– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 13 – – – – –

The next morning Harry got up leisurely. Most of his dorm mates were scrambling frantically around the room, trying to get prepared and worrying about being late for breakfast, and then late for class. One of them, Corner, kept worrying endlessly about getting lost in the insane maze of a castle, and missing all of his classes.

Harry ignored their scramble and left after all of them, and yet he still made it down to the Great Hall first. Of course, this was entirely because he knew every shortcut the castle had to offer after having spent most of his years at Hogwarts searching very corner of the castle for the Chamber, while the other boys didn't have a single bloody clue where anything was.

Harry got his schedule from his head of house who was amusingly enough, a half-goblin wizard named Filius Flitwick. Although it was possible he was a quarter goblin... Harry really didn't know or care. What was obvious was that he was very short.

Harry and the other Ravenclaws also had Professor Flitwick for their first class of the day – Charms. It was an exceedingly boring class since it was nothing more than introductions, but Harry controlled his urges to yawn, or zone out. It was all theoretic discussion about the most basic, fundamental ideas behind charms magic. Basically, right where you would expect to start with a bunch of eleven-year-old's who aren't supposed to have ever performed magic before in their entire lives.

All of Harry's other classes followed the same pattern, but he never outwardly displayed his incredible boredom, or the cynical little remarks he had on constant loop in his mind as he silently snarked about his classmates, the professors, the textbooks, the utterly stupid approach so many people took to understanding magic simply because they were too thick-skulled to actually feel any of it and have to fall back on pathetic little crutches and tricks.

No – outwardly he was the model student. He was polite and charming. He answered a lot of questions, but never came off as a no-it-all. He didn't raise his hand in an obnoxious, over-eager way... like that ridiculous muggleborn girl, Granger, with her barmy hand-waving, and her inability to keep her bum in her seat. Really, who was really so eager to answer these stupid, simple questions, to literally jump out of their seat and flail their arm around like a lunatic? Granger was, apparently.

At the end of Harry's first day, he sent a letter off with Hedwig to Lucius, asking his opinion on Severus Snape. Harry had no plans of confiding everything to the man, like he had with Lucius – Lucius was special. He was a Malfoy. He was smart and well connected. Harry had been researching, watching, and carefully debating the Death Eaters he knew about for years before he had finally made up his mind to trust Lucius. So no – he wasn't going to confide entirely in Snape, but he still wanted to know if he should consider the man a threat or not.

Lucius' response came with Hedwig in the following morning's owl post. Harry removed it from his owls leg, fed her some bacon, and quickly stowed the letter away to read when he was somewhere more private. He didn't have potions until the next day, so he figured he was safe.

Lucius' letter suggested caution, in regards to 'Severus'. According to the elder Malfoy, Severus had been a member of the inner circle during the last war, and he and Severus and been quite close. They had been good friends during Hogwarts, and had stayed so for many years, afterward. He had even made the Potions Master the godfather of his son Draco. He trusted Severus about as far as he ever trusted anyone... which probably wasn't really that far, in all honesty.

However, despite all of this, Severus had been under Albus Dumbledore's thumb for the last decade. He also knew that Dumbledore had kept Severus out of Azkaban, stating that while Severus was a marked Death Eater, he had been a spy for Dumbledore's Order, and had been aiding in taking the Dark Lord down.

Lucius was not entirely sure what to believe. Severus had insisted that he was playing double-agent, and keeping himself in a useful position for if the Dark Lord ever returned, while taking advantage of the situation to stay out of prison and secure himself a comfortable job.

It was no wonder the man was Head of Slytherin house. He was the quintessential Slytherin.

Lucius included as a post script that he was fairly sure that Severus held a person grudge against Harry's father, and would likely not treat him well.

–

When Wednesday's Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw Potions class arrived, Harry came to the conclusion that Lucius' addendum was a tremendous understatement. The level of open, hostile, disdain, that Severus Snape showed to Harry, was almost shocking. Harry wondered what the hell his father had done to this man to garner so much seething rage.

Harry almost instantly decided to take a passive-aggressive approach with the man. The class had started amusingly enough. Snape had exploded into the previously silent, creepy, dungeon, with his black robes billowing behind him all dramatic-like. This along was enough to get the Hufflepuffs shaking in their boots.

