– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 23 – – – – –

A few days later, during dinner, Harry felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end, and the sensation of skin crawling. He frowned slightly but remained outwardly calm and continued to dip his soup spoon into a bowl of tomato soup and then reached over and dipped his sandwich into it and took a bite.

Again the crawling sensation surged over him and he hesitated for a moment, trying to identify exactly what was causing it. Someone was trying to cast a spell on it. He was sure. And that was a significantly infuriating idea. But the spell wasn't taking hold. It was sliding right off of him and refusing to stick. The only spells that he was naturally immune to were spells that effected the mind, and the only person who would have the gal to try and cast some sort of mind-magic at him was Albus Dumbledore.

He opened himself up, trying to catch the spell the next time it was cast at him so he could figure out what the hell sort of spell it was instead of it just slipping away and dissolving. He closed his eyes and let a small breath out of his nose and waited. Nearly two minutes passed before anything happened and he had been about to just give up.

The spell hit him and he grabbed it before it was deflected and pulled it into his unused physical mindscape.

It was obvious right away why this one was just slipping off while Dumbledore's previous attempts had made it into his mindscape and just sat there being all ineffective. There was no eye contact available to Dumbledore this time, so he'd used a different kind of spell. This was actually very much to Harry's benefit because this sort of spell always came with a lot of extraneous mental and magical residue from the caster.

Harry had a feeling that Dumbledore was getting slightly desperate. He had pointedly avoided direct eye contact with the man for the last month. The last time the man had had the opportunity to look into his eyes was when he was summoned to the man's office to meet up with Sirius before the spring holiday. Dumbledore probably hadn't thought it wise to try anything right then since Sirius was in the room with him, and being an former Auror, would probably be able to spot a compulsion spell being cast.

And before that Harry had been avoiding direct eye contact for months as well. Basically, since Yule. So Dumbledore was clearly running out of time if he wanted to influence Harry to do something in regards to the Stone.

Harry quickly began to pick apart the spell and saw that the very first layer of it was a rather powerful compulsion to turn and look at Dumbledore.

Harry snorted internally. To hell with that. He wasn't going to make this easier on the old bastard. And it certainly wasn't unheard of for a person to be naturally immune to this particular type of mind manipulation magic. Not common, but Harry was supposed to be 'special', right? He had a bloody prophecy saying he was supposed to have the power to defeat the Dark Lord – surely that should count for something.

It also looked like Dumbledore had considered it a possibility that Harry wouldn't turn and meet his eyes because there were more layers to the spell than just the 'turn and look at me, damn it!' compulsion.

Worry. It was trying to instill a lot of worry. And the need to protect something. This sort of spell couldn't be very specific, because of how it worked, so this was the sort of thing he would expect. It also seemed to want to grow and encourage Harry's distrust of anyone he considered untrustworthy. And paranoia.

Interesting... So it wanted to latch onto whatever distrust Harry might already have in someone – say, if there was someone in the school that Harry considered untrustworthy, and then emphasize that and layer in a lot of paranoia. Then fill him with the need to protect something.

Seemed a reasonable bit of mind manipulation if you were desperate because you couldn't get anything more specific than that. It was still quite a reach. This all assumed that Harry would even think of the third floor corridor or whatever might be down it, and even know enough about it to assume it might need protecting from someone. Which Dumbledore really had no valid reason to suspect... Not really. Although, Hagrid had let stupid little hints slip several times through the course of the year. No doubt those were Dumbledore's doing. And Harry knew the chances that Hagrid had any ability in protecting his mind were slim-to-none since he was obviously half-giant. Giants were literally incapable of practicing mind magic. And giant halfbreeds were pure rubbish at it. So it was likely that Dumbledore knew exactly what things Hagrid had let slip in Harry's presence.

What all had Hagrid let slip? Well, he'd mentioned 'Fluffy' at one point, but the name certainly didn't give any indication as to what the hell 'Fluffy' was. Quite the contrary, actually.

And of course, it was Hagrid who had first let the name 'Nicolas Flamel' slip, and Harry had obviously known who Flamel was. Harry also knew from what Hagrid had said that whatever was down the third-floor corridor was something that belonged to Flamel and that Dumbledore and the teachers were protecting the thing 'for Flamel'. So, okay, it was obviously reasonable for Harry to know that the thing on the third floor was something that needed protecting.

Throw in some paranoia and some healthy distrust for someone, and it would definitely work out for a person to start thinking that 'so-and-so untrustworthy person might actually be out to steal Nicolas Flamel's magical artifact'. Ah, but that was where another level to the 'not trusting people' thing came in. It would be within reason for this to go so far as Harry not trusting any of the other people in the school to handle the protecting of the stone... Harry was supposed to have a history of not trusting adults and authority figures with his youth with the Dursley's. Well, it was all still a stretch, but it was obvious what Dumbledore was trying to get at with all this.

He wanted Harry to act the hero. To protect the stone from whatever villain his own paranoid mind could come up with.

He felt the spell hit him and slide right off again and internally snickered as he pointedly to ignored it. He slipped out of his mindscape and resumed eating his sandwich and soup; smirking to himself, knowing that Dumbledore was no doubt becoming very frustrated that Harry wasn't reacting in any way to indicate that his stupid little spell had done anything at all.

– –

Harry was sitting cross-legged on his bed with the hangings drawn. It was just after five in the morning, on May 2nd – a Saturday – and Harry was currently crouched over his copy of the Marauder's Map, watching the dot labeled 'Albus Dumbledore' as he moved through his private quarters, preparing for his day.

