Chapter Text
The first few days of classes had been exceedingly boring, magic for first years was mind numbingly simple.
Harry had over forty years of magical knowledge in her head courtesy of Tom and Voldemort, the first year curriculum was decades below her in comparison to that.
Still, she mentally gritted her teeth as she smiled at the teachers and spoke with a soft yet confident voice whenever a question was asked.
They were all thrilled with her performance, both with theory and practicals. She was the first to get every spell in class correct and always had an exceedingly well thought out answer to questions that went deeper than just the theory from the first year books.
By the end of the week they had deemed her a prodigy. Harry took it all in stride, it wasn't the first time she had been labelled as such. Tom had been the same.
The boring monotony of a Hogwarts education was broken by their Defence class, or rather, the man who taught it.
Professor Quirrell was… odd. There was something about him that was out of place, like a shadow in the corner of your eye, always elusive whenever you looked right at it.
His stuttering was fake, that much she could tell. It was too practiced, too precise, always dragging out the same letters in the exact same way.
That elicited the question of why.
Why did a man like him want to be seen as a useless fool? What could he possibly gain from it?
Harry paid more attention to the professor than the lesson itself. At times she felt him pressing against her Occlumency shields, trying to gain entrance into her mind, but her shields were as strong as ever, and the intruder got nowhere in his attempts.
What she found intriguing however, was the fact that the Legilimency attacks always happened whenever Quirrell's back was turned, and yet she was absolutely sure it was him.
It was well known that for Legilimency to work there needed to be eye contact, no matter how brief. So how did Quirrell do it? The muggle saying of having eyes in the back of one's head was the first thing that struck her, but she crossed it out as impossible. Well, no, not impossible, magic could do the most wonderful and bizarre things, but it was highly unlikely.
She found it incredibly interesting. The mystery of the otherwise dull man quickly became her new obsession. She wanted to know what lurked beneath the surface of that clumsy and scared exterior, for it was nothing more than a mask, a well crafted one, sure, but still a lie all the same.
Her peers didn't notice, which wasn't all that surprising, they were children, some dumber than others.
Aside from Defence, Potions classes were another interesting part of her week purely because of their professor.
Snape ignored her in the classroom, never once acknowledging her superior brews and techniques, in fact, he refused to even look at her. It was as if he was still torn up with fresh guilt about her mother's death and didn't know what to do about it.
Harry found it curious. She wondered if she could work it to her advantage.
Even several weeks in, the situation with the girls in her dorm had not gotten much better, they were still unnerved by her presence and preferred to keep their distance. It was almost as if they thought Harry had cheated her way into the girls' dorm.
Of course, her more masculine fashion sense and mannerisms didn't exactly help matters, but she felt confident that she would be able to win them over with time. And if not, well, she wasn't exactly looking for friends.
Hagrid had not invited her back to his hut. Harry figured the biggest reason was that he had no more ‘helpful’ clues to conveniently give away. It was so very clear that Dumbledore wanted Harry to play to his tune, using the simpleminded Hagrid to get her intrigued in the mystery.
And he had succeeded.
Theo had silently slotted himself into her study sessions in the library. Harry liked him much better than Tom had liked Thaddeus, mostly because Theo was quiet and unobtrusive.
"What do you think it is?" Theo murmured softly, turning the page of his book.
They had been hunting for clues to Dumbledore's plot.
"An alchemical item or component of some kind," Harry answered absentmindedly. "That would be my best bet considering Nicholas Flamel is involved. Dumbledore was his apprentice when he was younger."
The question just remained what kind of item it was. It had plagued her mind ever since the name tumbled out of Hagrid's lips.
"Nicholas Flamel, the famous alchemist and creator of the Philosopher's stone," she muttered to herself, remembering a line from a past book.
Harry stopped dead in her tracks, eyes widening into green marbles.
Surely it couldn't be?
She was out of her seat in an instant, Theo entirely forgotten as she rushed over to the tall bookshelves stacked from floor to ceiling with reading material.
She found the book she was looking for with minimal effort, knowing exactly where it should be. It was there, sitting innocently among the rest of the big tomes, calling her a complete imbecile for her lack of foresight.
Theo had caught up to her after hurriedly packing their things together. His breathing was laboured and he looked at her with a clear confusion, having entirely missed her revelation.
"What did you find?"
Harry didn't answer. Her eyes devoured the text in front of her for any mention of Flamel, and sure enough, there it was.
The Philosopher's stone.
No. Dumbledore couldn't have hidden it away at Hogwarts, right? That would be foolish beyond belief. This was a school, not a vault.
But what if…
Harry's mind was spinning with possibilities, and that tiny kernel of Tom that would forever be lodged in her, hungered for the prospect of prolonged life.