The Ravenclaws weren't honestly that much better, but at least more of them looked more wary than scared. Harry just sat in his seat and watched the man's antics with a blank face. During roll call, Snape had paused at Harry's name, sneered disdainfully, and remarked on Harry's 'celebrity status' with an obvious layer of thick, gooey, sarcasm. Again, Harry merely blinked at the man, blankly. He saw no use in giving the man what he wanted – which was to get under Harry's skin. He no doubt was trying to get him riled up.

He and Snape held each others, cold, empty gazes for several long seconds. Surprisingly enough, Snape faltered first. Some emotion flickered into his eyes and he quickly looked away and resumed the roll.

About a minute into an introductory lecture, that Harry was positive was rehearsed in front of a mirror, and probably the exact same with every class of first years the man ever taught, Snape struck at Harry like a snake.

"Potter! What would I get if I mixed the powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry blinked up at the man and rose a single eyebrow with a look that seemed to ask 'Really?' with a mild air of amusement. Snape's eyes narrowed and he was about to sneer – no doubt remarking that Harry didn't know, when Harry spoke.

"I believe that would be the Draught of Living Death, Sir."

Snape's mouth shut slowly and he looked honestly surprised.

"Ah, yes. I mustn't forget I'm dealing with a Ravenclaw here. Fine, Potter. Where would you look if I asked you to find a bezoar?"

"A goat's stomach."

Snape's eyes narrowed slightly further. "What is the antidote to the swelling solution?"

"The deflating draught."

"Name one potion armadillo bile is used in!"

"The wit-sharpening potion – Sir."

"Alright, name two other ingredients used in that potion."

"Ginger root and ground scarab beetles."

"Are you cheating, you little brat?" Snape snapped.

Harry still just looked at him with a blank face, blinking innocently up.

"I can't imagine how I could possibly have cheated on such a random assortment of questions. The explanation as to how I answered them is actually rather boring and simple."

"Is that so?" Snape replied in a condescending voice.

"Yes, sir. You see, I have an eidetic memory. I simply memorized the textbook."

Snape's eye twitched in irritation. "Yes, well memorized facts will not make up for an utter lack of talent. Lets see where this perfect memory of yours takes you during practical classwork; shall we?" Snape spoke in a deathly quiet, threatening sort of voice. Harry didn't bat an eyelash. He merely held the man's gaze with an unfaltering stare of his own.

Snape's eyes narrowed as they stared into Harry's brilliant green depths. And then Harry felt it. A subtle, flutter, against his mind. The corner of his lips turned up, but he managed to squash any other outward reaction. So the man was a Legilimense, hmm?

Harry allowed him entrance to his mind without the slightest fight. After all, it would be odd for an eleven year old to have powerful Occlumency shields, wouldn't it? Of course, what Snape would find there was actually even more odd than that, but Harry couldn't quite find it in himself to care.

He observed as Snape slipped inside his mental scape and came up short upon discovering it totally and utterly... empty. There wasn't a single thought there. Not a single memory stored. Nothing. It was likely the same sort of thing one would come across if they tried to use Legilimency on someone who had been kissed by a Dementor. Of course, the reality was that Harry simply didn't use his 'normal' mind to do all his thinking. It ran the standard operations of his body, but not any of his conscious thoughts. Harry found that it was too inefficient to rely on the bio-chemical brain of his human body to try and process the mountain of information that his astral mind was able to store with perfect clarity. So his thought processes also took place in his astral mindscape. Without a filter separating his astral and physical bodies, there was nothing keeping him from doing so. It was something he'd started doing early on in his previous life, once he'd removed his filter.

It had the added bonus of preventing any mind arts from ever affecting him. He was immune to any and all memory charms – even the most powerful Oliviate couldn't touch him, because the magic was aimed at the bio-chemical memories of a human mind, not the astrally-stored memories that he used. Compulsion spells were another branch of magic that he was immune to since it also attacked the physical mind. It was a brilliant side-effect that he hadn't even intended for, but was grateful for nonetheless.

