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Harry Potter Squib Tales Chapter 21
🕑 Added 2023-10-15 17:00:04 +0000 UTCChapter 21: Start of the School Year
Harry POV
The morning came, and Harry woke up along with his roommates feeling well-rested and eager for the day.
Down to the great hall for breakfast, Harry sat down facing Hermione while Ron and Neville sat down on other side of him.
“Morning, Hermione,” he greeted her. “Sleep well?”
“I did,” she said with a nod.
“Do you have nice roommates?” Harry inquired. “Ron and Neville are with me, as are two others boys. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan.”
“Oh, Dean? From the Diagon Alley trip? He seemed nice,” she said with a smile. “Sally-Anne is in there with me, as is Kellah, Parvati and Lavender. And they seem nice so far.”
Harry nodded, recognizing the names from the Sorting last night, as well as Sally-Anne from the Diagon Alley trip as well. He waved politely to her when she came down with Kellah, and then again to Dean Thomas who was with Seamus Finnegan. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were the last of the first years to come down.
There were only fifty-one First Years at Hogwarts this year, and ten of them were in Gryffindor, making the Lion’s House the smallest for that year. Syltherin was tied with Ravenclaw for the most students at fourteen each, and Hufflepuff had the second most with thirteen.
Musing about student numbers and how classes would be conducted was interrupted by a parliament of owls rushing into the great hall, letters and packages tied to their legs.
‘I should send a letter to Ed and Sam later,’ Harry thought to himself as he watched the owls arrive and deliver their burdens.
Harry resumed eating, making sure to pile his plate high with a balanced diet of meat and fruit. And some toast, fried tomatoes, and beans, because he wasn’t going to say no to those! Being able to eat whatever he wanted, and as much as he wanted for every meal? Hogwarts definitely seemed like paradise compared to Privet Drive!
McGonagall passed out the class schedules for the week, and Harry wondered why they did it weekly, instead of monthly, or quarterly?
When he asked the professor as she walked by, she paused, gave him a weird look, and made an off-hand comment about the number seven being important or something, then hurrying off, muttering about talking to Albus about planning ahead for something.
“Ugh, Potions in the morning,” Ron grunted when he saw their class line up. He’d already been infected by his siblings’ dismissal of the class, though the rest of the First Years at the table seemed cautious and willing to give it a try.
“And with the Slytherins,” Neville mumbled unhappily, glancing nervously towards the table where Draco and his cronies were sitting.
“It might not be that bad,” Lavender Brown suggested.
“Hope springs eternal,” Seamus Finnegan quoted glibly.
Once breakfast was finished, the students in the great hall all scattered to the four corners of the school, and the Gryffindor First Years headed down to the dungeons.
“Odd place to have a potion’s classroom,” Harry muttered, Hermione and Dean both nodding in agreement, having had enough muggle education to know ‘fumes’ plus ‘enclosed spaces’ was a bad idea.
They entered the classroom, and quickly sat down at the desks. The Slytherins were already there, and Harry earned some funny looks from all of the other First Years when he pulled a pair of protective goggles out of his backpack and put them on over his face. Robes were long and sturdy enough to act as aprons and to catch spills, and they already had to wear gloves to handle certain ingredients, so all that was missing was facial protection as far as Harry could tell.
A moment after the students all settled down more or less, Professor Snape stormed into the classroom, robe billowing both ominously and dramatically. His gaze swept over the classroom, and he stumbled a bit when he saw Harry sitting there with goggles on his face.
“Potter, what are you wearing?” he demanded, his initial words replaced by his confusion.
“Protective goggles, sir,” Harry said, tapping the side of the plastic eye-covering. “To protect myself from getting any potions in my eyes.”
“You will not need them,” Snape sneered. “Five points from Gryffindor for being overly prepared.”
“We won’t be doing any brewing today, then?” Harry asked, resisting the urge to protest the loss of points for being safe.
“Off,” Snape demanded one more time, and Harry sighed but complied.
His opening speech derailed slightly, Snape got back on track quickly enough by touting the virtues of the art of potion brewing, and claiming it was the best thing since sliced bread. Or at least, that was the gist Harry got from the man.
“Potter! Since you seemed so eager to do some work today, you should be able to tell me what would I get if I added a powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” Snape inquired haughtily, pointing at him out of nowhere after finishing his speech.
“Um, that’s… a Draught of Living Death, correct?” Harry replied after a moment to think it over.
Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Where would you find a bezoar?”
“A goat? It’s sorta like a kidney stone, but wizards can consume them and have it be used as an antidote to most poisons.”
“And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?” Snape demanded.
“They’re the same thing. Aconite, right?”
Snape stared at Harry, and Harry stared back, but very carefully made sure not to look directly in his eyes, as he remembered the pain from last night at the feast, and also recalled Edward’s warning about Occlumency’s sister discipline, Legilimency.
‘Was he trying to probe my mind last night?’ Harry couldn’t help but wonder. ‘Was that why my head ached a bit when I looked at him?’
Harry didn’t feel anything new pounding against his mental barriers, but he avoiding looking directly at the teacher, just in case.
Snape continued to stare down at him for bit, before sneering and spinning around to the chalkboard where he jotted down a potion recipe and the instructions for brewing it.
“You have until the end of class to show me that you are not complete dunderheads by brewing a simple Boil Removing potion!” Snape instructed.
“Oh, so we are making something in the lab today,” Harry muttered in annoyance under his breath. Ron, who was sitting next to him, snorted in amusement, but quickly pretended to be looking elsewhere when Snape’s head snapped towards him.
Harry resisted the urge to put on his goggles as he cut up the slug that was to be added to the potion. He had been shown by Edward just how volatile potion-making could be if done wrong by brewing a Boil Cure potion the wrong way. The fountain of goo that had spewed from the training cauldron had been neat, but also smelly, and he had no wish for that to end up in his eyes.
