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Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction based on the Harry Potter universe. All recognizable characters, plots and settings are the exclusive property of J.K Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to my editor Fezzik, as well as my other betas Athena Hope, Luq707, Mr. 3CP, Raven, Regress, and Yoshi89 for their incredible work on this story.

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January 5, 1992

The Slytherin Common Room

7:07 PM

The rest of Harry’s winter break had passed much more routinely after his conversation with Dumbledore standing before the Mirror of Erised. True to his word, he hadn’t gone looking for the entrancing artifact again, though a small part of him did wonder where the mirror was now. For that matter, a small part of him wondered why the mirror had been at Hogwarts in the first place. It seemed like an odd thing to just be lying around a school, but perhaps there was something Harry was missing.

He and Cassius had wanted to go flying again, but the late December and early January weather of the Scottish highlands had other ideas. There hadn’t been much snow falling in the past week or so, but the air had been frigid and the strong winds had been as bitingly cold as they had been persistent. The two of them had tried once and ended up retreating back into the castle within minutes. Cassius had shown Harry the Warming Charm, but it was simply no match for the brutality wrought upon them by the vengeful forces of nature.

Harry spent a lot of his time waiting for his friends’ return either in the library, keeping himself entertained with Cassius, or exploring the castle. He had gotten a lot of the latter done lately, largely aided by his invisibility cloak. He still hadn’t told Cassius about it, nor did he plan to. He had considered it but decided against the idea. Whether he would tell Draco, Pansy, Theodore, Crabbe and Goyle… that was more complicated.

He hadn’t quite decided by the time they poured back into the common room alongside the rest of the returning Slytherin students.

“Harry!” Pansy squealed upon entering the room, rushing over and chattering at him at a million miles an hour. Harry’s eyes nearly glazed over trying to keep up, but Draco saved him a minute or so later.

“Let him breathe, Pansy. Merlin only knows how strange it must feel going from speaking with only Cassius to you.”

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that Cassius is calm and quiet. You’re a lot of things, but those are not two of them.”

Pansy shoved Draco hard in the chest. “Prat.” She turned back towards Harry. “How was your holiday?”

“It was good. A bit slow, but not in a bad way.”

“Any interesting gifts?”

This was the moment his mind had been contemplating over for so long. 

He had of course gotten a number of interesting things. Some of the books — the more questionable ones, in particular — had been unexpected. There had of course been the formal letter of introduction sent by Lord Black — one Harry had very carefully responded to that next day — as well as the golden watch from Lucius. He had taken Cassius’s advice and looked into that. The only thing he could find in his book of etiquette was that watches were a traditional wizarding gift. Some lords passed them down to their heir upon their arrival at Hogwarts, while unrelated parties often distributed them for a wizard’s seventeenth birthday. Since neither of those things seemed right, Harry was reasonably sure he was missing something.

And then, of course, there was the invisibility cloak.

Harry liked Cassius, but he didn’t trust him nearly as much as this group of friends.

Even in saying that, he wasn’t quite sure he trusted them enough to let them in on that little secret. The cloak was his trump card. It was his most treasured artifact and by far the most mystical thing he had thus far seen in this wonderful world of magic.

He wasn’t quite sure he trusted anybody enough.

Then again, maybe they could help him put together the puzzle that had been troubling him for some time.

He had eventually found a book in the library that spoke a bit on invisibility cloaks. They were extremely rare things, so the information on them was very scarce. The most known thing about them was that they were often largely composed of Demiguise hair.

That wasn’t what had interested Harry the most.

The thing that piqued his interest above all others was the passage about how invisibility cloaks rarely lasted for longer than a few years. 

That did not add up.

If whomever had the sent cloak was to be believed, then it had been his father’s. He wasn’t sure for how long before his death the man had owned it, but that meant it was more than ten years old. According to the admittedly limited amount of information at Harry’s disposal, that should have been impossible.

Yet here it was.

Part of him wanted to ask Draco, Theodore, Pansy, or perhaps even Diana about this oddity.

But a larger part of him thought it was safer to keep at least one secret close to his chest.

He trusted these people — trusted them more than anyone he had ever met in all of his life — but he didn’t trust them unconditionally.

The way he had been raised didn’t lend itself well towards unconditional trust. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe what they were telling him or that he thought they were lying. He trusted them in that regard.