Snape's presence retreated from Harry's mind and Harry watched as the man stepped back, his brow furrowed in confusion. Harry couldn't help the widening of his smile. The cheshire-like grin that found its way onto his face, was probably a dead give away that he had been aware that Snape had been in his mind, but using Legilimency on someone without permission was illegal, and using it on a minor was doubly so. It wasn't like Snape could call him on it without revealing what he'd just done. Snape's eyes widened before narrowing dramatically in suspicion.

Snape finally snapped out of his stupor and turned his venom on the rest of the class for a moment before waving his wand to bring a set of instructions to the black board, and barking at the students to turn to page five and begin brewing a boil removing potion.

– –

Harry was establishing a cordial relationship with his Ravenclaw year-mates, but wasn't making any efforts to get close to any of them. They all quickly came to respect his intelligence and professional manor in their classes. They were all Ravenclaws, after all, and they could all appreciate someone who was serious about their studies.

The Ravenclaws had Charms with the Slytherins, and they had the class twice a week – Monday, and Thursday. On Thursday, they were to do their first practical lesson and were told to pair up. Harry went over and sat with Draco, earning him some incredulous stares from just about everyone in the room. Harry acted oblivious to the attention and focused on Draco and the classwork. Draco just grinned, smugly, at some of the gaping mouths.

–

The Ravenclaw Prefects posted notices on the common room bulletin board for organizing study groups with the new first year. It was apparently a Ravenclaw tradition that the Prefects help the younger students get into groups and get into the habit of studying with their classmates. Harry ended up in a study group with Su Li, Terry Boot, and Padma Patil. They worked out a schedule to meet twice a week in the Library. Harry asked them how they'd feel if he were to invite a couple students from other houses. They'd been a bit surprised but none had protested.

At the first meeting they held during the second week of school, Harry invited Draco Malfoy, Theo Nott, and Daphne Greengrass from Slytherin to join them. Nott and Greengrass hadn't exactly been eager, but Draco had insisted and that was apparently enough.

The Ravenclaws were hesitant for the first few minutes, with the unexpected introduction of tge Slytherin students, but once classwork was started, they refocused on their tasks and forgot all about their earlier apprehension. Su Li and Daphne even got along pretty well. Harry had lucked out in that his study group of Ravens didn't include a single muggleborn. The Slytherins would have no doubt put up more of a fight if it had. Su and Padma were both from old pure-blood families, while Terry was a half-blood. None of the Slytherins commented on his supposed 'lesser' blood status – after all, Harry himself was a half-blood, and it was obvious that Draco had told Nott and Greengrass to play nice with Harry.

They probably thought it was all some political scheme on Draco's part. No doubt, they were under the impression that Draco's father was having his son get close to the Boy-Who-Lived for nefarious reasons. It didn't matter what they believed, in order to get them to start coming. The important thing was to start getting some more contacts.

–

Friday morning of the second week of classes, the moment after sitting down to breakfast, Hedwig flew in along with the rest of the post owls and landed on the table in front of Harry. She extended her leg in offering and Harry removed the small note that was attached there. He fed her a slice of ham and unrolled the note.

It was from Hagrid. He was inviting Harry to tea that afternoon, after his classes. The thing was that Harry actually had his first Flying Lesson that afternoon. Not that he needed it – and the class wasn't mandatory either – but it would look odd if he knew how to fly but never apparently learned how.

He pulled out a piece of parchment and quickly wrote a note on the back to Hagrid, apologizing and saying that 'Today won't really work. I'm sorry, but I've got Flying Lessons today. Do you suppose we could do it next week?'

He attached the reply to Hedwig's leg and told her to take it back to Hagrid as soon as she was done with her breakfast.

–

Harry had Defense Against the Dark Arts, and History of Magic that day. Defense was bearable enough, since Remus was actually a very good teacher, even if it was all incredibly elementary subject matter – at least the man kept the class mildly entertaining – however History was utter rubbish. Harry had been astounded to learn that Binns was still teaching the class. Only now he was dead.

That's right. His History teacher was a bloody ghost. Binns had, apparently, died one day while sitting at his desk, and not actually realized it. He'd stood up from his body and kept right on teaching... as a ghost. Being a ghost wasn't what Harry didn't like about the man. What he didn't like was that Binns had been a terrible teacher when he was still alive. Now he was down-right dreadful. The class was horrifyingly boring, and damn-near impossible to stay awake through. He quickly began the habit of bringing books to class with him, to read.

