The holiday was over and the castle was bustling with activity again. Ron’s rat Scabbers darted away as always whenever he spotted Harry. Harry and his friends caught up on what they had been up to. Neville had gotten some time to interact more with his parents. Although he didn’t seem to like his extended family very much from how he spoke about them.
Hermione’s parents hadn’t wanted her to come back to Hogwarts due to the danger. And Ron seemed to have had fun, although Fred and George were still teasing him whenever they entered the common room. Although they looked a little sheepish when they saw Harry looking at them. What that was about?
Well, it was still Sunday now so Harry wanted to show his friends his new favorite activity by the great lake. They curiously followed him over to the shore. Harry took out his wand and pointed it over the water.
“This is fun,” Harry said, “Just blast your spells full force over the water. I’ve been practicing my flame spell. Incendio!”
Harry had been practicing all his spells silently, but he wanted his friends to know what he was doing. A large blast of flame came out of the end of Harry’s wand and shot ten meters over the water before it dissipated, churning the surface of the water a bit. He turned back and paused as he saw his friends' shocked faces.
“What?” He said.
“Bloody hell, Harry!” Ron said, “How did you get the flames so big! You’ve never done something so big in class.”
Harry blinked. “Why would I? Wouldn’t that be dangerous? I thought it was control practice to not constantly make things explode.”
Ron snorted. “Just when I thought you didn’t have anything else. Making the rest of us feel like slackers, you know. Watch this.”
Ron took out his wand and his face twisted in concentration. He drew back his wand as if he was going to throw a punch, and his wand shot forward.
“INCENDIO!” He bellowed
His flame came out of his wand and barely made it four meters before dissipating. Ron slumped a little and started panting.
“That Harry… was my best shot.”
Harry shrugged. “I have been practicing that spell a lot. But four meters still seems pretty good. Hermione, Neville? How far can you go?”
Neville went first. He was less confident than Ron, and he made it just over three meters. Hermione went next, and she did a little better, reaching seven meters. She was much more familiar with the spell it seemed. All three were sweating and looked tired after doing it. Harry frowned slightly. He had practiced for hours over break without getting so tired. How strange.
“Well, I thought it was a good way to practice my spells,” Harry said.
“No… Harry… It’s” Ron was panting as the group walked back up to the castle, “...Good idea… Fun just to totally let loose… But maybe… not too often.”
The other two groaned in agreement, even Hermione.
Harry nodded, “Okay. I think I will do it every day though. You can join me whenever any of you are up for it. It doesn’t always have to be the flame spell. Sometimes I levitate rocks and throw them in.”
“Doesn’t… doesn’t that make the giant squid angry?” Neville said as they entered the castle proper.
Harry looked at him blankly. “Giant squid? What giant squid?”
“You know, the one that lives in the lake?” Ron added.
“I’ve never seen it before," Harry said, "A giant squid lives in there?”
“I bet it's your thing with magical beasts, Harry,” Hermione said, “You’re scaring it away so you never even noticed it.”
Hmmmmm. That made sense to him.
“Well, at least we can practice there in peace as long as I’m around." Harry said, "Want to see some of the interesting statues or paintings I’ve found? I mapped the whole castle over break. There’s one painting of a witch picking her nose near the astronomy tower,” Harry said.
“The whole bloody castle?” Ron said, “You must have been really busy over the holidays, mate.”
Harry grunted. “Hmmmm. Could have been busier. Mapping the castle only took a few days and it was mostly practicing my spells after that.”
“Well, let’s go. I don’t think we’ve seen even half of this place yet,” Ron said.
Then they set off with Harry in the lead. Despite Harry’s best efforts, his friends didn’t seem to find it that interesting. So they ended all going back to the Gryffindor common room after a little while.
“Hey, Harry?” Harry looked up as Hermione spoke, “Did you want to start on reading that book?”
Harry threw her a thumbs up. A habit back from when he was still mute. “That would be great, Hermione. I have been very curious about it.”
And so they sat down after Harry retrieved the book and Hermione started reading the book out loud. She seemed a little uncomfortable at first but soon she seemed to get into a rhythm and spoke smoothly. Occasionally she would show Harry one of the diagrams for the spells and tell him what all the little notations said. The warm feeling in Harry’s chest grew. She was really putting a lot of effort into this. It felt nice. They ended up finishing about a chapter and a half before Neville and Ron returned and the group went off to do something else.
— — —
It was the middle of April and things had been going well. The Gryffindors seemed to be less wary of Harry, the Slytherins less hostile. Dumbledore was still under investigation by the ministry for negligence, but nothing had come of it. The minister didn’t seem eager to press the investigation too hard on the headmaster. Or at least that’s what Harry had heard some of the other students saying.