‘Hopefully the rest of the school doesn’t treat student safety with such an off-hand attitude,’ he thought to himself as he worked with Ron to make their potion..
Nearby with Neville, the poor boy’s cauldron started foaming as he forgot to take off the slug’s eyestalks before adding it to the concoction, and Harry had only a brief moment to shout “GET DOWN!” as a warning before diving beneath his workbench.
‘Note to self, see about helping Nev with his potion work,’ Harry thought to himself with a grimace as purple-green slime rained onto the classroom.
Still, a faint smile couldn’t help but creep across his face. One way or another, things were going to be interesting here at Hogwarts!
&&&&&
Dumbledore was concerned, and for the moment it had nothing to do with the stack of paperwork on his desk. No, his mind was focused on Harry Potter, and his peculiar situation.
The problems had started when Professor Sprout had reported in, saying Harry Potter had shown up at one of the tours of Diagon Alley she gave every year to the First Year Muggleborn and their parents.
Not only that, but he had used it as an opportunity to hand in his Hogwarts acceptance letter. Dumbledore hadn’t expected that. In fact, he’d been banking on the fact that the boy lived with Muggles to send someone to meet with him.
Normally, Muggleborn would be given their Hogwarts letter along with a note about being visited later for a brief, hour-long meeting with one of the teachers. Professors McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick tended to be the ones to do so. Then, the parents would be told to meet at the Leaky Cauldron with their children for a day long shopping tour in Diagon Alley to show off the Wizarding World. This was usually when the acceptance letters were handed in. Half-bloods and Pureblood students, on the other hand, could rely on their owls to return the acceptance letters, so they didn’t need a professor to give them an explanation of the magical world.
Imagine his shock when a beautiful snow-white owl delivered Harry Potter’s acceptance letter to his desk! The boy shouldn’t have had access to an owl at all! He knew for a fact Mrs. Figg did not have one. Most Squibs did not keep owls due to the fact they had to live in the Muggle world, and owls were not a common pet there. And nothing in any of her reports showed that the Dursley’s had bought one recently.
Harry showing up to the Muggleborn meeting at the Leaky Cauldron was a surprise as well, due to the fact Dumbledore had carefully left out the note in Harry’s letter about that, as well as any information about the Leaky Cauldron meeting. He’d wanted to control the way the boy was introduced to the magical side of things.
Then, when he’d investigated it later with Mrs. Figg, Dumbledore had learned some disquieting news. Someone had taken Harry to the Leaky Cauldron and shown off the magical world already!
Erroneous Hunch Jr., the eldest son of the late Erroneous Hunch, a former Death Eater who bribed himself to freedom.
He was also a Squib living in the Muggle world.
This had confused and worried Dumbledore immensely. How had the two met? And when? What had Harry Potter been told? Had the boy’s views been tainted? Was it possible the
The only reason Dumbledore hadn’t immediately rushed out to find and interrogate Erroneous Jr. was because the blood wards around the boy’s house hadn’t detected or registered any dangers. Any magical being – from magical beasts to wizards to even Squibs – that was a threat to the boy’s safety wouldn’t even be able to find or see the building, let alone enter it.
That meant that, for whatever reason, Erroneous Jr. didn’t mean Harry Potter any harm. Not physically, at least. Dumbledore was well aware of how dangerous certain ideals and mindsets could be.
Was the boy working with the Death Eaters? Dumbledore doubted it, as they had always disapproved of Squibs, almost as much as they discriminated against muggles. Not to mention Erroneous Hunch had been dead for nigh on five years now.
Dumbledore knew Erroneous Jr. had a younger brother in Slytherin, a Third Year if he wasn’t mistaken, but he had no way of knowing if Rudolf – that was his name – had anything to do with this.
Mrs. Figg had been singularly unhelpful as well. She knew Erroneous Jr. was Squib, and where he lived, but that was it. She’d meet the boy only a few times in the last couple of years. And she claimed he had never spoken to Harry or the Dursley’s before, let alone approached their house! He lived in the next town over, after all. It wasn’t like they were neighbors or went to the same school or anything. A frown slipped onto Dumbledore’s face, and he popped a lemon drop into his mouth as he thought over everything he knew. Which was very little. And it annoyed him.
Yet, after watching the boy get sorted into Gryffindor and get along swimmingly with students from all walks of life, ranging from Purebloods like the Weasleys children and Longbottom boy to Muggleborn like the Granger girl and Thomas boy, Dumbledore felt some of his worries recede. He would have to check on what the boy was like in his classes later, but for the moment it didn’t look like Erroneous Jr. had done anything to Harry to shift his perception on the wizarding world.
‘Perhaps they’d just met that one time by accident and he had taken Harry home as a polite thing to do? Mrs. Figg did say it was late in the day when the event happened,’ Dumbledore thought to himself.
“There is a meeting with the teachers at the end of the first week to discuss things, I’d better ask them their opinions on young Harry then,” he then mused aloud, swallowing his tart candy treat.
A trill of approval rang out from a stand near his desk, and the elderly wizard smiled fondly at the red bird that was sitting there.
Fawkes was a Phoenix, and his feathers were starting to turn grey with age. Dumbledore knew it wouldn’t be too long before his faithful old companion had his Burning Day.
‘Another year or so if he follows the same patterns as before, I should think,’ he silently guessed. He then tossed the bird a lemon drop and it gobble the treat down eagerly, chirping sweetly and easing the worries he felt about the situation.
That problem taken care of – or rather, put to the side momentarily – Dumbledore glared down at the ever-present bane of bureaucracy and got out his self-inking quill to get to work.
Things with Harry Potter would sort themselves out in time. He would make sure of it.