The Ravens shared History with the Snakes too, and Harry and Draco walked together as they left class that day, both moaning and bitching about how intolerable the class was. Mostly Draco was the one moaning and bitching while Harry grumbled his agreement. Draco often whined about how he was going to 'have his father do something about that ruddy ghost.' Harry honestly hoped that Lucius would do something. He was on the board. Surely the man could put forth a motion at the next meeting to have the ghost sacked. Obviously he wasn't drawing a salary since he was dead. Surely the school could actually afford a real, living, breathing, professor?

Harry told Draco that he would be going out to the school's grounds for his first flying lesson, which instantly got Draco into a smug rant on his own flying lesson the previous afternoon. Apparently the Slytherins and the Gryffindors had had a bit of excitement. Neville Longbottom had managed a premature lift-off, and his broom had shot into the sky, and out of his control. It had tossed him off and sent him falling to the ground to land on his wrist.

The flight instructor, Madam Hooch, had to take him off to the hospital wing since his wrist was apparently broken. Draco had then managed to find and claim Neville's RememberAll. Some sort of idiotic, immature little confrontation then erupted between Draco and the Weasley boy – Ronald, or something. Draco took off into the air on his broom and Weasley had followed.

Even Harry had heard the Weasley kid boasting all week about his impressive antics on a broom during his youth. Tales about flying around and narrowly escaping hang-gliding muggles had been told enough times that Harry could almost repeat it word for word. As such, Harry found it humorous when Draco informed him that, while attempting to pursue Draco and retrieve Neville's trinket, Weasley had managed to fall off his own broom, ended up in the hospital wing, and got a detention and a significant point reduction for ignoring Madam Hooch's command to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground.

Harry did ask Draco what he'd done with the RememberAll, to which Draco responded by pulling it out of his pocket and smirking. Harry rolled his eyes and chuckled with a sigh. Poor Neville was probably never getting that thing back. It was a pretty lame little trinket though. Practically worthless, really. Not much of a loss. He and Draco parted ways and Harry made the rest of the trek out onto the grounds where the Hufflepuffs, who had had a free period, were already gathered in a nervous, anxious group.

–

Nothing especially noteworthy outwardly seemed to happen during the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw flying lesson. No one fell off their broom, or broke any bones. No in-air battles occurred over stolen magical trinkets. However, something of significance did happen to Harry.

He discovered that he bloody loved flying.

It was so surreal. He'd flown thousands of times in his previous life, but it had never felt like this. Never had it felt so right. So easy. So natural. As if he and the broom were one. He just knew exactly how to maneuver to get the broom to do exactly what he wanted. It was like an extension of his own body. He almost had a subconscious connection with the very currents of the wind. He knew how and where it was going to blow or shift and how to bank the broom just right to get just the effect...

It was amazing.

He was going to buy a broom. That was all there was to it. He would smuggle in his own Nimbus, or something. He didn't care. But the school's brooms were pathetic, and he wanted to try out this new found ability with a real racing broom.

It did get him thinking, though. This was obviously not a skill he had ever had before. He'd been reasonably passable on a broom before – as in, he flew well enough not to fall off, but he certainly would never do it professionally. But now he was a natural at it. He knew that James Potter had been a very talented Quidditch player, from what he'd read, and some memories he had of his father flying above their yard, or talking with Sirius about brooms and Quidditch. A few questions to Remus was all he needed to confirm the fact. James Potter had apparently been good enough that right out of Hogwarts he had been approached by a number of professional Quidditch coaches with offers to join their teams. He had declined, however, since he was planning to become an Auror.

So, was his natural talent on a broom, something he had biologically inherited? Would he keep it in any future lives, now that he had experienced it and the knowledge was locked into his perfect memory? That would be rather neat. He could continue to acquire more and more naturally inherited skills over his many lives... He wondered if he would keep the parseltongue ability in any future lives...

It was something he was curious about, but in absolutely no hurry to find out, since it would require dying and being reborn again. Definitely something that could wait.