Dumbledore always got up at an ungodly hour on days he was going in for a full session of the Wizengamot, and one such session was today. It was the last full session of the Wizengamot that would be held during the school term, and while there would be two other easily predicted days during the next month and a half when Dumbledore would be out of the school, this would be the best opportunity for Harry to make a move on the Stone. Plus, just in case he came across some protection he couldn't deal with today, it would be good to have two other opportunities to try again before the end of term.

Harry had his knapsack packed and ready for the day. He would be taking the map and the Lethifold-skin invisibility cloak with him when he left his dorm room, but he'd be packing the map into his bag when he no longer needed to carry it on him.

Already in the bag was one of his Vanishing Boxes, with the other already in place at Godric's Hollow in his private study where he had instructed Dobby to leave it and not touch it, even if it glowed, signaling that there was something in it. He was to leave it be, but make sure it was protected and should it come under threat, to take it and hide somewhere immediately.

Harry continued to observe the map as Dumbledore's dot moved from his private quarters, through a hidden passage and into his office. He moved around in there for a minute before going over to the floo and vanishing from the map.

Harry's lips formed a grin and he instantly switched his attention to the third floor corridor that was presently being guarded by Argus Filch, the squib caretaker and his stupid little demon-cat.

The Professors all tended to stay up late Friday nights grading papers so that they could have Saturday morning mostly free, and none of them seemed very keen on taking guard duty on early Saturday mornings, because none of them ever did. Today was no exception and Harry's grin grew wider still.

Harry pulled out his wand and cast a rather complex area-effect notice-me-not and repelling charm on himself. It worked much the same way the muggle-repelling spells on wizard locations like the Leaky Cauldron or the muggle-entrances to the Ministry of Magic or St. Mungo's worked. The moment someone's eyes landed anywhere near him, without even realizing anything had happened, they would feel the urge to look the other way and not see him at all. He'd gone with an especially high level version of the spell so it would even work on animals and most magical creatures – that included Filch's cat Mrs. Norris, and Fluffy.

With that spell cast, he began applying a few other simple spells, like a spell that would make all of his movement's completely silent, including his feet on the floor, and his breathing. Once he was sure the spells were successfully in place, he shouldered his knapsack and pulled the invisibility cloak over his head and pulled the hood up, securing it heavily over his face. He folded the map up, but didn't deactivate it, and slipped out from between his bed hangings. He used a simple sticking charm to hold them closed and knew that none of his dorm mates would bother him with them closed, if any of them work up this early for some inexplicable reason.

He silently slipped out of his dorm room, down the stairs and through the empty common room. He was fortunate to not encounter a single person on his trek from the Ravenclaw Tower to the third floor corridor. He stood in a shadowed alcove and looked at the map from beneath the invisibility cloak. Filch's dot was walking down the corridor away from the forbidden door, slowly heading in Harry's direction. Mrs. Norris was pacing back and forth in front of the damn door and Harry huffed in mild annoyance.

Not really a problem.

Once Filch has passed his alcove and turned down another corridor, Harry quickly trotted down towards the forbidden door and silently maneuvered around the cat that was entirely oblivious to his presence there. He got to the door, pulled out his wand and silently unlocked it with a simple alohomora spell while rolling his eyes as the idiotic simplicity of the so-called 'protections'.

The cat's ears perked up at the sound of the click of the lock and she spun around, acutely observing the door with obvious suspicion. There were a lot of rumors about this cat among the students. Some believed she was part kneazle since she was obviously far more intelligent than a normal cat could ever possibly be. The fact that filch was a squib excluded the possibility of a familiar bond to explain away her intellect. Some insisted that she was actually an animagus – which was laughable – while others said she had been human and had been cursed to live the rest of her life as a cat. Again, stupid.

Harry was fairly sure the kneazle theory was the right one, and she was currently glaring around the open space, searching for any sign of an intruder or untrustworthy person. However the repelling charm, combined with the cloak, was preventing her from seeing him at all. Harry drew his wand from beneath the cloak, aimed it at the cat and silently cast a light confundus charm. The cat staggered drunkenly for a moment in confusion before turning and walking away.

He turned back to the door and slowly pushed it open to reveal an enormous three-headed dog, sleeping soundly, in the center of the room. He stepped inside, the silencing charm preventing any of his movement from making any sound. However when he closed the door, it was not silenced, and one of the dog's many ears twitched and one of the beast's three heads began to stir.

Harry quickly pulled out his wand and threw up a silencing ward around the whole room so that no noise from inside it would be audible from the hallway, and then threw a timer charm on top of it so that the silence ward would destroy itself in five hours. Next he conjured a small harp and charmed it to play a soft, soothing lullaby. It took him about two minutes to get all of this setup and while he had worked the cerberus had managed to stir enough to open it's eyes and look around the room in confusion.

It had even gotten to its feet when the harp was suddenly conjured out of thin air and growled at it, menacingly. It had been about to attack the thing when Harry had finally gotten it playing music.

It was almost comical how fast the damned beast fell back asleep after that. Harry used a simple levitation spell to lift the heavy wooden trap door beside the slumbering dog-beast, and then used the exact same self-levitation spell that Sprout used every week to lightly lower himself down into the hole.

He conjured some blue-bell flames and lowered them down below him. Not only did it illuminate the otherwise pitch black space, it also drove away the Devil's Snare, and he lowered himself down, through the writhing deadly plant without so much as touching a single vine.

He made his way down the familiar declining corridor and into the room of flying keys, but he ignored them for the time being and set to work disabling all of the magical wards around the door, and the alarm spell that would notify Dumbledore of an intruder.

