Chapter Nine of 'For the Game'

[lomonaaeren]

“You must be wondering what happened, Mr. Potter.”

“Well, a few of my Housemates said Professor Quirrell was possessed by the Dark Lord, sir. But I don’t really know anything other than that.”

Dumbledore paused. He’d called Harry up to his office, and bustled around, getting tea and asking Harry what he wanted in it and explaining the purpose of a couple of the instruments that stood around the office. But now he sat down and held out the cup of tea towards Harry with a weary expression on his face.

It didn’t have sugar in it, the way Harry mostly liked his tea, but he reckoned that didn’t matter too much. He took the cup to be polite and sat watching Dumbledore. Dumbledore sat watching the fire.

At last, Dumbledore sighed and turned to face Harry. “You’ll hear more about it from rumors, I suppose. Yes, Professor Quirrell was possessed.”

Harry shuddered a little and sipped at the tea even though it tasted stronger than he preferred. “Do you know how, sir?”

“Apparently he found Lord Voldemort on a trip to Albania that he took the past year, before he assumed the Defense post. Ah, you don’t flinch at the name?”

Harry smiled a little and shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Slytherin hasn’t damaged your courage?”

“Well, I don’t think so, sir, but it’s more that I didn’t grow up hearing it. So I didn’t learn to fear it the same way.”

Dumbledore chuckled and sipped his own tea. “Lord Voldemort was after an artifact I was keeping in the school, the Philosopher’s Stone. It would make him immortal, and Voldemort desires immortality above all other ends.”

“Oh.” Harry blinked. That seemed strange to him. What would happen when you’d outlived everyone you knew?

But then, maybe Voldemort didn’t care about the people he knew.

Harry tried to push aside the realization of how few people he cared about besides Ron and Hermione. He would defend the people he didn’t care that much about, and that was all that really mattered. “But he didn’t get the Stone?”

“No. Because of you, my brave boy. He had determined that it was hidden inside the Mirror of Erised, but the enchantment I worked—a rather clever one, if I do say so myself—would only give the Stone to someone who did not want to use it. So he planned to take you as a hostage and make you get the Stone out of the mirror.”

“Oh, right. He said something about knowing I had experience with the Mirror. I suppose he overheard Ron and me talking about it.”

“A dangerous pastime, but all’s well that ends well. I hope that you aren’t too shaken?”

“No, sir. I found Professor McGonagall almost right away, and she started dueling him.”

“A most stalwart duelist, our Minerva. Yes.” Dumbledore added some milk to his tea and went on watching Harry. Harry waited. He wondered what Dumbledore was waiting for. Had he put poison in the tea after all, and wanted to see how fast Harry would keel over?

But no, Harry really didn’t suspect the Headmaster of that.

Dumbledore finally sighed and said, “I was waiting for you to ask some questions about Lord Voldemort, my dear boy, about the connection between you.”

“Oh, Hagrid told me all about that when he picked me up from the Dursleys, sir. How Voldemort tried to kill me and failed, and he would probably come back because there wasn’t enough human left in him to die.”

“Yes…have you never wondered how you managed to kill him, Harry?”

“I’ve wondered, but I reckon it must have been something my mum did. And she’s not around so I can ask her.”

Dumbledore stared at him with his eyes wide and shocked. Harry uneasily turned his cup back and forth. Should he not have said that? Really, the Dursleys had talked so often about his parents being dead that Harry had got used to the idea long before he’d found out how they really died. It was sort of habit now to talk about them not being here.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and stared down at his teacup. “Well, you are a wise young man. There are truths that you are not ready to hear.”

Harry just nodded politely. He thought that Dumbledore either didn’t know, or he might know and not want to tell Harry because he was a Slytherin or something. “All right, sir.”

“Please do keep in mind that if you have more questions, my door is always open to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

So the conversation with the Headmaster ended. Harry thought it was one of the least finished ones he’d ever had.

*

“What did Dumbledore want?”

Harry shrugged, not looking back at Nott and Zabini as he walked away from the Slytherin common room in the direction of the library. He and Ron and Hermione were going to meet there before the Leaving Feast. “He just wanted to tell me how the Dark Lord came to possess Professor Quirrell and ask why I didn’t ask more questions.”

“Does he think a Slytherin would ask questions of him?”

Harry was walking in front of them and they couldn’t see him roll his eyes, so he did it. They were the ones who hadn’t thought he was a real Slytherin at first, and still thought he was hiding secrets or something.

It became obvious, halfway to the library, that Nott and Zabini were still following him and didn’t plan to leave him alone. Harry turned around and leaned on a pillar, sighing. “I’m going to meet some more of those Gryffindors you hate, so could we finish this?”

“Finish this?”

“You tell me why you’re following me around, and I say nothing or answer your questions, and we go our separate ways.”

Nott and Zabini did some more glance-exchanging. Harry wondered, again, what it was like to have a friend to communicate silently with. Maybe he would find out, sometime in the future, but it would require him to make more friends than the two he had.

Or four, maybe. But Nott and Zabini still didn’t act anything like the friends Harry had once assumed he would have if only Dudley was out of the picture.

Zabini cleared his throat at last. “People are impressed that you survived the Dark Lord a second time.”

Harry rolled his eyes again, and didn’t care if they saw it this time. “I ran away.”

“You still survived.”

“There must be lots of people who ran away from him in the war and survived.”

“Not as many people as you would think.”

Harry sighed sharply. He was tired of this. He just wanted to go talk to Ron and Hermione, and it was harder than ever for them to sneak away to talk to a Slytherin, now. Apparently some people in Gryffindor thought Voldemort had been in the school because he hoped to talk Harry into joining him, so they hated Harry more than they used to. “It doesn’t matter. I survived because of luck. Because of things other people did. Not because of myself.”

