Prodigy

Harry Potters first ride on the Hogwarts Express left him feeling a little let down. Hermione had described it to him as something completely magnificent, but to Harry, it simply felt like several hours where he didn't really accomplish anything. He had tried to work on his M-Machine a bit, but the motion of the train just gave him a headache when he tried to concentrate.

The ride was not a total loss however, as he was able to have good conversations with not only his friend Hermione, but also two Slytherins: Daphne Greengrass and Blaise Zabini. It was his first real conversation with anyone from that house (not counting Tonks) that was actually about something.

The only thing that was a little odd about the conversation was that Hermione, Daphne, and Blaise all looked a little uncomfortable around each other. Harry tried to figure out exactly why he got that impression, but wasn't able to come up with anything. He finally decided to ask Hermione about it sometime. Perhaps he was just imagining it. He wasn't, after all, that well versed in social transactions, although he had read quite a bit about them.

When they arrived at King Cross station, Harry followed Hermione to get her luggage. His own was safely shrunken and tucked in his pockets. While Hermione looked for her trunk, Harry idly wondered why she hadn't done the same thing he had, and decided to ask her.

“Well, Harry, I can't do magic outside of Hogwarts, and my parents aren't magical, so how would I get it unshrunk?” she asked in a manner that made it seem like Harry should have known the answer. Harry was in fact, quite confused.

“You can't do magic outside of Hogwarts? Why not? What good it magic if you can only do it in place?” he asked her.

“It's the law, Harry. You should be careful; the punishment for underage magic use is expulsion, I think,” Hermione explained.

“I've been doing magic for several years now, Hermione. If they were going to expel me, I think they would have done it by now,” Harry frowned. In the end, the two compromised and Harry cast a feather-light charm on the book burdened trunk before picking it up easily and following Hermione over to her parents.

“Mom, Dad, I would like you to meet my friend, Harry Potter,” Hermione introduced after hugging her parents.

“Pleased to meet you,” Harry said, shaking each of their hands. It was an odd custom, Harry mused, to shake hands, but probably had to do with the inborn need of human contact. Shaking the thought from his head, Harry smiled and returned his attention back to the conversation at hand.

After speaking for a few more minutes, it was time to go, and Hermione surprised Harry by giving him a tight hug. Harry wasn't sure what to do; he couldn't ever remember ever being hugged before, except for maybe a few times by Sirius. He was still trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, so he copied his friends actions as best as he could.

“I'll miss you,” he said honestly when Hermione had let go. She smiled back and told him she would miss him too.

Hermione's father had been watching the entire display with a mixture of curiosity and animosity. The boy in front of him was an enigma to him, but that wasn't all that strange. After all, he had only met the boy a few minutes before hand. There was something different about the boy, though, and he couldn't quite place his finger on it. There was an air of confidence, and knowledge that gave a sense of age far above eleven. Add to that the fact that this boy was the first friend that Hermione had ever introduced to him, and the fact that the boy was indeed, a boy, and Dan Granger was completely lost about what to think. He knew that he would definitely be hearing more about it later, though.

Another strange thing about the boy was the apparent ease that he had carried Hermione's trunk. Dan knew that the trunk was laden with several books, and usually weighed quite a bit, and even he had trouble moving it. Surely the boy couldn't be that strong?

Dan braced himself as he prepared to lift the trunk to move it to the car. Then he had to brace himself again - from falling backward once he lifted it. It weighed only a fraction of what he had remembered.

“What?” Dan Granger stuttered out. Harry just smiled brightly and with a glimmer in his eye said, “Magic.”

With the Grangers gone, Harry looked around to find Sirius and Remus. He spotted them close by. Apparently they had been watching the meeting between himself and his best friend's family.

“Hello Harry,” Remus said when Harry had neared.

“Hello, Sirius, Remus,” Harry said.

“Hello, Harry. Meeting the girlfriend's parents before coming to see us I see,” Sirius said teasingly. Harry didn't understand, though. Was there something significant about the fact that Hermione was both a girl and his friend?

The group soon disappeared as Sirius activated a portkey to Grimmauld Palace, his home away from Hogwarts.

“Welcome to my Home, Harry,” Sirius announced when they had arrived. Harry had promptly fallen to the floor. He decided that apparition was definitely a better way to travel. After he had gotten up, he took time to look around. The house was very inviting, and was obviously a bachelor's pad, although Harry didn't recognize it as such. His eyes were drawn, however, to the one thing that seemed out of place. There was a large burnt spot on one of the walls.

“What's that about?” Harry asked, pointing to the spot. Sirius and Remus both started laughing.

“Oh, that's an interesting story, cub, but the short of it is, I had to get rid of my mother,” Sirius said.

“Get rid of you mother?” Harry asked cautiously. Was Sirius implying that he had killed his mother, and the burnt spot was evidence of that?

“Well, his mother's portrait. A right cow, that one was,” Remus said.

They decided to move on, and Sirius showed Harry his room for the Holiday. It was about the size of his room at Hogwarts, and there wasn't anything too spectacular about it. There was a large desk, though, for Harry to work at.

“Now, even though there is a desk here, I expect you to take breaks,” Sirius said. Harry looked up and smiled. He wasn't sure what he would do if he wasn't work, or flying, especially since Hermione was here with him, but he knew he would figure out something. Taking breaks was nice, and there had been a long stretch while he was living by himself when he had forgotten that.