It only took him eight minutes to tear them all down, but that was only because he'd been practicing and had known exactly what to expect. It no doubt would have taken a lot longer than that, had he not come prepared.

Finally satisfied that the wards were down, he pointed his wand at the correct flying key that he could see flitting about amongst the cloud of keys in the air above him and whispered a Dark variation on the summoning charm that cut through most anti-summoning protections.

The key shot through the air and landed right into his outstretched hand. Harry snorted, once again, at the obscene ease of this whole thing so far, but reminded himself that he was entering uncharted territory from here on out.

He inserted the key into the heavy wooden door, unlocked it, and then slipped the key into his knapsack. He would release it back into the room on his way out. He pushed the door open and hesitantly stepped through. The room beyond was pitch black, but his Black Sight showed him a lot of large magical objects ahead. As he stepped further into the room, lights came on and a huge chessboard was revealed. The chessmen were carved from stone and taller than an adult wizard.

Harry just stood there, trying to make sense of what he was seeing for a moment. It was obvious which of the teachers was behind this one. If Sprout was behind the Devil's Snare, Flitwick was most likely behind the charmed keys, and Harry would wager that McGonagall was behind the giant chessmen. He could tell just from looking at them that they were Animated. It was a much more advanced and powerful version of the enchantment placed on wizarding chess sets, where the pieces would obliterate each other in a violent game of strategy, and then instantly put themselves back together perfectly once the game was over and reset.

The only real difference between these chess pieces and the chess pieces in a normal wizarding chess set was that these were much much bigger and the swords and spears they were holding were quite obviously very sharp.

Harry stood at the side of the chess board and began to wave his wand in a series of complex gestures as he cast one detection spell after another, analyzing what hidden security precautions might be in the room, since he very much doubted that playing a game of chess was the only trick to this room.

Many of the hidden spells he had found in the key room were also in this one. The magical webbing that would catch the Stone was here as well, just as he'd suspected, and from what he could tell, the moment a game of chess was activated, a spell would begin that would log the moves used. What valid use there was to that, Harry couldn't really imagine, but he knew he would want to disable it first. He was hoping to be able to leave the series of corridors without any evidence that he'd ever been there at all, being left behind.

There were also charms on several random spots on the chess board that, when stepped on, would send little alarms to the headmaster's office. They were basically the same spell that had been on the door and they would be easy to disable the same way.

Harry set to work, disabling everything he could from a distance before ever even approaching the chessboard. Once he was sure they were all taken care of he had to pause for a moment as he debated what to do about the actual chessboard. Should he actually bother to play the damned game, or should he just deactivate the animation enchantment?

Deactivating McGonagall's undeniably high level enchantment would be permanent. He couldn't set a timer so that they'd be reactivated when he was done. However, it was also only something that an incredibly powerful wizard could do, so no one would suspect a student had had anything to do with it when it was finally discovered that the Stone had been stolen.

While it was widely known that Harry Potter was exceptionally gifted, he was still eleven and no one would suspect him of being able to deactivate a spell like this. So while it had the disadvantage of leaving behind evidence that someone had been here, the evidence it left behind actually drew attention away from Harry...

But then there was the time issue. Which would take less time? Actually playing the game, or deactivating the enchantment? That one was debatable. It would also depend on what chess difficulty level this set was charmed to. Seeing as how these so-called 'protections' were in place so that Harry himself would be able to get past them, and Dumbledore would have no way of knowing if Harry even knew how to play chess, let alone if he was any good at it, Harry imagined the difficulty level wouldn't be all that high.

So it was entirely possible that it would be quicker to just play the game.

And that was what he decided to do.

Harry stepped up to the giant chessboard, and even though he was under his cloak and under the notice-me-not spells, the enormous stone pieces instantly came to life, aware of his presence. Harry knew there was no point in trying to get past them without playing. He could feel the magical barrier around the board that would prevent passage. He spent a brief moment making a plan of attack before beginning.

"Pawn to e4," he called out in a clear authoritative voice and the giant stone piece shifted across the floor and into position. Black responded by moving it's pawn to c6.

"Pawn to d4," he said next and black's pawn moved to d5. Next Harry sent his knight to c3 while black sent a pawn to capture his first pawn on e4. Immediately following that, Harry sent his other knight to reclaim e4 where it 'captured' black's pawn in an explosively destructive display with it's large stone sword. Black's knight moved to f6.

Harry paused, looking over the board, his mind whirling through what options would keep this game as short as possible. "Queen to d3," he called out, feeling a smirk curl his lips. He almost laughed when black's pawn moved to e5 just as he'd expected. Harry moved his pawn sitting on d4 to e5, capturing another of black's pawns and leaving a mount of rubble on the ground.

Black's queen moved to a5, putting him in check, but he wasn't worried. Black was playing right into his hands... Harry moved his bishop to d2 and black moved it's queen to e5, taking back the spot Harry's pawn had claimed only a moment earlier with a smashing array of crushed stone.

Harry's grin widened as he ordered his castle into the black queen's open spot. Queen-side castling. Black's knight moved to e5, demolishing Harry's knight in a spectacular display of violence. But it didn't matter. Harry moved his queen to d8 and called out "Check," knowing that he was about to lose his Queen, but in one more move it wouldn't matter.

As expected, Black moved it's King to d8, smashing Harry's Queen to bits. Harry's bishop moved to g5 a moment later, and there was no denying that the game was done. Black had lost. There was no way for it to win.

Rook to d8 and checkmate.