–

Third week of classes passed easily enough. Harry's Slytherin-Ravenclaw study group was running smoothly. Draco had done well with picking Nott and Greengrass. They were both rather studious, booky sorts and could easily have been Ravens themselves, if not for their more cunning qualities. They got along well with Su, Boot, and Patil. They only met twice a week in the library, but Harry made it a point to be seen with his Ravenclaw study-mates more often in other public situations. Terry Boot was quickly becoming very close with Anthony Goldstien, and Micheal Corner. Harry found Corner tolerable, but Goldstien was very... annoying. Something about him just rubbed Harry the wrong way.

Despite this, Harry sat with the tree during breakfast every morning. During Lunch he usually sat with Padma, Su, and Sarah Fawcett. Dinner he would alternate some. He was debating the merits of sitting with Kevin Entwhistle, Lisa Turpin, and Granger – the three muggleborns who had sort of banded together in Ravenclaw. In general, Harry found Granger's antics a mix between amusing and annoying. Most of their housemates found her annoying. She was a bossy know-it-all among know-it-all's. She often butted head with people when she thought they got their facts wrong because it didn't exactly match whatever book she could quote from.

Harry had realized quickly that Granger had an eidetic memory. Only she had the real thing. A normal, bio-chemical eidetic memory, like Tom had when they were younger. Only Tom had never been so obnoxious or naive about his ability to memorize things from books. Granger had a real problem with having absolute trust in authority figures and in the written word. It was actually rather irritating.

On top of that, she was a muggleborn, and while Ravens were rarely as openly disdainful of muggleborns for their blood status, the stigma was still there. It was old and deeply bred into their culture. The pure-bloods and more well-off half-bloods had all grown up together. Many of them had attended the same primary schools, or had the same tutors. They'd attended the same social gatherings with their parents who worked together, or knew each other from their own school days.

The social clicks had already been formed, and so the muggleborns were naturally outcast to at least some degree. It was only natural, really.

That being the case, befriending them would be easy enough. And Harry was becoming ever more aware that Dumbledore was watching his behavior and his associations in the school. Was it worth the annoyance of spending time in the girl's company to deflect some of the old git's suspicions?

If Harry socialized willingly with muggleborns, it would look like he was an open-minded child who was willing to spend time with anyone, no matter what others said about them. That he wasn't judgmental, or something. The same went for the Slytherins. That Harry was willing to judge Nott, Malfoy and Greengrass on their own personality and behavior and not on whatever stigma existed about their house or families.

It was a sound idea in theory, but it also meant Harry would have to occasionally hang out with a group of mudbloods, and he wasn't honestly all that hung-ho on the idea. Thursday morning he came to breakfast a little late and his spot with Boot, Corner, and Goldstein was already full, while the spot across from Granger, and next to Turpin was open. Harry gave a resigned sigh under his breath and decided to bite the bullet. He walked over and stood beside the open spot for a moment, waiting for the three to look up from their plates.

"Mind if I sit here?" He asked, giving them a hesitant, but charming smile. Turpin actually blushed and nodded her head while Granger gave him a small frown but motioned with her hand for him to sit.

Harry struck up some aimless conversation about an essay they all had due for Defense that morning. A few minutes into breakfast, Hedwig showed up with a note attached to her leg. Harry removed it and gave her some bacon while he read it. It was from Hagrid, asking Harry again, if he was interested in tea that afternoon. Harry had nothing scheduled this time so he wrote back that he would love tea, and would be there at 3pm, after his last lesson of the day.

The three muggleborns were all in love with Hedwig and even Granger, who had been oddly icy towards him since he sat down, softened up a bit and reached out to hesitantly pet her. None of them had gotten personal post owls since their parents had been too unsure or worried about what sort of care would be needed for looking after an owl.

Harry asked how they were keeping in contact with their family then. Apparently some rather ingenious man down at the post office in Hogsmeade had started up a side business at some point where you could send a school owl with your letter down to him, and once a week he would make the trip to a muggle post box and send off any letters that needed to go to muggles. The muggles could also write back through normal post to a specific post box and the man would collect them once a week and then send post owls up to the school with the letters.

