magical act that made magic itself remember them, which was why they had power. It was the most common hypothesis, but there was no sign of proof of it so far.

Currently, Harry was still learning Elder Futhark. It turned out that just learning the symbols wasn't enough. Oh, don't get him wrong, it was quick to get started as a beginner, but the moment you try to put a sentence together, it quickly becomes very difficult to manage. Honestly, you could get a rough idea when reading a runic text if you understood the concepts behind every letter, but writing something new was very complicated. Harry could see why mastering these languages could take years, but he was determined to continue. He had even practised every day about writing them, even if it was mind-numbingly boring, but he was progressing along very quickly.

Soon, he would be able to at least understand the Alchemy texts, even if wouldn't really try to use any of the information. Still, Harry relished the challenge and did his best to learn what he could without a professor.

In the evening, Harry would just hang out with his friends. It was nice to just destress every day with the common banalities of games and drama. As for his classes, McGonagall was as severe as ever, Flitwick was as whimsical as he used to be, and Snape was as much of an ass as he was during the beginning of the term. Quirrell kept jumping at every sudden movement, Sprout kept trying to mother them all, and the assistant professors kept being useless.

Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, until suddenly, Christmas was coming. Harry barely noticed it until one morning in mid-December, he woke up to find Hogwarts covered in several feet of snow and the lake was frozen solid.

Of course, everyone was excited to go home for the holidays, and Harry was probably going to be the only Slytherin staying at Hogwarts. Still, it wasn't that big of a deal, all things considered; Harry was comfortable with his own company, but he was going to miss his friends after a while.

The day started with the Weasley twins deciding to hex snowballs to hit the back of Quirrell's turban. If he really had Voldemort's face on the back of his head, then this had to be the single most amusing prank those two had ever done. At the image of the mighty Dark Lord being accosted with snowballs, Harry burst into hysterical laughter, to the confusion of his friends.

As expected, his good mood worsened soon after because of the blonde ponce. The Malfoy scion seemed to revel at holding something on Harry. The boy was very subdued for a few weeks following their confrontation after the crest unlocking, but he returned to send spiteful comments trying to badmouth Harry to everyone around him. He was probably trying to be discrete but it was just ridiculous.

The funny thing was that the blonde quickly folded the moment Harry so much as looked at him. Honestly, if someone else was in Harry's place and lacked his patience with the blonde, the boy would have ended up hexed into oblivion months ago. Still, it was a large upgrade since he had stopped trying to have a direct confrontation with Harry. He was cowed, even if he was still an ass. He was annoying but at least Harry could ignore him now.

However, it wasn't just him that was quickly getting annoyed by the arrogant boy. After the Quidditch match, the Malfoy scion reached new levels of insufferable and unpleasantness, where he kept provoking every Gryffindor in his sight. Even the other Slytherins kept getting annoyed at the loss of points and it was probably his father's influence that stopped any fourth or sixth year from hexing him for the risk of losing the house cup.

As expected, as Harry was saying goodbye to his friends, Draco had to ruin it by loudly proclaiming, "I do feel sorry for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home."

Harry didn't show it, but that comment did sting a bit. Harry disliked the idea of being alone, not in the literal sense, but having no one that would comfort him when things get hard, or that would help him when he needed to. It was something he ached for in both of his lives and he was left wanting in both of them. He really wanted to punch the boy in the face for his comment.

Instead, he just smiled, raised an eyebrow, and continued his conversation with Daphne about her plans for the Holidays. Apparently, the Greengrasses were going to France for Christmas and had invited Tracy's family as well. Blaise was going back to Italy to spend time with his deceased father's family. It was some kind of tradition all things considered.

Harry did envy them a bit, but Hogwarts was more than magical enough to compensate for some trip abroad, and so, he smiled as Daphne was grinning in excitement about her future trip, "I'm so looking forward to visiting la Place Cachée, it's the French alternative to Diagon alley."

Harry snorted, "Yeah, the hidden place. It's not exactly an original name, is it?"

"You speak French?" Daphne and Tracy exclaimed at once.

The Potter scion simply shrugged, "Yeah, it's not that big of a deal. I speak English, French, Spanish, German, and Latin."

They were all gaping at him, and he rolled his eyes, "I got bored when I was younger, alright?"

They all kept grumbling about unfair geniuses, but Blaise interjected, "What about Italian?"

"I guess I could learn it in the Summer. I'm focused on Runes right now, and it's a bad idea to try learning two languages at once. I'm almost done with the basics of Elder Futhark, and I'm planning on learning Norse in the second semester."

That didn't stop them from grumbling for some reason. Still, for all the chilly weather, a few warming charms did the trick to be comfortable. By the time they arrived towards the corridor, they witnessed Weasley punch Malfoy in the face. The ponce probably deserved it, but as usual, Snape came prowling and punished the Golden Trio.

Speaking of them, they started showing up at the library a lot, curiously in the recent history section. If things went the same as the stories, they were trying to figure out who Nicholas Flamel was. Harry snorted. Considering his copied book in Alchemy held a pretty thorough biography about the man, Harry knew that they were really looking in the wrong section. Flamel hasn't done anything history worthy – at least as far as the rest of the world knows – for at least two hundred years.

When Harry entered the Great Hall, he almost gasped in amazement. The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.

Harry and his friends took a seat on the Slytherin table, and Daphne asked, "So, what are you going to do while you're staying here?"

The Potter scion shrugged, "I guess I'll explore the castle, and practice some magic."

"So, nothing out of the ordinary then," Tracy interjected.

"Very funny, Tracy. But without classes, I should have more free time to finish up with my runic studies, and finally go back to focusing on wand magic."

The conversation flowed from there until it was time for them to leave. Harry accompanied them to the Hogwarts Express, and returned to the empty common room, feeling oddly empty. Here was this magnificent castle that he could explore to his heart's content, and yet, he was oddly lonely.

Practically all of the Slytherins, apart for a dozen upper years, returned home for the holidays. In his year, oddly the Weasleys were the only ones remaining because apparently, their parents decided to visit their son in Romania for Christmas. Harry had to say that for a family that couldn't afford to give their son a wand of his own for his magical education, they were really wasting more gold than needed for an entire trip instead of inviting their son home.

Harry shook his head at the thought of the Weasleys and simply chose to wander randomly in the castle. Things would have been a lot simpler if he had the Marauder's map. He didn't even know if such an artefact existed in the first place. The Potter scion realized that he knew practically nothing about his parents. Were the Marauders even a thing?

The only person who would speak about his parents objectively would probably be McGonagall. But Harry had little to no contact with the Transfiguration mistress outside of class, and he didn't know how to broach the topic. It was probably easier to just sneak into Filch's office and see their records. Kind woman or not, that witch was very intimidating.

All things considered, Harry just let himself wander off into the castle, something that he never really did before. He was always running from one place to another, trying to maintain his friendships and try to learn a certain spell. It was nice to just let go.

Oddly enough, Harry found himself in front of an open room near the library. He felt oddly compelled to just walk there and look at it properly. The Potter scion's eyes widened when he entered it. Inside was a very large mirror, probably very old, with some kind of golden frame. It had an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

Well, that was an unexpected surprise.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you for your support in these hard times.