What Harry worried about above all other things was that eventually, they would abandon him or turn their back on him. Just like his supposed family had done in the muggle world. Just like every friend he had made at school quickly did once Dudley had imposed his will upon them.

Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that one day, he would be left alone once more.

From that paranoia stemmed a certain instinct to preserve oneself.

And it was this instinct which led to Harry deciding not to tell his friends about the invisibility cloak.

---

January 10, 1992

The Dungeons

9:34 PM

Whilst at home over the holiday break, Theodore had apparently taken an interest in duelling. That led to Harry, Theodore, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle mock duelling that first Friday night back at Hogwarts.

Draco had easily trounced Crabbe and Goyle. Not that such a thing was an accomplishment worth writing home about. Harry liked both of them; they were quiet but loyal and not quite as dim as everyone thought. Like them or not though, Harry could admit that saying Draco had trounced the pair was like saying your favourite Quidditch team had beaten the Chudley Cannons. It had probably happened, but it really didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

Draco and Theodore’s duels had been relatively competitive, but Theodore had the clear edge and Draco hadn’t managed to beat him even once. Harry and Theodore had by far the most interesting rounds of duelling, but it was really a similar situation to when Theodore had duelled Draco, just in reverse. Whilst he didn’t get embarrassed, Theodore never managed to win. He actually knew a number of spells Harry didn’t, but Harry was just miles better at the spells he did know, and Theodore’s Aegis Vocar shield didn’t hold up against spells like the Full-Body-Bind.

Harry felt exuberant after the duels. It had pumped life through his veins like blood, a feeling he had never experienced in this way before. Flying brought on a somewhat similar impression, but it was nothing like this. This was something completely of its own nature and it was something Harry greatly enjoyed.

Though as they re-entered the common room to join back up with Pansy, Harry couldn’t help but notice how Theodore seemed uncharacteristically quiet. 

---

February 2, 1992

The Slytherin Common Room

8:30 PM

The night before February’s first week of classes were to begin, all of the Slytherin first years were gathered around the fire in the centre of the common room. They had all been summoned by the prefects, all six of whom were sitting alongside them. Harry could see that Gemma Fawley — the Head Girl and seventh-year prefect — seemed to be the ringleader.

“That’s all of you?” asked Marcus Flint, a sixth-year prefect and the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. 

All of the first years nodded and the prefects all looked towards Gemma, who spoke next.

“Exams take place every June at Hogwarts, as you all know. Academic performances play a large part in winning the house cup, and those exams will make up the bulk of at least your practical marks in each subject.” She looked intently at each of them in turn. “Slytherin has won the House Cup for the past six years. It’s not a trend we want to break, least of all me whilst I’m Head Girl. 

“We know that as first years, taking exams can be stressful and a bit overwhelming. It’s not something you will have done before, so we want to make sure you all succeed to the best of your abilities. That’s why you’re here. We’ve gotten all of your grades from Professor Snape and looked them all over. The idea is that each of you will have a student between fifth and seventh year to help tutor you and guide you through the process. Almost all of you will be tutored by sixth years, since fifth and seventh years have major exams of their own to worry about. There are a few exceptions though.

“Obviously, you won’t all be paired with a prefect, since there’s more of you than there is us, but we’ve gone through your grades and decided who to pair each of you with. You will meet with your partner at least once a week. It will be on a fixed day that the two of you can discuss. If you think you need more help, ask. More meetings can be arranged, but you’re expected to meet at least once. Now, the pairings.”

Draco was paired with Marcus Flint, which the younger boy was obviously smug about. Flint had quite the reputation among the younger years and even plenty of upper years. He was a demon of a chaser and a brutal captain. He wasn’t an academic genius, but Harry had heard he did well at the practical side of magic. Defence Against the Dark Arts was his preferred area of study but beyond all else, the hulking boy just had an intimidating aura about him.

Not that Draco cared all that much about that.

Harry knew all too well Draco was thrilled to be paired with Flint because, at least in his friend’s mind, this was Draco’s in with the Quidditch team next year.

Harry was the last of his friends to be paired up, and he couldn’t help but be surprised by the identity of his partner.

“Lastly,” said Fawley, “Potter, you’re with me.”

Harry had not expected that.

He had assumed she would use her authority as Head Girl to get out of the assignment. Especially with her N.E.W.T.s on the horizon. That seemed by far the more Slytherin thing to do, and Harry couldn’t see any valid reason why she hadn’t done it.