There was nothing stopping them from sending school owls directly to their parents, but not everyone could be home when the owl showed up to drop off the post, or lived in a place where having an owl show up at your door was actually okay. Kevin Entwhistle's family, for example, lived in an apartment building and both his parents worked odd hours. So he was taking advantage of the letter forwarding service. Lisa Turpin's first two letters home had been through a normal school owl, but her parents were having trouble getting letters back with the owls, so she had sent them the address of the muggle post box and intended to start using it as well. Granger hadn't actually heard about these options until Harry had brought it up with the other two, and seemed disgruntled to realize she'd been out of the loop on something.

While all this conversing was going on, Harry had glanced up at the head table a few times and noticed Dumbledore looking down at him with that infuriating twinkle in his eyes and a wide, approving smile.

Harry wanted to wretch, but he kept it off his face and let his eyes move fluidly over to Hagrid where he smiled and nodded his head, as if that had been his reason for looking up at the head table all along.

–

Classes passed as mind-numbingly boring as ever. At lunch he had sat with Su Li and her friends. His afternoon classes were the worst since it was Herbology – which he didn't care about at all and History of Magic, that had become the unofficial nap-time of about half his class.

Afterward all his classes were done, he made his way out, across the grounds, and down towards the little wooden and stone shack that the groundskeeper called home. He knocked on the door and heard the bellowing of a dog from somewhere within. The door opened to Hagrid trying to squeeze into the door frame and push a huge boar-hound out of the way.

The dog, which was apparently named 'Fang', was finally subdued to some extent and Harry was invited in. He sat down in a huge, oversized, chair, in front of an equally huge table. Hagrid sat down opposite and began to pour tea from a kettle, and offered Harry a plate of something he called 'Rock Cakes'. Harry hesitantly tested one and instantly set it back down, deciding that maintaining the structural integrity of his teeth was more important that trying to eat Hagrid's cooking.

The pair engaged in small talk. Hagrid asked Harry about his classes and how he was settling into the school. Asked him how he was liking Ravenclaw, and made an observation that he'd seen Harry speaking with Professor Lupin several times. He remarked that Professor Lupin had been friends with Harry's father and Harry replied that he already knew that and was quite fond of his Defense professor.

"The headmaster really is an... interesting character," Harry said at one point in their conversation.

"Oh yeah. Headmaster Dumbledore is a great man. Great man, 'e is." Hagrid said with a beaming smile.

"Some of the students seem to think he's a bit barmy. That bit during his welcoming speech about the third floor corridor being off limits to anyone who didn't want to die a horrible death? What was that? I mean, he's either joking, and really bad at it, or he's actually got something there that's deadly dangerous, witch is incredibly irresponsible in a school full of children."

"Now 'arry, it's best not ta try and second guess what all the 'eadmaster has goin' on. And he's most certainly not joking. Don't you even tink of goin' near tha corridor; ye hear? Is not safe."

"My point exactly – the whole school is a maze. It's three weeks in and some of my housemates still get lost on the way to classes. Anyone could accidentally stumble upon the third floor corridor and end up hurt, totally on accident.

"Nah, they couldn't. There are precautions in place, 'arry! There's always sum'on 'round that part of the school keepin' an eye out for people. Makin' sure no students accidentally come on the place. Dumbledore wouldn't be doin' any ah this, or taking any unnecessary risks if he didn't have a right good reason ta do in."

"But what reason could he possibly have that was good enough to warrant putting students at risk? What is he hiding there that's so dangerous? You know, don't you Hagrid?"

"Now, 'arry, don't go askin' me questions about such things. It's none of yer business."

"If you ask me, it's not only my business, it's the business of every student or parent of a student in this school. If Dumbledore is doing something that's putting us all at risk, I want to know that there's someone keeping tabs to make sure he's actually not taking unnecessary risks."

"None ah ya are in danger, Harry! Now stop this. What's going on down the third floor corridor is between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel and nobody else's business."

Harry's eyes went wide and he felt his heard stop for nearly a fully second before it started up again; beating wildly in his chest.

Nicholas Flamel!

Hagrid suddenly seemed to realize what he'd said and rubbed his hand over his face roughly and groaned slightly. "I shouldn' a said tha. Ferget I said that."