Game done in ten moves. The giant animated chess pieces bowed down and Harry Saw the magic shift as he was permitted passage beyond the chessboard's boarders.

As soon as he'd stepped off the board the pieces began to magically reassemble. The rubble cleared, the dust vanished, and by the time he'd reached the large heavy doorway, the board was spotless and not a single sign remained that anything had occurred there.

Brilliant.

Harry cautiously slipped through the door into the next chamber and closed the door behind him. At first inspection, the room appeared to be empty, except for a single, large, cupboard standing in the center of the room. Harry stayed to the side of the room and began to cast his detection charms, disabling the common ones as soon as he came across them. There weren't as many anymore – clearly the assumption was that by this point you would have tripped most all of the alarms already.

The only new one was a glowing line on the ground that one of his spells revealed. It was connected with the large standing wardrobe and as far as he could tell, crossing the line would cause the cupboard to open. Unfortunately, it also appeared to be connected with the exit door. It appeared that the exit wouldn't open until the cupboard was dealt with. He knew he could probably work it open if he set to it long enough, but whatever was in the cupboard was low level enough that a theoretical 'first-year Harry' could deal with it, so dealing with it would probably take less time then forcing the door open would.

Heaving a silent sigh, Harry crossed the line. The cupboard door swung open and for a moment, Harry saw nothing but blackness within. The a wispy dark form seemed to come out from within and shift and morph right before his eyes. Before he even knew what was going on, the wisp transformed into... himself. But he was older, and he was kneeling on the ground, crying over a bloodied, lifeless corpse that he was holding in his arms bridal style.

It was Tom. He was dead. But somehow Harry knew that the dead body of Tom he was seeing was dead, dead. This was Tom with no more backup safeties. No more horcruxes. What he was seeing right now was...

Harry choked back the horrified sound that wanted to escape from his mouth, even though nothing would have come out anyway thanks to the silencing charm. His head shook back and forth for a confused, stunned and bewildered moment before he was able to clamp down on the horror twisting his gut long enough for his rational mind to push through the fog.

What he was seeing was his greatest fear. Him, being doomed to live again and again, eternally reborn – alone. Because Tom was dead. Dead for good.

Boggart. His mind supplied him and he knew he was being an idiot for letting an illusion effect him so strongly.

It's just a bloody boggart! Pull yourself together you stupid git!

Harry aimed his wand at the scene before him and tried to imagine some way to change it to something amusing instead of the blood chilling scene he was witnessing.

"Riddiculus!" Harry said aloud, though no sound escaped his silence charm. Still the spell shot from his wand and hit the older not-him and dead Tom on the floor before him.

The scene suddenly changed and instead of him cradling a dead Tom in his arms, he was sitting cross-legged and holding Tom as a cat, laying sprawled on his back in Harry's lap and Harry was ticking his belly, while TomCat hissed at him in obvious annoyance and tried to scratch his hand.

A weak chuckle managed to bubble up from his chest and a small, sad smile spread across his lips as another chuckle escaped him. The Boggart instantly dissolved and the black wispyness escaped back into the cupboard.

Harry closed his eyes and let a few slow breaths pass before he opened them again and saw the door on the opposite side of the room was now open. He sneered at it and rolled his eyes. What sort of 'protection' was a Boggart supposed to be, anyway? Was it supposed to scare a person strongly enough that they just give up on getting the Stone, even after coming all this way? No. That was absurd. This whole stupid thing was absurd.

Huffing a frustrated breath he pressed on and passed through the door. It led to a short corridor that opened into a larger chamber. Harry paused at the open arched frame between the corridor and the next room, and pulled out his wand to check for spells. He found one around the archway almost instantly. It was some sort of fire spell. It looked like as soon as he entered the room, the archway would fill with flame to prevent him from going back.

He frowned and he went over in his mind what would be necessary to disable it by pulling the spell apart. It would take a while. His eyes traveled past the archway and into the room and he saw a table sitting there, and from what he could tell from where he stood, there were several potion bottles of varying shape and size, spread across it in a line.

Harry's brows rose slightly into his forehead before a slightly amused smirk spread across his lips.

Right. This was supposed to be something that he, as his theoretical eleven-year-old self, could get past. So obviously the solution would be provided for him in the room somewhere. And it appeared to be provided in a rather obvious way.

Alright, so he would probably be provided with the way past the fire. What he needed to concern himself with were whatever hidden spells were placed in the room. He set to casting the rest of his detection and revealing spells and was once again faced with the standard batch of alarms that he'd found in all the other rooms since the key room. The webbing spell, interesting enough, was absent from this room. From what he knew about this set of rooms, and from his map, he was fairly sure that the room after this one, was the room that held the Stone. So if some theoretical thief got the Stone from the last room and made to leave, they'd most likely put the stone in a pocket or a bag or something. They'd pass through this room, and the Stone would still be right where they'd just put it. By the time they passed through the Boggart room, the webbing spell would activate and silently snatch it away, quite possibly without the thief even realizing it.

Harry disabled all of the detection spells before even passing through the archway. Finally deciding he couldn't waste anymore time, he stepped through the archway and as soon as he was clear of it and standing on the other side, a wall of purple flames erupted behind him. On the opposite side of the room in an identical archway, a wall of black flames erupted.

Harry walked over to the table and examined it for a quick moment. The table had seven different bottles of potion on it, and beside the potions was a piece of parchment with... a riddle written on it?

Harry read it over and snorted. This was a protection? A bloody logic puzzle?

Of course, he did have to admit that there were a fair number of wizards who didn't possess a lick of logical reasoning ability to them. So maybe it was a reasonable 'protection'.