Not that he was complaining.

She would probably be a great help, not just in preparing for the exams, but hopefully in learning some extra-curricular material. He wondered whether she would be averse to answering questions not directly related to the exam. He had put a considerable amount of work into magical theory since his lecture from Flitwick, and having somebody on standby at least once a week to answer his questions and help further his musings would be invaluable.

He supposed he would just need to wait and see how it all played out.

---

February 14, 1992

The Dungeons 

6:36 PM

Harry and the others had awoken the morning of Valentine’s Day to a completely different atmosphere than they were accustomed to. Many of the older students seemed quite touchy with one another. Harry personally had not needed to see several older boys chasing kisses with their girlfriends in the common room that morning. It made him more uncomfortable than it perhaps should, but at least all the others in his group — sans Pansy — seemed to agree with him.

It didn’t stop there, either.

There were two suits of armour standing guard outside the Great Hall that morning, both of them colourfully themed for the holiday. Their armour had been turned a lurid pink and they were armed with bows and arrows as opposed to swords and shields. The walls inside the Great Hall seemed to temporarily have been painted red.

“No great mystery who’s done all this,” Theodore muttered, glaring in the direction of the staff table.

In his throne-like chair sat Dumbledore, wearing robes of a vibrant pink that would put the armour outside the hall to shame. The old man’s eyes were twinkling like mad and he also wore a smug smile that practically screamed of how proud of himself he really was.

“Old codger’s losing it a little bit more every day,” murmured Draco, glaring up towards the Hogwarts Headmaster as though he had done him a great personal disservice.

None of that was the most awkward part of the morning.

The most awkward part of the morning had been when dozens of owls had flown into the hall and down towards the Slytherin table, depositing a mountain of mail in front of Harry.

This hadn’t been the first time a similar event had taken place.

He had been informed by Professor Snape that he had been the target of copious amounts of mail on Samhain. The professors had anticipated this and decided to subvert Harry’s post that day, since they had thought it might have been a touch tasteless. Snape had told him the mail was his to collect at any time, but Harry had never been inclined to do so. The last thing he needed was a bunch of people he had never met telling him how sorry they were about his parents just because he was famous. Most of them probably had never even met his mother or his father, and they were likely just writing in hopes of getting a response from the wizarding world’s magical celebrity.

He had gotten some mail on Yule as well, but it hadn’t been a terribly large pile. He had wondered if the teachers had chosen to have the bulk of it subverted as well. 

If they had, they had clearly forgotten that Valentine’s Day existed. Or, perhaps, they just hadn’t considered how it might affect the most famous student to ever go through Hogwarts.

To his ever-lasting embarrassment and his friends’ sadistic pleasure, it seemed as though every girl under the age of ten in the country had sent Harry well wishes. Some of them were more… personal than others. By the end of the meal, he was flushing so red he would have put Ron Weasley’s hair to shame and he was all too eager to get out of the hall when their classes necessitated it.

The group of first-year Slytherins were presently walking back up to the Great Hall, this time for dinner, and Harry was receiving no small ribbing for the morning’s events.

“I can’t believe that girl from Liverpool sent you her—”

“Don’t!” moaned Harry, burying his head in his hands as his friends laughed uproariously.

Until the fire spell sailed towards them.

Harry — head still in hands — felt a great force he would later learn to be Goyle shove him out of the way. The boy howled in pain right after. He had been struck full in the face by a spell that made his skin break out in horrible boils and his cries of protestation could be heard throughout the dungeons.

Harry felt numb. He was no stranger to having minor jinxes fired at him. Some of the brasher Gryffindors had been doing it for some time and some of the harsher blood supremacists within Slytherin had taken their own potshots on occasion.

This time was different.

This was a legitimate curse fired off in the hall with no regard for those around him.

Harry reacted instinctively.

Years of being bullied by Dudley and his brutish gang had trained a respectably fast reaction time into Harry and on this occasion, he was quick on the draw.

Still stumbling from Goyle shoving him out of the way, Harry threw himself to the floor, rolled, and got back to his feet, wand now in hand.

He recognized their assailants right away and though he was nervous, he knew it could have been much worse.

It was Travers and three of his friends, all of whom were second years. 

Harry and Travers struck at the same time, just as Draco and Theodore engaged two of his friends and Crabbe charged forward towards the other.