– –

Hagrid's little 'slip' gave Harry a lot to think about. Nicholas Flamel was a world renowned alchemist who, Harry knew, actually taken Dumbledore on as an apprentice in the venerated wizard's youth. Flamel was over 600 years old, and his old age was attributed entirely to his most famous creation. The Philosopher's Stone. The crowning achievement, and most desired goal and sought after magical artifact of alchemists across the globe.

The stone could produce the elixir of life – a substance that could keep a person alive even if they were on the brink of death; cure most any disease; and completely stop the aging process. Not only could possession of the stone give one eternal youth, but it could also be used to transmute lead into gold, so it also offered the prospect of endless wealth.

He and Tom had researched the stone decades ago during their studies into immortality. Both of them already had their 'solutions' well into the works at the time, but neither horcruxes or Harry's removal of his astral filter were perfect solutions. They'd never really stopped looking into other options.

The philosopher's stone was one of the objects that Tom had always wanted. He had tried, on multiple occasions, to acquire it, but Flamel kept it so perfectly protected that he and Tom had finally just given up on it.

There really was only one object that matched the size and the magical signature that Harry had seen from the grubby little package Hagrid had taken from Gringott's, that was associated with Nicholas Flamel, and that object was the Philosopher's Stone. Knowing that Flamel was involved in this left Harry absolutely convinced that the Stone had to be what Hagrid had collected from Dumbledore. But that opened a world of other questions.

Why have Hagrid collect it? Something that important... it seemed to be something far too important to leave it to Hagrid without some reason. The fact that it had occurred in front of Harry seemed potentially noteworthy. Did Dumbledore want Harry to see Hagrid collect the package? Did he want to entice Harry's curiosity?

Harry also knew that there had to be a monumentally important reason for Dumbledore to convince Flamel to lend the stone to him. It would take a very important reason for Flamel to remove the stone from it's already incredibly secure hiding place and put it somewhere so risky and public as a bloody school filled with children.

So what reason could be that important?

It was bait. Harry was sure. Dumbledore knew that Tom wasn't dead. Harry had no proof, but he highly suspected that Dumbledore suspected just what it was that was lurking inside Harry's scar, and if Dumbledore knew he was holding one of Tom's horcruxes, then he knew Tom wasn't dead.

Dumbledore was trying to lure Tom out into the open. He wanted Tom to expose himself, and the only way he knew to do that at the moment was to bait him out into the open with something he knew Tom wanted. The Stone. Harry doubted it was a coincidence that it happened during his first year at Hogwarts. Sort of a double temptation. The Boy-Who-Lived and a stone that granted eternal youth. Pretty good bait, if you asked Harry.

But would it work? Would Tom come to Hogwarts? How would he even hear about all this, to know to come? Harry wanted Tom to show up because he damn well wanted to find the wanker. He was getting endlessly frustrated with getting nowhere in his search for Tom. But he also didn't want Tom to fall into some stupid trap set by Dumbledore.

He would have to keep his eyes open. If the Philosopher's Stone was really hidden at Hogwarts, Harry wanted to know for sure. He also wanted it. It wanted that bloody stone if it was the last thing he did. There were a number of reasons that were already brewing in his head, and the more he thought about it the more giddy he became knowing the incredible opportunity that Dumbledore had given him without even realizing it. As far as Dumbledore was concerned, Harry's only part in all of this was probably to play bait. But little did Dumbledore know that Harry had every intention of getting that stone for himself before the year was out.

He had his own uses for it, but it could also be a gift for Tom for whenever he finally found the bloody bastard.

But he needed additional information. The Stone itself wasn't dangerous so the deadly threat of the third-floor corridor was no doubt from the protections that they had in place to guard Flamel's Stone. He would have to find out what was protecting it. He also needed to know who Dumbledore had 'watching' that corridor, when their shifts were, when they switched, and who was the least reliable.

His best source of information was Hagrid because the big dumb oaf was pants at keeping secrets. But he couldn't milk the man again so soon. He would have to give him some time before trying to get more details out of him.

This would require a delicate touch, a lot of cunning, and a good share of patience. But he would succeed. That Stone would be his.