The Flamels had already lived for hundreds of years, proof that the stone worked as it should. If she could steal it from right underneath Dumbledore's nose, that would make it hers.
Harry was so transfixed by the very thought that she didn't notice Theo reading 'Hogwarts a History' over her shoulder.
He gave her a wary look, seeing the glimmer of greed and desire that shone in her eyes. It didn't bode well. He just hoped she wouldn't be getting them in trouble.
~
For those who did not fear the monsters lurking within the darkness, the Forbidden Forest was the ideal place to gather fresh, and oftentimes rare potions ingredients.
Harry had no such compunctions. Having been a Dark Lord in the past, a few wild creatures were not enough to scare her away from getting what she wanted.
It seemed that charming Snape in the same way Tom had charmed Slughorn would be a fruitless endeavour, but that did not mean that Harry accepted anything less than perfection with her brews and essays.
That was part of why she had ventured out into the dangerous forest at the stroke of midnight, using only the moon's gentle rays and the light of her wand to guide her.
She was there to replenish her stock of potions ingredients, and some in particular could only be found at this hour.
There should be a small glade nearby that she remembered. Tom hadn't been there since his school days though, so she hoped it was untouched still. A lot could change in over forty years.
She climbed over gnarly tree roots and thick, brambly bushes that tugged on her black, wool robe like greedy little fingers.
She spotted silvery strands of unicorn hair clinging to one of the bushes. They shimmered in the moonlight, as beautiful now as they were when attached to the creature itself. She turned around and added them to her growing collection of things that might become useful.
Next came a handful of baneberries and several aconite sprigs, followed by an obscene amount of dittany. The latter would be useful for healing potions, something she had a feeling would be necessary to have on hand in the future.
Before she managed to get to the glade, there came a sharp snap from her right. Harry spun around on the spot, green eyes peeled for a threat. Her wand was raised high in alert, ready to strike should she need to.
The light of her wand was reflected in four sets of round eyes. They stared ominously at her, inset in the face of a massive, black spider the size of a rottweiler.
A trickle of fear crept down Harry's spine as they stared at each other.
It was an acromantula.
But it was too small to be the one Hagrid had kept as a pet when he was younger, however that did not make it any less dangerous.
It clicked with its mandibles, sizing her up, and for a moment both of them stood frozen, too wary to move, but then, something broke the trance and the acromantula launched itself at its perceived prey.
Harry was ready before it could reach her. She slashed her wand in a downwards curve, hitting the spider full on with her curse.
It screamed, a long, high pitched shriek that startled the crows in a nearby tree, sending them flying away with a ruckus of caws and flapping wings.
It died painfully, its legs twitching as they pulled up tightly against its opened belly. Blood and viscera covered the grass below, looking almost black in the dim light.
Harry watched with zero remorse as the beast suffered its final death throes, its cries growing weaker and weaker until it went completely silent.
She didn't harbour a hatred for spiders, nor even a particular dislike, she had lived rather amicably with them in her cupboard after all, but there was also no mercy within her heart for those who tried to attack her.
The acromantula had brought this upon itself, she thought, cautiously stepping closer and giving it a nudge with her leather boot. It didn't so much as twitch.
As she studied it, her eyes paused briefly at its glistening mandibles, and she was reminded that acromantulas had a rather potent venom that could be used to create potions and poisons alike.
She managed to fill two decently sized phials before it ran dry, which was less than she'd expected for an acromantula its size, but still a good haul.
The answer to the low amount laid only a few feet away.
It was a dead cat. The spider must have bitten it earlier, intending to eat it when Harry so rudely interrupted.
Harry crouched down next to it, running her fingers through its soft, brown fur. It was already cold, having passed hours ago. An idea popped into her head then, and the more she let it fester, the stronger the impulse became.
She was all alone in the forest, nobody would be there to witness her experimenting. She bit her lip, considering it for the briefest of moments before uncertainty bled into determination.
Harry had been born with gifts that Tom could only dream about, it would be a waste if she did not make use of that.
All thoughts about potions ingredients were forgotten in favour of her new task.
She spent hours in the forbidden forest, practising on both the cat and the acromantula.
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, or so the saying went. In this case, it was Harry's satisfaction, or rather, her necromancy, if one wanted to be pedantic.
The cat looked at her with a hint of intelligence in its dull eyes. It moved stiffly and unnaturally, rubbing up against her legs in a gesture of affection.
The acromantula laid forgotten off to the side. A few moments earlier it had been scuttling about without a care in the world, completely oblivious to the fact that its intestines were hanging out, being dragged along the forest floor as it moved.
When Harry withdrew her powers, it collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, and it hadn't moved since.
"You belonged to someone, didn't you?" Harry murmured, giving the reanimated cat a few scritches behind its ear.
"It's almost a shame that I can't let you return."
Or maybe she could...