Travers’s spell missed, but Harry’s didn’t. Travers did manage a hasty Aegis Vocar, but the Full-Body-Bind fired from the end of Harry’s wand tore straight through it and Travers fell face-first onto the hard stone floor of the dungeons.

Theodore had managed to best his opponent as well. Draco’s duel was ongoing and Crabbe had somehow ended up on top of the boy he had charged, now pummeling him with furious blows that had the boy curling in on himself. Harry and Theodore both took aim at Draco’s opponent and the boy fell quickly.

“What, exactly, has happened here?”

Harry felt his blood run cold at the sound of Snape’s cool voice. The professor had never liked him. If he had seen him curse Travers…

“We were attacked, sir!” Harry was actually taken aback by how convincing Pansy sounded. She hadn’t duelled at all, but she sounded for all the world as if her mother had just been murdered in cold blood. “They just started firing spells. I-I panicked, but Harry, Draco and the others didn’t.”

“Is this true?” Snape asked one of the fallen boys, whose face was covered by his now overgrown hair and whose legs were stuck together.

The boy could do nothing more than nod with great trepidation.

“Off with you,” Snape told Harry and his friends. “I will… deal with this from here.”

None of them protested. It was the first time any in their group had truly seen their Head of House angered and it was not a sight they cared to see again.

Harry in particular would have been far more shaken had his mind not been firmly fixated on what had just happened.

The bad news was that now, he might have just made himself some enemies. The good news was that he had not only been able to best a second year, but he had put the prat that was Damian Travers in his place.

Whether the shocking amount of savage pleasure he felt at such a thing was worth it or not, only time would tell.

---

February 22, 1992

The Grounds of Hogwarts

10:13 AM

Ron was practically glowing by the time his teammates finally allowed him some breathing room. 

They had played a match against Hufflepuff that morning and Ron had managed to outfly their seeker and steal the snitch. It hadn’t been a quick catch, nor had it been easy, but he had done it. There had been no drama with his sleeve this time; it had just been a straight-forward race to the snitch, with Ron outmaneuvering his counterpart and snatching it, signalling an end to the game and setting Gryffindor up as the favourites to win the Quidditch Cup for the first time in what was now the better part of a decade.

His teammates had mobbed him and even in the dressing room after the initial, on-pitch festivities, there had been a considerable amount of celebrating. Ron knew too from the aftermath of the last match that there would be a long-running party in the common room that night.

He was actually looking forward to it, but his attention was currently in other places.

One specific place, actually.

That place was the forbidden forest, where he now walked, doing his best to follow the hooded figure making its way deeper and deeper into the forest’s depths. 

Ron knew the hooded figure to be Snape, for he had seen him making off towards the vast expanse of forestry before he had pulled his hood up to obscure his sallow face and long, black hair.

He had not yet pulled up his hood when Ron saw him begin making his way towards the forest. 

Ron didn’t have the most valid of reasons for following Snape, but he had justification enough in his mind.

He was a curious, eleven-year-old boy who despised the bat and considered him to be a greasy old wankstain. He had also seen his mangled leg days after the incident on Halloween, so seeing him sneak off into the forest was sounding alarm bells in his mind. 

So he had followed him, gliding stealthily through the canopy on the Nimbus 2000 the school had purchased for him months ago. He was presently sitting on a high-up tree branch, veiled mostly by leaves.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he had expected to see, but the situation’s reality certainly was not what he had been prepared for.

Snape walked out into a clearing into which a certain degree of light was allowed to stream via the canopy of leaves high above being thinner than the path that had led there. Snape had been in said clearing for but a second before another figure shimmered into existence, causing Ron to gasp. Neither man seemed to hear him, so he refocused, now even more determined to stay out of sight and not make a sound

“Ah, yes, Severus. Thank you for meeting me in such short order. I know the notice given was less than ideal.” Snape just nodded curtly at Dumbledore. “I trust you have continued to keep tabs on our mutual interest?”

“Naturally.”

“Have any of your findings been of interest?”

“Your suspicions about the cerberus were correct. It is the primary obstacle in his way and it is a puzzle piece he has not yet solved.”

“Very good. Let us hope that mystery continues to baffle him for some time.”

“You think it only a matter of time until a solution is found?”

“I do.”

“May I ask why? He is competent, but I would not have pegged him as such a threat.”

“Oh, I am far from certain. I suspect a great deal, but in truth, I know very little.” Ron could see even from his vantage point that Dumbledore smiled after saying that. “Well, I suppose I do know a great many things, but none of them directly correlate here, I’m afraid.”

