Chapter 9

The room morphed to my desire and lo and behold, we had a nice fireplace with two ultra comfortable chairs ready to be sat on.

I was intently observing Daphne as she marveled the sight on the room.

"This room is beautiful! How did you find it?"

Ignoring her her question, I said, "Take a seat and we can talk."

That was a little rude... In my defence, the girl quit being my friend and I was alone for a while after that.

Daphne stared at the fireplace and began, "I'm sorry.."

She then looked at me. He eyes were red with emotion. As a lone tear rolled down her cheek, she said, "I caved under pressure from my housemates. I just wanted to fit in. But, it wasn't fair to you. I'm sorry."

I sighed and said, "I understood why you stopped talking to me. I was hurt.. I won't deny that. But, it doesn't mean I hate you for it. They must've made it tough for you to live in your dorm for being friends with the 'boy-who-lived'. Also, I accept your apology. It's very mature of you to abmit it."

Daphne sighed in relief. She thought I would deny her apology and ridicule her. Well, I can't do that. She quit on being my friend, I didn't.

"Uhm, I'm.. I.. I also wanted to asked you if we could be friends again.. I.. miss spending time with you.. I missed you."

I smiled and said, "What about your new friends? Won't they stop hanging out with you and start giving you a hard time?"

Daphne frowned, which, on an adult would look genuine but when you are an eleven year old, it just makes you look even more cute.

"I don't care! If they trouble me then I will hex them." She said, ending it with an arrogant humph.

That made me chuckle. I said, "Silly! I always thought of you as my friend. Yeah, it was one sided but so are a lot of other things. Why not friendship?"

Daphne inclined her head in question to which I simply shook my head and chuckled a bit more. Yeah, what would an eleven year old sheltered child know about complicated stuff about love and what not.

"So, how did you find this room? What is it exactly?"

I raised a brow and said, "How about this, I'll give you two years to figure it out. If you succeed, I'll do whatever you ask me to, provided it's within reason. If you fail, same goes for me. Deal?"

Daphne pouted and stared at me with scrutiny. Perhaps hanging out with scum made her wary. That was good.

"And you'll be fine with me snooping around behind your back?"

I simply shrugged and said, "As long as the snooping is limited to the room."

Daphne nodded and we shook on the deal.

Later, I introduced her to Hermione. I was weirdly nervous. It felt like I was introducing a girlfriend to my parents. Honestly, I was worried if they would get along or not.

Much to my relief, the two hit it off quite well.

The Slytherins tried to give Daphne a hard time.. only for them to be denied entry into the Slytherin dorms with a subtle and well placed charm. After that, they decided that it would be better to leave Daphne alone.

There was change in her personality. She was snarkier, a little more cunning and a lot more naughty. Perhaps, it was good that she hung out with them for a while. It had helped in refining her personality into a child better prepared to face the dark side of the magical society.

Since Daphne was already aware of the room of requirements, atleast to the extent of what I had shown her, I decided to tell Hermione about it.

"You hid this from me but you told her?!"

"Uhm, to be honest, she slithered up on me. I.. wasn't planning to tell anyone.. Atleast not yet."

'Slithered?' Daphne thought fondly. 'Still doing those.. poor jokes.. as he used to say.'

Hermione crossed her arms and said with snark, "Why is that? Am I that untrustworthy?"

I rubbed the ridge of nose and said, "No, but you have a tendency to 'follow the rules' and you would definitely have told a teacher about ny nightly escapades. You're.. Kinda uptight."

"I'm uptight?!"

"Well.. yeah!"

I glanced at Daphne for help but she simply bit her lips and turned away. Seemed like she was enjoying it.

"If I'm uptight then.. then you're.. you're mean and rude!"

I blink and said, "Well, yeah. Why are you staying the obvious?"

"Argh!"

Daphne and I had our fun teasing and annoying her.

Ah.. fun times..

(AWU)

The year end was close. So, Quirrellmort was going to attempt to steal the philosopher's stone. Should I intervene? Well, I could.. Eliminate the wraith and the threat is gone.. kinda. But, there was no way for me to destroy all of his horcruxes. For one, the horcrux in Bellatrix's vault was inaccessible for me. I could try to simply teleport directly to it and get the cup.

'Damn.. My powers are perfect for stealing stuff. Should I steal the Kohinoor? Would be fun... Another time, perhaps.'

All I had to decide was if I should play god and let things play as they did in canon, letting a lot of people die at the hands of the death eaters and Voldemort. Or, finish the mad man off right away and live my life in peace.

'Who am I kidding? If Voldemort dies now, his followers who escaped punishment would remain free. Pettigrew will probably run away once the mark disappears. Sirius will remain imprisoned and die in Azkaban. Malfoy will remain as the main power of magical Britain and start his own crusade, driving the magicals further away from the rest of the world. The end result, extinction of all magicals. Humans will surely discover the truth one day. I cannot let that happen.'

Why did I care? Because I had a conscience!

Both choices had serious repercussions.

'Kill him in the fourth year? That seems to be the most acceptable option. Until then, I'll just find and destroy all of his horcruxes.'

With my decision made, I sat back as Quirrellmort tried to obtain the stone but to no avail. Dumbledore had charmed the mirror in such a way that only that would be able to get the stone who has no desire to use it. Despite how much he tried or how strong his mental shields were, Voldemort could not fool the mirror. He tried for hours to get the stone and was almost driven mad.

Dumbledore arrived and found Quirrell in front of the mirror and they dueled. Without his full power, Voldemort was unable to best the old behemoth of a wizard and flew away in his spectral form.

Quirrell was fully drained off his magic and life force. Despite Dumbledore's best efforts, the man was reduced to dust.

It was a fun year for me. I bullied the Gryffindor Quidditch team and became their coach, became best of friends with two lovely girls and learnt a lot of stuff that I couldn't in my previous life due to different career choice. I had finished twelfth grade level of mathematics and advanced physics while I was able to brush up on my chemistry.

Also, I learnt japanese. My life long dream had been realized!

All that was left was to try and reverse the damage I had done to the Dursleys. It was going to be a long summer.