Harry had been interviewed by a few Aurors at that time to tell his version of the story on events again.
Hermione had finished reading Harry her Christmas gift to him two weeks ago. All the force spells in there were very interesting to Harry, and Hermione seemed to think so too. There was one that created an invisible force ‘hand’ that mimicked the movements of the movement of Harry’s non-wand nondominant hand. That one was particularly hard to use.
Other spells created different shapes or created a tornado like twisting force on the target. It was nice to discuss the various uses of the spells with Hermione after she finished reading a section, all of them were very versatile and Harry enjoyed practicing them. Since they were fourth year level spells they were very difficult for him and failed more often than not. But when he did manage to cast one of them it was very satisfying.
Learning the spells was especially difficult because Harry was learning them silently from the beginning rather than wasting time with the incantation. Because he was going to learn to cast all of his spells silently anyway, it was more efficient to ignore the incantations completely when he was learning.
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Harry had given Hermione some advice on silent casting as well, and she had managed it after a few weeks of concentrated effort. From what Harry could tell it was like some sort of mental block, because as soon as Hermione managed it once it was much easier for her to learn to do the others silently as well. He had also tried to get Ron and Neville to try it too but they gave up after a few hours of failure.
It was unfortunate. Silent casting was very useful, and the teachers were astounded when Hermione used it in class. Harry had always used incantations in class since that seemed to be what the professors wanted and graded on. He asked Hermione to not share his mastery of silent casting after that. People were already jealous enough of the ease Harry had in classes already. He didn’t want to alienate them just when some of the Gryffindors were finally becoming more friendly with him. Seamus Finnigan had even invited Harry to play some wizard’s chess a week ago! That was good progress even if they didn’t talk very much during the game.
Harry lost. Badly. But it was alright, because Seamus had singled out Harry to play with him. And he seemed friendly and didn’t gloat over his victory very much. Many Gryffindors were very happy when they were able to beat Harry in something since he was widely considered the best student in their class. Although it wasn't really a fair comparison when Harry just memorized everything.
Harry was pretty bad at puzzles, and always got trounced in games like chess. There were always so many options and strategies and it made Harry’s head spin if he thought too much about it. Ron and Neville were very good at chess and always had very close matches whenever they played. But Ron was slightly better to Neville's annoyance. The two played together often.
But right now Harry was walking back down to the great lake as had become his daily habit since Christmas. His breath came out cold and there was knee high snow on the ground that Harry had to trudge through. Once Harry reached the frozen shore of the lake he shook himself and took out his wand with numb fingers. It had been unusually cold this year, but the days had been getting warmer over the last week or so. Apparently one of the wards controlling the Hogwarts weather had malfunctioned and created the unnatural chill until April. It had just been fixed and things were quickly becoming warmer again.
The cold was good for his training though even if everyone else complained, as it let him practice multiple things at once. First Harry cast one of the advanced force spells in a donut around him floating at waist height at perhaps three meters away from him on all sides.
It was invisible except for the small distortions of the air when Harry looked closely. It took a few tries, but Harry finally got it to stabilize without him having to continuously recast it. For the final touch, Harry sent a stream of flames at an angle into the force donut. After a few seconds of blasting flame, Harry stopped and watched as the magical flame was drawn into a spinning ring of fire constrained within the force spell. His surroundings immediately warmed and the snow under Harry’s feet began to quickly melt. After a minute or so, Harry was warm and cozy within his heating ring of flame spinning around him. He only had to send the occasional new burst of flame or refresh the force donut to keep the area nice and heated and keep the wheel of flame around him.
Meanwhile, Harry could shoot some of his other spells over the lake. Mostly force spells to throw rocks. The spells were invisible, but it was satisfying watching the rocks skid across the ice or plunge through the ice into the lake from above.
— — —
Professor Quirinus Quirrell watched from the shadows as Harry Potter practiced by the lake. There were several other watchers as well, and many of the teachers were secretly impressed at the boy's advanced spell work over these last few months. Far more advanced than what was displayed in class. The teachers had collectively decided to wait until the boy came for help before broaching the subject. But the boys mastery was only growing without any sign of slowing even without any instruction.
And he must have a good combat sense too, based on him defeating that troll on Halloween. Quirinus had been surprised his little distraction had been defeated by a student, a first year even. Unfortunately, Quirinus was still no way close to piercing all the layers of traps around the Philosopher's Stone even after all this time.
If he could get the stone, then his master could return... The back of Quirinus' turban shifted as he felt the guest in his body stir. It spoke in his thoughts as Quirinus cast a silencing spell around himself. His master Voldemort would not wait for him to isolate further, annoyed by being made to wait by one he viewed as a lesser being.