The riddle had a rather flowery way of saying thatthree of the potions were poison, two were wine, one would get a person safely through the black fire, and one would get a person back through the purple. You just had to work out the puzzle to figure out which was which.

He scoffed again and began picking up each potion, sniffing them, swirling them, and examining the consistency. It took all of thirty seconds before he knew, without even working out the puzzle, which potion was the right one to take him through the black flames, and which would take him back.

However, since he was sure Snape was behind this and the man was a tricky bastard, he read through the puzzle and worked it out in his head, just in case. It wasn't necessary though, because he'd been right. The potion to get through the black flames was in the smallest bottle, and the one to get back through the purple flames was in a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

Harry took a quick swig from the tiny bottle, drinking about half of it's contents and felt a cold chill in his gut for a moment before it spread through all his veins in cooling wave. He set the bottle down and walked through the wall of black flames as if they weren't even there.

He found himself hesitantly entering the last chamber. He quickly began waving his wand about, checking every possible detection spell he could think of. The webbing spell was absent again, just as he'd expected. There were quite a few little alarm tripping spells scattered here and there. A charmed floor stone here, another charmed floor stone there; a line along the floor there, a curtain of magic detection all the way around the center of the room, all cast with a different kind of brand of charms magic to try and trip someone up so that they'd miss something simply because they wouldn't know how to look for it, or ever think to try.

But Harry remembered in crystal clear clarity every revealing spell he'd ever read about, and was dedicated to being very thorough. It took him ten minutes of very tedious delicate spell unraveling to get every thing in that room disabled or destroyed to the point where he felt safe walking the rest of the way into it.

Finally satisfied enough with the knowledge that if there was anything he'd missed, he deserved to get caught because Albus Dumbledore obviously knew far more obscure warding magic then he'd ever even imagined one man could, Harry walked all the way into the center of the large chamber and found himself standing just beyond the range of the Mirror of Erised.

He found himself glaring at the mirror for a moment. He was still under his cloak so there was nothing for the mirror to reflect yet, and Harry knew he was going to have to reveal himself for the mirror to work, but he hated the idea that he was going to have to face the stupid bloody thing again.

He'd known it was probably down here, but he still hadn't been able to imagine why. He began casting an array of spells at the mirror to try and identify what sort of things may have been added to it for whatever the hell Dumbledore needed it down here for. He'd been rather limited in what sort of detection magic he'd been able to use the last time he'd encountered it since Dumbledore had been there spying on him, but he could tell that some of the magic around the mirror was different.

There seemed to be some sort of magic in place that would trigger an action if a defined need was met. The mirror would detect the need the same way it normally detected what a person's desires were. So if you desired the proper thing, it would respond by... doing something.

Finally huffing in annoyance, Harry reached up and pulled the cloak down over his head, revealing his floating head. He took a few steps forward so he could see himself in the mirror.

On first inspection, it just showed him standing there – again, he was older, but this time he looked just like his twenty-one year old self from the ageing potion – and standing beside him was Tom, only now he looked the same way he looked when he was twenty-one. Harry almost laughed at himself for the minor changes in his 'greatest desire'. Ah, he would never deny the fact that he could be a vain little shit.

But this was not going to help him out any in this situation. Obviously, the mirror was being used to determine what you wanted to do with the Stone. If you wanted the Stone so you could turn lead into gold, it would probably show you surrounded by gold and riches. If you wanted the stone for the immortality, it would probably show you drinking the elixir of life. But Harry didn't want any of that.

He already had a mountain of money from both the Valerius vaults as well as from the Potter vaults – granted he wouldn't get most of that till he turned seventeen, but really... big deal. He didn't need the immortality the Stone granted, although it certainly wouldn't be that bad and he probably would take advantage of it at some point... but that wasn't why he wanted the Stone.

One potential thing he 'desired' was him giving the Stone to Tom... but he really didn't want it for that either. Really, he had no intention of 'giving' the stone to Tom. He was going to share it with him, because he damn well wasn't going to just totally part with the thing. He wanted it.

He had wanted the damn thing since he was somewhere around twenty. He and Tom had tried to steal the bloody thing for several years straight. And while he had wanted it for a few very specific reasons back then, right now he really only wanted it because he'd been unable to get it before.

It was like a nice shiny toy that he'd wanted as a child, but accepted he would never get because it was too expensive or rare, and now he was suddenly provided with an opportunity to have it after all, and even though he didn't really need it for anything specific, he still damn well wanted it!

Harry blinked, pausing in his thoughts as his reflection suddenly began to change. Tom disappeared from the reflection and instead it showed Harry's floating disembodied head, smirking back at him. His hand appeared out of thin-air, parting the front of the cloak and pushing it aside, revealing Harry's body underneath. The hand went back, dropped into his pocket and reappeared a moment later holding the Philosopher's Stone. The reflection Harry's grin widened as the hand retreated back into the pocket and Harry suddenly felt a heavy lump appear out of nowhere in his pocket.

The reflection seemed to laugh at the slightly surprised expression on the real Harry's face as his shoulder shifted and the invisibility cloak closed up again.

Real-Harry's hand dipped into his pocket and pulled out... the Stone.

He felt himself laugh in shock for a moment as he pulled the Stone out in front of him, out from the cloak, so that he could see that it really was real. His Sight told him that it was, because the enormous amount of powerful magic rolling off it like smoke pouring off of dry ice, that only Harry could see. Another laughing bark escaped him, although no sound could be heard because of the silencing spell that was still in place.