“You truly don’t see anything remarkable about yourself?”

“No.”

More loaded glances, and Harry wondered what they would say if he made a remark about how boring they were. But just as he was about to leave and go to the library anyway, Nott cleared his throat and murmured, “You’re really powerful. A really good duelist. I thought you should know that.”

“Okay?”

“You’re more powerful than me or Blaise.”

“Uh. So?”

Nott looked as though Harry had slapped him. Harry dragged his hand over his face and wished Slytherins would say what they meant.

“It means that you would normally take the power of a commander or a leader,” Nott said at last, through clenched teeth. “Naturally, that’s what you would do.’

“But I was raised in the Muggle world, and away from notions like this.”

“You won’t do it?”

“No.”

Nott and Zabini didn’t follow him as Harry left for the library that time. Harry shook his head in wonder as he walked. Who would want to obey or follow someone just because they had more magic? Why would you want to think they were better than you?

Harry had thought Slytherins were really proud and all wanted to be their own leaders. It seemed weird to find out he’d been wrong about that, too.

But familiar, at least.

*

“Wow. The Philosopher’s Stone! I’ve heard of it, of course, it was created by Nicholas Flamel and he’s a close personal friend of Dumbledore’s, no wonder it was hidden in the school…”

Harry smiled as he listened to Hermione talk about everything she knew concerning the Stone and alchemy. He was glad that he understood the way Ron and Hermione behaved. It meant he wasn’t just stupid about people.

He just should have been in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin.

A thought occurred to him, and he was thinking about it when Ron blurted out, barely low enough to avoid Madam Pince storming up to their table, “Do you think You-Know-Who will come back?”

It actually took Harry a moment to realize what Ron meant. He was so used to either thinking of Voldemort as Voldemort or hearing people call him the Dark Lord. But then he shrugged. “He came back once. So maybe?”

Ron and Hermione both looked scared. Harry winced and added, “But he shouldn’t have any reason to come back to Hogwarts because the Stone won’t be here.”

They both looked relieved at that, and started speculating about how Quirrell would be doing in Azkaban. Harry leaned back and half-listened. He was thinking of the wards on Dumbledore’s office, and how friendly Dumbledore seemed to him. He probably wouldn’t be angry even if he caught Harry there.

Yeah. If I take the Invisibility Cloak, it’ll work.

*

Getting past the gargoyle turned out to be no problem at all. Harry had been given the password—Lemon Drops—on the day that he visited the Headmaster, and it hadn’t changed. Harry crept up the moving staircase under his Invisibility Cloak.

He paused when he got most of the way up, and took a long, deep breath. He knew that Ron and Hermione would both be upset if they knew he was here.

Well, maybe just Hermione. Ron might think it was cool.

And no one else would think anything about it at all—the Dursleys—or would only think it was bad if he got caught—Nott and Zabini. Harry braced himself against any thought that might make him turn back, and kept walking.

He arrived at the top of the staircase, and opened the door to the office. The phoenix’s perch was empty, to his relief. Harry looked up and located the thing he wanted on a low shelf.

The Sorting Hat.

Harry walked over and picked it up. The Hat made a series of snorting sounds, as if it were waking up from a deep sleep.

“Eh? Eh? What are you doing? Who is it? This is the time for sinking in deep thinking, and dreaming of my next song!”

Harry lowered the Hat onto his head. He wondered for a moment if it would work with the Invisibility Cloak in the way, but the Hat gave one more snort and then settled, swaying back and forth as if Harry had pushed it.

“Ah, young Mr. Potter.” At least the Hat was whispering. Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought the door on the other side of the office might lead to Dumbledore’s quarters. “You’ve come for—help? Advice?”

“I want to know why you put me in Slytherin.”

Harry had really wanted to ask if it would put him in Gryffindor. But he didn’t get things he really wanted.

The Hat was silent for long enough that Harry thought it wasn’t going to answer. Then it said slowly, “That is where you belong.”

“I don’t have any friends there,” Harry whispered fiercely. “Not real friends. They all think I’m lying about not knowing how I defeated Voldemort! They duel me and taunt me and spit in my food! My Head of House hates me! What, did you just want me to be bloody miserable all the time?”

By the time he finished saying that, he was panting. The Hat was again quiet. Then it said, in a questioning tone that made it sound as if it were talking to someone other than Harry, “But children should be in the Houses that can help them grow into their own?”

“Oh, good, that’s very helpful. What about if I die before I get to that potential? What about that one?”

The Hat coughed. Then it said, “Slytherin is where you belong, Mr. Potter. You may not believe it, but your spirit and skills are suited for it.”

“And if I die because someone in the House kills me?”

“They will not.”

“You don’t know that.”

The Hat gave a long sigh. Then it said, “I do not go back on my decisions, Mr. Potter.”

“As long as you know that some of them are wrong, and you’re just a stubborn and stupid old piece of headgear,” Harry snarled, and then ripped the Hat off his head before it could respond and plopped it back on the shelves.

He turned and marched out of the Headmaster’s office, back down the stairs. There were a few professors out patrolling, but not many, given that it was the last day before the train went home and they seemed to assume most students would be partying in their common rooms to celebrate the end of exams. Anyway, the Invisibility Cloak made it trivial to slip past them.

Harry got back up to his bedroom, cast detection charms on his bed, slipped in when they revealed nothing, and lay back. A few angry tears crept down his face, but not many. He should know better than anyone, he thought, that tears didn’t help.

Fine. There’s no changing it. It’s another six years that I’ll have to just put my head down in and get through. And better than spending those next six years with the Dursleys, at least.