‘Why do you spend so much time watching the boy?' Voldemort hissed, 'You should be focusing on your task. The Philosopher's Stone will return my body and let me grant you the power and recognition you desire. This is a waste.’
Quirinus muttered under his breath and hunched his shoulders so others would not read his lips,
“But Master, his potential! Surely he can be recruited to the cause if it is framed the right way. From what I’ve observed he has a logical mind, he may put aside his emotions if he has a high enough incentive.”
‘No. He is an enemy, I would order you to eliminate him but Dumbledore and Severus already suspect you, you would be too easily caught. Refocus on your task. Nothing else matters.’
“But Master…!”
A burst of pain shot through Quirinus and he suppressed a groan.
‘Don’t make me punish you again. Focus on your task. Ignore the boy.’
“Yes, Master.”
Quirinus dispelled the muffling spell and observed Harry Potter walking in Quirinus’ direction. The boy appeared deep in thought as he trudged back up through the snow, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Quirinus decided to take a risk against his master’s orders. He would offer to tutor the boy in magic, and hopefully build up some goodwill with the boy. A teacher giving extra lessons to a particularly talented student would not be too suspicious.
Quirinus would have to make a good impression on the boy quickly to overcome the stigma of the bumbling persona he put on in class. And if the boy became a threat, the offered lessons would also provide a prime opportunity to eliminate Harry Potter with less hassle when the two of them were alone, away from prying eyes.
Quirinus felt his turban shift slightly as his master Voldemort read his thoughts. Eventually after some consideration, Voldemort spoke in Quirinus’ mind again.
‘Very well, proceed. But you will be punished severely if things go wrong because of this.’
“Yes, master,” Quirinus muttered before casting a disillusionment charm on himself to blend into the background to turn effectively invisible. Quirinus waited until Harry Potter was inside the castle and positioned himself in front the boy’s path to make the biggest impression when he revealed himself. The boy was still distracted and seemed lost in thought as he walked with his head down. Quirinus waited for a moment until he flicked his wand with a flourish and became visible again, stepping directly in the boy’s path and putting on his best mysterious look.
“Harry Potter. Most impressive spellwork…”
Harry’s head snapped up and his eyes widened. His foot caught an uneven edge of a tile on the floor and the boy tripped and stumbled forward as he tried to regain his balance. Quirinus took a smooth step to the side, but one of Harry Potter’s flailing hands brushed against one of Quirinus’ own.
Immediately Quirinus looked down in horror as the point of contact turned gray and began to dissolve into dust.
Voldemort began shrieking.
‘Kill the Boy! Kill him now!’
Quirinus flinched and stared in horror as the growing decay quickly spread up his arm to the elbow. With a panicked motion, he cast a severing charm to slice off the infected arm. In one motion his arm was sliced off and his dissolving hand fell to the floor and turned into a pile of gray dust. Quirinus let out a sigh of relief until the wind shifted and the dust blew upward.
A mote landed in the open bleeding stump on his arm. Immediately the gray decay began to spread again like an infection. It spread to his shoulder and Quirinus knew there was no saving himself now. His master continued to howl in his mind.
‘Kill the Boy! Imbecile, he’s right there!’
Quirinus turned and saw the boy lying splayed on the ground, the student twisted on the ground to stare at Quirinus’ shoulder with wide eyes as Quirinus' body continued to dissolve into ash.
Quirinus raised his wand as he felt the ash reach the base of his neck.
“Harry Pot…” The ash entered his lungs. *cough* “...ter, Die! Avada Kedavra!”
A green bolt of light shot out of Quirinus’ wand and struck the boy directly on the chest. Harry Potter closed his eyes and slumped over, dead on the floor. Quirinus coughed one more time before collapsing as the rest of his body began to dissolve. His last thought was of regret that all of his hard work over this year would come to nothing...
— — —
Voldemort violently erupted from his host’s decaying corpse in his spiritual form of a dark cloud of smoke. He flew upwards through the window and quickly started flying away from Hogwarts grounds as quickly as he could. He had to get out of there before Dumbledore started tracking him down. Voldemort was confident he would live, but who knew what kind of magics Dumbledore would employ to trap this spirit form if Voldemort let himself get caught?
The mission had mixed results. The servant was unable to get the Philosopher's Stone to rebuild Voldemort a proper body, but at least the fool had managed to kill Harry Potter. Voldemort had wanted to finish the boy himself, but this result was acceptable. Harry Potter had far too much potential to be allowed to run free for too long. It was for the best that the boy was dead now before he could start interfering with Voldemort's grander designs on the wizarding world. The loss of the stone was only a temporary setback for Lord Voldemort's glorious rise to power.