Harry proceeded to have a good hysterical laugh that morphed into a maniacal cackle before he finally calmed down. He slipped his knapsack off his shoulder and set it down on the floor, shoving his cloak aside so he could see what he was doing. He pulled the box out of the bag, took one last look at the Stone and squashed the cackle that started to escape him again and instead opened the box and put the stone inside. He tapped his wand on it, silently incanting the activation command, and felt the magic momentarily surge. He opened the box up again and found it empty.

He stuffed the box back into his bag, shouldered it, re-secured his invisibility cloak... and left.

–

Leaving the string of chambers and corridors had gone by without a single hitch, which was a relief. He had effectively disabled all of the spells and security precautions on his way in, so leaving hadn't been a problem. The wizarding chess set hadn't even made him play another game to leave. He'd been able to just walk right past them. He locked the flying key room door behind him and then released the key so that it could return to flying around the ceiling with all the rest.

Some conjured blue-bell flames had parted the ceiling of Devil's Snare and he'd levitated him up through it, and up through the still-open trap door. Fluffy was still out cold. He silently closed the trap door and managed to slip out the door and cancel the music and room silencing spell without the dog even waking up. Filch passed him without even noticing him beneath his cloak and with his repelling spells still in place, and ten minutes later he was slipping back into his dorm room, feeling exceedingly pleased with himself.

– –

Harry flew in through the window of the shrieking shack and fluidly transformed back into his human form and landed on his feet. Sirius was already in there sitting across from Remus and chatting casually. They turned and smiled at Harry as he stretched, popping his back briefly before coming over and sitting down on the floor with the other two.

"Hey, Harry," Sirius greeted as Harry was settling himself on the floor.

"Hey Sirius," Harry replied easily and then turned and nodded at Remus who grinned tiredly and nodded his head. They'd seen each other only about an hour earlier, so greetings were entirely necessary.

It was late May, and they were once again gathered for the full moon. The weeks had been passing quickly for Harry. Things had become a bit more hectic and focused around the school the last few weeks since end of term exams were only a week away now. The Ravenclaws were especially dedicated to their studying, so his dorm mates had been rather focused.

Harry, for the most part, had simply been relaxing amid the chaos. His study group with Boot, Li, Patil, and Draco, Theo, and Daphne had started meeting three times a week at his Ravenclaw group member's insistence. The Slytherins certainly hadn't minded, but they weren't about to admit that they appreciated the Raven's assistance.

Harry had kept watch on his Map for any signs of someone going down into the Chamber to check on things, and amusingly enough, no one had. Sprout and Hagrid had continued their weekly tending to the first two rooms, which seemed to suggest that no one had even realized that the Stone was gone yet. Harry had frequently had to put silencing bubbles around himself so he could have a good cleansing cackle at how utterly amused he was that no one had even realized he's stolen the Stone.

He suspected that Dumbledore would probably notice sometime soon, though. The old coot had continued to occasionally shoot little spells towards him in an attempt to compel him to meet his eyes, or to go investigate the third-floor, but his attempts had tapered off the last week. He probably figured that if Harry wasn't inclined yet at this point to investigate the Stone, it was too late in the year to reasonably introduce the idea. Harry would be gone from Hogwarts this time next month. There simply wasn't enough time left to do anything.

"So, Harry – how goes all that studying?" Sirius asked, pulling Harry from his musing. "With you being in Ravenclaw, I imagine everyone's really starting to cram for their exams?"

Harry shrugged. "Starting to cram? You underestimate Ravenclaws. They've been revising all month. In fact, they're really starting to get a bit crazy with it – especially the upper years – and, honestly, it gets rather tedious for me because I really don't need it like my classmates do. Eidetic memory and all that. I can quote any page from every one of my text books, and could transcribe the lectures from every lesson I've attended word for word, so when it comes to standardized tests on knowledge, I've got that in the bag. For me, the only parts I really need to practice are the practical parts. You know – actually casting the spells, and there isn't a lot of emphasis on that for us first years."

Sirius chuckled and shook his head. "That would have been one hell of a handy little skill back when I was in school. I definitely envy you on that one."

"You might have actually gotten some decent marks that way," Remus teased and Sirius swatted at him and scowled playfully.

"I got good grades where it mattered!" Sirius said defensively. "I got into the Auror training program without any real trouble, didn't I?"

"You never would have passed your potions NEWT if it weren't for Lily," Remus said, smiling fondly.

"Yeah... Lils always was good with potions though; and I was rubbish at it."

Harry smiled softly at the two of them for a moment before clearing his throat and broaching a subject he had been wanting to bring up with Sirius. This was the last full moon before the end of term, so it was his last chance to ask Sirius in person about it while he was still in school.

"Hey, Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

"I was actually hoping I ask you to do something for me before the end of the school year."

"What's up?" Sirius said, turning his full attention on Harry now.

"Well, now that you've got full legal custody of me, can you write to Dumbledore and ask him to switch control of my post-intercepting spell to you, and not him?"

Sirius looked utterly bewildered and Remus was just frowning.

"Post-intercepting spell?" Sirius asked, voicing his confusion.

"Yeah, I mean... the Goblins explained to me back in August that they had detected that there was a spell in place that was re-directing all my post to my 'magical guardian' so he could sort through it and make sure nothing dangerous was being sent to me. That was why I wasn't getting any of my vault statements. He also 'intercepts' all my 'fan mail', but I guess I don't terribly mind that. I can only imagine how embarrassing it would be to sit down for breakfast at the Ravenclaw table every morning and get random fan letters from total strangers for an event I only technically remember, and had nothing personally to do with."