She stared at it thoughtfully. If the cat could move normally, nobody would be able to tell that it had been dead just hours earlier.
Everything hinged on whether the effects of rigor mortis would let up completely, and that the spider's venom had not caused any permanent damage
She slowly retraced her steps through the forest, allowing the cat to wander by her side. The terrain was inhospitable, but Harry knew where she was going.
The cat's condition seemed to improve the closer to the castle they got, and by the time she could spot the lights coming from Hagrid's hut off in the distance, its gait was completely natural.
Harry left the Forbidden Forest with a smirk of satisfaction on her lips and a resurrected cat by her side, considering it a highly successful night.
The reanimated cat went back to its previous life, or so she assumed, because she hardly saw it again. She thought she spotted it every now and then, but it was gone just as quickly as it had arrived, and it might as well have been her imagination playing tricks on her.
She didn't think much of it. Surely the owner would be glad to have their pet back, even if it was a little bit different than before.
~
It did not go unnoticed by anyone how Snape's temper was getting shorter and shorter the closer to Samhain they got.
He was grieving. Technically Harry should be as well, but she hadn't known her mother like Snape did.
To her Lily was more of an idea than a person. She had never faced Voldemort in person aside from the night he killed her, so Harry didn't have any memories of her like she did her father who had been on the front lines.
Today they were creating the wiggenweld potion. As usual, she had partnered with Theo, despite Draco actually being a touch better at the practicals than him.
He had whined about not being able to partner with her on several occasions, but tended to pipe down as soon as she gave him a sharp look of annoyance.
Snape still ignored Harry's presence entirely in potions class, and everywhere else really. He pretended like she didn't exist, and it was never more obvious than when in class.
They shared it with the Gryffindors, which was the dumbest executive decision in all of history given the volatile and outright dangerous nature of potions. That, combined with the constant warring between the two houses was a recipe for disaster.
It was a miracle that nothing worse than a melting cauldron had happened yet. Harry hoped it would remain that way but she wasn't particularly optimistic. The rivalry was much worse now than it was in her days as Tom.
"Go on, I'll hand in our potion. I need to speak with the professor anyway," Harry told Theo at the end of class.
He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Theo murmured, eyeing the professor dubiously.
Everyone was packing up and cleaning their stations, eager to put some distance between themselves and the foul mood Snape was in. Harry on the other hand was planning on gaining some time alone with him, no wonder Theo thought she was barmy.
She reassured him and waited until the room was empty except for her and Snape.
He had his hooked nose buried in student essays, furiously correcting them with red ink. The quill scratched so hard against the parchment that Harry worried it might tear.
"Professor Snape, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute?"
Harry kept her voice soft and gentle as she placed the potion phial on the desk with the others.
Snape's head snapped up and his shoulders grew tense when he realised she was the only student left.
"Move along, Potter," he answered, not once looking directly at her.
"I need to speak with you professor, you are my Head of House," she continued, pretending to be nervous and uncomfortable.
"Tomorrow is samhain, the day my parents were murdered. Did you know that I remember everything that happened that night? It's the only memory I have of my mother actually," Harry murmured, pausing for dramatic effect.
She watched his reaction through her lashes, and if anything he seemed to freeze in place, eyes widening in horror.
"Voldemort asked her to step aside, three times actually, but she refused. I… I don't understand why. I thought he wanted to kill all of us?"
Harry added a little tremble to her voice. She sounded lost and miserable, expertly playing on Snape's feelings.
The potions master drew in a shaky breath when he heard that little tidbit.
"I don't even have a picture of her, my aunt Petunia certainly didn't keep any around the house," Harry sighed. "If it wasn't for that memory I wouldn't even know what my mum looked like."
She pretended to fidget with the hem of her school robe. "Sorry… I don't mean to bother you, sir, it's just… tomorrow is that day and I wanted to ask if I could skip the feast. Surely you can't expect me to be happy and celebrate the day with everyone else, professor?”
She looked at him with big eyes full of pain and crocodile tears.
Snape's already pallid skin had drained of all colour and he looked sick to the core. He was stiff and uncomfortable, but at least he finally dared to look at her.
His dark eyes stared at the small, malnourished girl that had gone through so much because of him, and the guilt he'd already been harbouring grew tenfold.
He had tried to ignore her presence at Hogwarts, pretending that she had nothing to do with him, but that time had passed. Now he was forced to face the product of his past mistakes, whether he wanted to or not.
He licked his lips and swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise.
"Very well, Ms Potter, I will allow you to skip the feast on the condition that you remain within the common room."
"Thank you, professor."
Harry gave him a wobbly smile and wiped away the tears with her sleeve.
Harry left with a sense of triumph, feeling like a well-fed cat that had just caught a struggling bird within her jaws, only to release it momentarily so she could resume the hunt at a later date.