The Philosopher's Stone

Madam Pomfrey examined Harry thoroughly that afternoon, and announced that he was in a well enough state to travel home.

'But I need your guarantees that he will have regular visits from a qualified Healer for the foreseeable future,' she insisted.

Sirius nodded.

'He is also to be on bed-rest for at least the next month,' the matron continued.

'A month?' Harry protested feebly, but fell silent at Sirius's glare. He accompanied his dad through the Floo back to Windermere Court. Clytemnestra and Cassiopeia were waiting for them in the drawing room.

'I'm so glad to see you awake, dear,' Clytemnestra said. Harry stepped towards his aunt, his head bowed and his expression contrite.

'I'm so sorry, Aunt Clytemnestra,' he said. 'It's all my fault.'

The Squib pulled her nephew into one of her affectionate but appropriately dignified embraces. 'No, dear, it isn't. Your uncle loved you and wanted to make sure you were all right. Any one of us would have done the same.'

Harry knew that was true, and hated himself for it. Too many people had died for him already. He made a vow to himself there in the drawing room that never again would anyone have to die to save him. Instead it would be his duty to protect those he loved.

Harry spent the next several weeks in his bed, but he was far from idle. The portraits were always around, of course, and he had regular visits from his family. Abraxas came by a couple of times a week and Cassiopeia gave him private lessons every morning. Clytemnestra took tea with him in the afternoons, and Sirius spent most of his time with Harry: talking, playing chess or cards, or going through business matters with his son.

Marius had made Harry his sole heir, on the condition that Clytemnestra be maintained at her accustomed standard of living until her death. That meant that Harry was now the owner of number seventeen, Windermere Court, as well as numerous other properties, various Muggle stocks and bonds and a fortune in liquid assets, squirreled away in both Muggle and magical banks. Sirius, as Harry's guardian, was responsible for managing his son's portfolio until he attained his majority, but he wanted to make sure that Harry understood everything that was going on with his considerable fortune.

At another time, Harry might have complained about how busy everyone was keeping him, but under the circumstances he was quite grateful. The less time he had to lie alone in his bed and think, the better. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his great-uncle's face. Marius had been the very first one to show Harry what it meant to have a family, and now he had given his life to save Harry, just as Harry's parents had all those years before.

The worst of it was that Harry knew deeply that he had only himself to blame. Cassiopeia had explained once that Voldemort had come to kill Harry as a baby because he couldn't bear the thought of a rival to his power, and now Voldemort had tried to kill him again, for much the same reason. If Harry had only been cleverer, if he could have ignored Voldemort's tricks, Uncle Marius would still be alive. For that matter, if Harry hadn't been so stupid and short-sighted as to stick the Stone somewhere where Draco couldn't get to it, everything would have been all right.

No one else blamed Harry for what happened, and that only made the boy feel even more guilty. He felt as though he didn't deserve his family's love after the pain he had caused, but they kept on giving it to him anyway, even - or rather especially - Clytemnestra, who seemed to go out of her way to make sure that Harry understood that she did not love him one whit less because of Marius's death. If anything, she loved Harry more because her husband had given his life to save him. But all her kindness and well-meaning affection only made Harry feel as though she were rubbing salt in his wounds.

Soon after his return home, Harry crept out of bed and retrieved the Philosopher's Stone from his trunk, hiding it under his pillow. He had ordered Mopsy to bring him every book from the library that dealt with it, but he found surprisingly little.

Very few had ever successfully made one, and it seemed that much of its true nature remained a mystery. Everyone knew that it could be used to make the Elixir of Life, of course, as well as turn base metals into gold, but there were theories that the Stone's powers went much further.

The Philosopher's Stone was the most perfect element, and it possessed the property of communicating its perfection to whatever it encountered. It was believed to teach its owner, conveying the heights of alchemical knowledge and wisdom to those who contemplated it, but most theorists believed that the Stone, being the purest of substances, would only convey its knowledge to those who proved themselves worthy of it. Anyone could use it to produce gold or Elixir of Life, if they knew how, but true mastery of the Stone required nobility of heart and purity of intention.

Harry began to spend some time every night holding the Stone and gazing into its many-faceted depths. At first he could only bear to look at it for a few moments, but he felt as though at those moments he stood face-to-face with reality itself, and each time he approached the Stone he learnt something new. At the same time, however, the contemplation of the Philosopher's Stone was very painful.

Harry began to see his own faults more clearly, his arrogance and recklessness. It exacerbated his feelings of guilt for what had happened. That was a large part of why he could not bear to hold the Stone for more than a short time, though he noticed that as time went on he was able to endure it for longer and longer periods.

One interesting thing that Harry discovered in his study of the Philosopher's Stone was that, had Voldemort managed to steal the Stone, it was very unlikely that the Dark Lord would have been able to use it without help. Exposure to the Stone seemed to act on the wounds of one's soul much as antiseptic on a physical wound. The worse one was infected the worse it hurt.

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