"Are you saying that you think Dumbledore goes through your mail? And keeps some of it?" Remus asked, looking more upset than tired, which was saying a lot considering the full moon would be coming out in less than an hour."

"I know he does. I mean, there are letters that I know I should have gotten but didn't. It's rather irritating, really since I have no idea what he's decided to keep from me and he's approved to go on through. I assumed you two knew about it, since it's one of those 'protecting me' things," Harry trailed off, blinking in apparent confusion. "I figured Dumbledore would have at least told you, Sirius."

Sirius was scowling and looking at his hands, which were fisted in his lap. "No... he hasn't mentioned it," Sirius said with a mild hint of bitter sarcasm.

"Yeah, well, ask him to fix it or just switch it over to you. He's not my legal guardian anymore, so he's got no right to be intercepting my mail. We can either just let it all come to me, or we can set up our own re-direction post charm and sort it at home before you send along the reliable stuff to me at school. We can wait till next school year for that though.

"Yes... I'll contact him tomorrow. I'm glad you found out about this Harry. I'll deal with it from here."

Harry kept his face blank and nodded; squashing the smirk that threatened to spread across his lips.

"Great. Thanks."

Sirius paused in his scowling and looked at Harry for a speculative moment with slightly narrowed eyes. Harry just blinked at him innocently and after a silent staring contest Sirius seemed to heave a slightly defeated sigh and shook his head a little. He looked a bit disappointed but the expression quickly vanished from his face as Sirius changed the subject by asking Remus something about some book he'd lent Sirius the previous weekend.

Harry frowned slightly before huffing silently and joining in on their conversation. Sirius saw through him too easily sometimes. No doubt Sirius knew that Harry would never be naive enough to believe that Dumbledore was intercepting his mail just to protect him... or at least, he wouldn't just be okay with that, like he had pretended he was a moment ago. Sirius already knew him well enough to at least know that 'being protected' like that would actually piss Harry off. No doubt Sirius also realized that the reason Harry hadn't pitched a fit about it before now was simply because it would bring about Dumbledore's suspicion and scrutiny of his actions.

Sirius was a smart man, Harry would give him that. Sometimes, potentially too smart. Harry knew he was going to have to deal with it at some point, or it was going to sneak up and bit him in the arse.

– –

Harry marked the last question on his Potions exam and lay his quill down on the desk as he leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms over his head before twisting his neck from side to side to work out the kinks that had formed from being hunched over his desk and parchment for the last forty minutes. Written portion done. Practical brewing would be next, but first...

Harry shuffled out of his seat and grabbed his test before calmly walking up to the front of the class. Several of his classmates' eyes traveled up to him and a few were scowling mildly, or just looking nervous or miserable. He was the first one done – no surprise there.

He set the parchment down on Snape's desk and the man looked up from whatever he was scratching away at with his quill.

"Potter," Snape said, quietly, drawing Harry's attention back to him and halting his immediate return to his desk.

"Yes, Professor?" Harry responded equally quietly.

"I have something I need to discuss with you, remain behind after class."

A very small subtle curl appeared on his lips, but he restrained most of it. "Of course, Professor," Harry responded easily and returned to his desk to get his cauldron ready for the brewing of the potion on the board.

Harry was fairly sure what the man wanted to 'discuss' with him since he'd seen the notes taken by his charmed quill dictating from the Map from the last two days. Dumbledore had finally gone down the third-floor hidden corridors and no doubt discovered Flamel's Stone very-much gone. Harry found it especially hilarious that it had taken this long for it's absence to be discovered. It had been more than a month since he'd stolen it.

According to the transcripts of Dumbledore's movement, he had called a staff meeting the previous evening, quite late at night after curfew. All of the heads of house and several other professors and staff, including Hagrid, Remus, and Filch had been present in the room with him. Part of Harry really wished he could have known what went on in that meeting, but from the map he could only determine that it had lasted about forty minutes before it had disbanded.

Hagrid had already removed Fluffy, but Professor Sprout was probably going to wait until the weekend, or probably even the end of term – since it was less than two weeks away – before she tackled the Devil's Snare in the second room.

Harry had no trouble with his practical brewing portion of the final exam and finished up with plenty of time to spare. He pulled out a book to read since he had nothing better to do and settled in for the next half hour while he waited for the rest of his classmates to finish up their potions exams and leave.

His reading material of choice was actually a fiction book. The third in a series of stories one of his older house mates was addicted to. When you had as much free time as Harry did, it was necessary to find a few things to help pass the time without going mad from boredom. And he generally didn't feel comfortable pulling out a parseltongue book from the Chamber while in class or the common room or... well, anywhere in the school, honestly. So he needed more public-friendly reading material and had started borrowing the books.

He'd been rather immersed in the action when he heard a throat clear over him. He rose his head slowly and looked around, realizing the room had cleared and the only ones left were he and Snape. He chuckled, marked his page and slipped the book back into his bag.

"Sorry. Got sucked into the story," he said as he leaned back in his chair, looking entirely relaxed and possibly a bit smug as he grinned up at the scowling man. "You wanted to speak with me?"

"Yes..." Snape drawled in annoyance before he brought out his wand and cast several privacy and security charms, including locking the door, and setting a proximity alarm to warn them if someone approached. "I was called to a meeting last night," Snape began slowly as he came to stand by the desk across the aisle from Harry's.

"Is that so?" Harry asked cheekily, earning him a narrow-eyed glare from Snape, that really only made his grin grow and clearly annoyed the man further.