“Shame,” Snape said dryly, lip curled up in distaste.

“Indeed. Do you have anything else for me?” Snape shook his head curtly. “Very well. While we are here, is there anything of note regarding our… other interest?”

“You mean Potter.”

“Indeed.”

“Not of interest to you. Not much has changed, though the opinions of some in the house towards him are souring.”

Dumbledore hummed as Ron’s brain began to work at top speed, trying to figure out what all of this meant. “Do keep me abreast of such things. I think his Slytherin sorting will be quite the interesting tale to watch unfold.” Snape nodded jerkily. “Well, we will meet again in one month’s time and see if anything of significance has changed. I do thank you for your assistance, Severus. It has been and continues to be invaluable.”

Dumbledore vanished into thin air, leaving a pensive-looking Snape and a very confused Ron behind him.

Ron had gleaned little of the meeting’s true intent, but he did know one thing.

Somebody was after whatever lay hidden under that trapdoor protected by the massive, three-headed dog. Somebody who was trying to get past it.

Perhaps it was time to set Hermione down the path of cerberus research. It seemed like a project she would be thoroughly interested in.

‘Well,’ Ron thought with an exasperated half smile, quietly sliding back onto his broomstick as he made to depart the clearing. ‘There aren’t many projects that girl wouldn’t be interested in.’

---

March 20, 1992

The Dungeons

9:08 PM

Harry had firmly settled into his Hogwarts routine by this point of the school year. He would wake up in the mornings and explore the castle until breakfast, at which point he would join his friends in the Great Hall. Classes would come next — unless of course it was a weekend — which would take up most of the day. When both classes and dinner had concluded, Harry would usually spend the nights studying, either in the library or by the fire. He was often in the company of his friends, but he frequently paid only half attention to the conversation. 

He had taken to using the fast-approaching exams as an excuse to bury his face in books. Really, the truth of the matter was that since diving much further into magical theory, he had just become far more interested in learning it. He was fairly sure at least Theodore and Pansy saw through this, but neither of them had thus far called him out on it.

The only nights of the week during which his plan slightly altered were Thursdays and Fridays. Thursdays were spent at a table warded for privacy in the library with Gemma. It had been the day of the week that worked best for her, and Harry had been agreeable to just about any time. She did help him study the theoretical portions of some of the courses, but it wasn’t what made Harry look forward to those sessions.

He had taken by now to reading second-year material in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, and Charms. He hadn’t run into any significant setbacks yet, but it was still nice having Gemma to help him with the material. She was surprisingly willing and it was really quite helpful. His professors were busy helping his own yearmates with their actual coursework for Harry to realistically ask them second-year questions. He could have asked Snape, since the man was his Head of House, but the Potions Master still usually pretended Harry didn’t exist. That was preferable to outright hostility, even if Harry was still more than a little bit bitter. He didn’t want to risk having a man with so much power over him become openly antagonistic, so he had held his tongue.

Tonight had been another one of his meetings with Gemma and he was feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

“Oi, Potter!”

Until an older-sounding voice called out to him and he froze, turning to face the source of the sound.

The boy was tall and lean — obviously an upper year — and he looked vaguely familiar. Harry couldn’t quite place why, for he was sure he had never actually met this boy before.

“Yes?”

“I heard you gave my brother some trouble a while back.”

Harry’s face scrunched up as he tried to think what the boy could be talking about. Then, it clicked. The reason this boy looked familiar was because in many ways, he greatly resembled an older-looking version of Damian Travers; the boy who had antagonized Harry back in December and then jumped him and his friends on the way to the dungeons back in January.

“He started it,” argued Harry. “He fired the first spell. I just defended myself. Besides,” he continued when he saw that the boy and his two friends who Harry didn’t recognize were not looking at all appeased. “That was like… two months ago now.”

“And I would have dealt with it back then had he not waited to tell me. I could tell something was bothering him and it took me ages to get it out of him.” The boy stepped closer to Harry in a menacing sort of manner. “I don’t appreciate people hurting my family. Potter. I’ve left you alone so far — even though I think your sorting is disgraceful. Don’t test my patience.”

Harry logically knew that he should be terrified, but he wasn’t.

Instead, he was furious.