"Yes," Snape drawled slowly in annoyance. "As you may, or may not, be aware, there was an object being kept at the school this year. It was being protected by a series of powerful spells and enchantments –"

Harry scoffed and Snape's glare narrowed on him for a moment before Harry made a motion with his hand for the man to continue.

"The Headmaster discovered the day before yesterday that it has been stolen. He has no idea how it was taken, or who may have taken it. He believes it had to have been an exceptionally powerful wizard though, since he guarantees us that there were a number of very subtly hidden protections that were extremely obscure and only a master of warding magic could have discovered them, let alone known how to counter-act them."

Snape paused for a moment, piercing Harry, who was looking more and more smug by the moment, with his black beady eyes. "He believes that the Dark Lord may have somehow found a way into the school without being discovered. He cannot imagine how this was possible and seemed rather... upset by the implications."

"Oh really? So he believes the Dark Lord did it?" Harry asked, clearly amused.

Snape's lip curled in obvious disdain. "Yes, he does... do you know anything about it?"

"You mean, do I know if the Dark Lord stole this mysterious object?"

Snape rolled his eyes. "Yes."

"He didn't. Actually, if he had come here and stolen it and I hadn't known and had missed him, I would be entirely furious with myself... wow, that would have really pissed me off, actually... But no, he didn't take it."

"And how, exactly, can you be so sure he wasn't the one to take it?" Snape asked, obviously already knowing the answer to that question.

Harry just grinned up at him with increasing amusement and oozing smugness. "I cannot imagine how I would possibly know such a thing," Harry said in an innocent voice that was completely negated by the still overly-smug expression on his face. "Maybe I'm a Seer. I just get this gut feeling that it wasn't taken by him. Must have been... someone else."

Snape rolled his eyes again.

"Although," Harry began again, "and not that this has anything to do with what we were just talking about, because it doesn't'... really. But I'm curious, Sir... have you ever wanted to try experimenting with potions that made use of the Elixir of Life as an ingredient?"

Harry's grin morphed into a full-on Cheshire-cat smile at the sudden light of intrigue that appeared on the normally constantly-dour potion master's face.

"I can only imagine the sort of intriguing experimentation a potion master of your caliber could do if he could get his hands on such an incredibly rare and powerful ingredient. Although, obviously, any experimental results you got would have to be kept secret and any potions you brewed would have to be kept within the circle... still... I think I might be able to arrange for you to get your hands on some. If you're interested, that is."

Snape's face went from greedy, to suspicious and then slowly morphed into contemplation.

"How did you do it?" he finally asked, in a quiet and surprisingly impressed-sounding tone; which wasn't really what Harry had been excepting.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Harry replied easily, still grinning.

Snape rolled his eyes and made an exasperated sound.

"Fine, whatever. What do you want in return for access to his rare ingredient?"

Harry shrugged. "Continued loyalty? Assistance with whatever the hell I might need, the next time I need it? I'll think of something."

Snape scowled slightly at that. He obviously did not like to be indebted to people without knowing what would be expected in return. Not that Harry could blame him. He was the same way.

"Do you live in the castle over the summers, or do you have your own place you return to?" Harry asked.

Snape's eyes narrowed further. "I have my own residence that I keep," he answered hesitantly. "Why?"

"I've got a house elf I bought from Lucius who will be bringing the Elixir to you, so I'll need an address to direct him to. I could probably tell him to just 'take this to Severus Snape' and he'd probably be able to find you – he is a surprisingly dedicated little thing – but a general location helps a lot in speeding things up."

"You should wait until a week into July. I will be at my home by that time. The house I keep is in a village near Manchester on the end of a street called Spinner's End. That should be sufficient for your house elf to narrow down my location and find me directly. It's a muggle village and he'll be able to sense the wards I have around my home without any significant interference."

Harry smiled and nodded his head. "Ah, good. That should do. I'll send him along a week or two into July with a small package."

Snape nodded and then looked speculative for a moment. "You haven't already... drank any of it yet, have you?"

Harry scoffed. "Why the hell would I want to keep myself this young any longer than is necessary?" Harry said with a small incredulous laugh. "No... actually, I was wondering about one thing, though... what is you opinion on potion conflicts if I was to take the aging potion and then drink some of the Elixir before the aging potion wore off in order to extend it's effects? Of course, I'm sure just taking the two potions like that would be stupid and have unforeseen side-effects, but it did get me wondering if the Elixir could be incorporated into the ageing potion to extend it's effectiveness so that it can last more than three days, if desired."

Snape brows rose slightly into his forehead and he looked intrigued. "It is an interesting idea to ponder... I will give it more thought. I would have to examine the Elixir itself and perform some tests on it before I would know anything for sure."

"Of course. All the more reason for me to give you some of it," Harry replied with a cheeky grin.

Snape barely refrained a snort from escaping him, and instead sneered mildly at Harry.

"Well, if that's all, I'll be off. Don't want to miss lunch."

"Fine," Snape said with a sigh.

Harry stood up and shouldered his bag. Just as he was about to leave Snape called out to him and he turned to look at the man curiously.

"One more question, Potter..." Snape said without really meeting Harry's eyes.

"Yes?"

Snape hesitated for a moment before speaking; a look of intrigued curiosity on his face. "How long ago did you steal it?"

Harry gave him a lop-sided grin. "I didn't steal anything, Professor. I haven't a clue what you're talking about."

Snape did not look amused at all when Harry chuckled. Harry paused for a moment before shrugging. "But... I have the strongest feeling that whatever it was that might have been hidden up there has been gone for... oh... about five weeks."

He laughed at the stunned look on Snape's face, and turned and left the room.

– –