He was basically being blamed for something he hadn’t done. It really had been Travers who had both started and escalated the whole thing. Harry had just been on the defensive, and now he was being accused of something that hadn’t been his fault.

There were very few things that annoyed him more than that.

Years of having that unfortunate thing repeatedly happen while under the Dursleys’ rule had grated on Harry. Every time it happened now, it was like a torrent of fire would rise up in his chest, sticking out a fiery tongue and licking at his innards like a snake trying to find a well-hidden exit. 

His hands clenched into fists as he tried very hard to resist the urge to go for his wand. He knew he would be hopelessly outmatched by any of these three boys, let alone the trio working together.

But the feeling was just so intense and he found the urge so powerful.

One of the nearby torch brackets exploded, spewing flames straight towards the elder Travers, whose eyes widened as he dove to the side. Harry just stood there wide-eyed, transfixed, and confused by the event that had just occurred.

Had he made that happen?

A wall of force slammed into his chest before he could come to a logical conclusion and he suddenly felt weightless as he soared backwards, slamming hard into the stone floor a moment later. The three boys were marching towards him now. Judging by the looks of hatred and fury on their faces, they at least clearly thought he had somehow caused whatever had just happened to happen.

He tried to get up, but couldn’t. It wasn’t that he was in pain so much as that his body just wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t properly breathe and without the necessary oxygen, his brain just didn’t seem to be sending and receiving signals the same way. It was like a satellite responsible for providing muggles with television, but one that was covered in debris of some kind. It still technically worked, but it was choppy and operating at a lower rate of success than usual.

Harry recognized this feeling. He had experienced it enough in his youth, usually during rounds of ‘Harry hunting’ that hadn’t ended favourably for him.

The wind had been forcefully knocked out of him.

“Protego!”

A translucent barrier of magic shimmered into being between Harry and his older assailants before they could accost him any further.

“Travers, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

Harry recognized the voice now. He had heard it not ten minutes ago; it was Gemma Fawley.

“This doesn’t concern you, Fawley.” snapped back Travers.

“I’m the Head Girl and you and your group of thugs are attacking a defenceless first year. I think this is the exact sort of thing that concerns me.”

“Defenceless,” said one of the other boys. “He made one of the torches explode and spray us with fire and he didn’t even have his wand!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Rowle,” said Fawley. “Wandless magic of that sort isn’t possible for any first year. I don’t know what happened, but that wasn’t it. Now, move along or this will be taken to Snape.”

Grumbling and cursing all the way, Travers and his group of thugs, as Gemma had called them, made their reluctant retreat.

“Are you alright?” asked Gemma, offering her hand and helping the rather small first year to his feet without much trouble.

“Fine,” muttered Harry, casting a contemptuous glare in the direction the three older boys had made off in. “I wasn’t paying attention. I was surprised by the whole torch thing and then I just got blasted in the chest by something and was flying backwards.” Harry frowned. “What was that spell? It seemed really useful.”

“Probably either a Banishing Hex or a Knockback Jinx,” said Gemma. “The former is a fourth-year spell, so I doubt you would be capable of it just yet.”

“What about the other?”

“Mid-to-late second year depending on the professor.”

“Can you teach me?”

Her lips twitched. “Not tonight, but yes; I think teaching it to you should be easy enough. I’m actually interested in seeing you cast magic instead of just talking about it.”

“Next Thursday?”

She smiled. “Next Thursday.”

Despite all that had just happened, Harry smiled back, the anger and worry over the night’s events temporarily wiped away, if only for a second.

They would be contemplated on in short order but for now, he simply looked forward to learning a new trick.

---

April 12, 1992

The Library 

3:44 PM

“Well?” asked Ron once Hermione had returned from scouring the section of the room they’d seen Hagrid looking through just a minute or so earlier. “What was he looking at?”

So far, Hermione had been completely unsuccessful at finding any bits of information relating to a cerberus, but this was one thing she did not fail at.

She held up several books, all of them pertaining to a single topic.

Ron’s brain blanked. 

No…

But Hagrid had been acting so suspicious and all of these books…

Surely not…

Surely not even Hagrid would be so daft as to raise a dragon in a wooden hut, for Merlin’s sake!

---

Author’s Endnote:

The pace has picked up dramatically and we are nearing the end. Four more chapters left to go.

For the record, I can’t wait for the bang that ends this year off…

Please read and review.

Thank you to my lovely Discord Editors ElolmJosh, Mac Odinson