They made their way downstairs to the dining room, where they found dinner waiting for them. Sirius explained that it had been prepared by his house elves, and Harry frowned for a moment.

As they sat to eat, Harry decided to bring up one of the things he had been working on.

“Remus, you might be happy to hear that I've been working with Professor Snape on an improved version of the Wolfsbane potion,” Harry said.

“Oh?” Remus was surprised. “How is that working out?”

“I think it's going well. I brewed the first version of the improved potion a couple weeks ago, and it turned out well. We're still testing it though, and aren't ready for a human test yet,” Harry explained.

Remus raised his eyebrow. Normally potion testing consisted of someone just going ahead and drinking it. “How are you testing it?”

“Well, we need to be aware of several things, I think. While the first modification was only the removal of an inert portion of the potion, I'm wanting to see several things, such as how long it will last, any changes it undergoes throughout the lunar cycle, and other properties it has. I know it's a lot more than what is usually done, but have someone just drink it seems extremely stupid. There are just too many risks involved with that. Eventually we'll be testing it on mice and I've been tossing around the idea of trying to make little weremice to test on,” Harry explained. Remus nodded; it certainly made sense to him.

They conversation continued for a while as the two discussed the changes made to the potion. Harry couldn't go into much detail, as Remus was not aware of Harry's system of potion creation. Harry mentally cursed the fact that he had been unable to make progress on the M-Machine O'Matic, and decided to dedicate a good amount of time to it in the coming weeks. As they talked longer, Harry remembered something important he needed to bring up with the werewolf.

“Remus, the main problem I have with our current line of work is that all the improved potion does is address the symptoms of lycanthropy. I think to really find a cure, we are going to need to look at how werewolves came into existence. Also, I am going to need to take samples from an actual werewolf to study at some point. This will probably include blood, hair, and saliva samples while transformed and normally. Since you're the only werewolf I know, I was wondering if you might be willing to help?” Harry didn't like asking because he knew that he himself would not want to undergo such a thing. He saw Remus hesitation as well, and said as much.

For Remus, the request was brought both hope and foreboding. He would almost serve as a `lab rat' of sorts, and the idea disgusted him. When he heard Harry tell him how uncomfortable he was with the question, Remus decided to do it. Harry would be able to handle it professionally, he thought. So Remus agreed to help, in the end.

Sirius was quiet throughout the whole conversation about Wolfsbane - it was a subject he hardly knew anything about. Soon the conversation shifted, though, and Sirius saw his chance to bring up something he did know about: Quidditch. Harry hadn't had much exposure to the game, but found it fascinating.

Later that night, after Harry had gone to bed, Remus found his friend sitting in the living room, staring into the fire.

“What's the matter, Sirius,” Remus asked.

Sirius was quiet for a long moment before he said anything.

“I just don't know what to make of Harry,” Sirius said. “I feel a responsibility to be a sort of a father figure for him, but I'm also supposed to be teaching him. And the fact of the matter is, I have no idea how to do either. I'm not even sure if I can do both at the same time,” Sirius answered.

Remus studied his friend. Sirius has changed much since his carefree years in Hogwarts. Several years in Azkaban no doubt had some influence on that.

“Well, let's look at what we know. Harry is very independent; he was forced to be so considering the way he grew up. I'm not completely sure if a father figure is what he needs so much as a friend a confidant. And I know you have the capability to be a good mentor to him. You have a lot of knowledge to share with him, and that's something Harry truly values. Perhaps you should just start your lessons with him and see what happens,” Remus advised.

“Perhaps you're right, Moony. I guess that's all I really can do.”

Somewhere over Great Britain

The mass of thick black cloud wandered aimlessly through the air. Those (magical or otherwise) who noticed the odd thing merely wrote it off as a puff of black smoke. They couldn't have been further from the truth.

The black mass was indeed part of the soul formally known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, and had recently been forcefully ejected from another body. The past month and a half had found the spirit floating around as best as it could, observing the different parts of society.

The spirit had been amazed and sickened by the changes it found. Every single supporter of his, save two, had been locked up into Azkaban, and there had been a complete restructuring of British wizarding world. It would be extremely difficult for him to quickly reestablish a foothold on the island; he would have to start elsewhere.

Making his decision, he made towards one of his servants - the one not currently resident in the bastion of light in the wizarding world.

Malfoy Manner

Narcissa Malfoy was pretty much at her wits end. She knew she wasn't that good of a parent, and nothing she did helped the situation. The problem was her son. He was belligerent, disrespectful, and arrogant, and saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. His two friends, large boys named Crabbe and Goyle were always around him, encouraging him, not that he needed it all that much.

On more than one occasion, Narcissa had come close to hexing the boy, just to prove a point, but her hand was stayed each time by the memory of her husband, currently locked in Azkaban. To strike at her child using magic would have been something he would have done, and not something a proper woman should do.

Her husband sickened her to no end, and she was quite glad that he was no longer around. She had hoped that when they had carted Lucius off, his influence on her son would end.

It almost seemed, however, that the exact opposite had happened. Oh, at first, Draco had been a lot better, but he had changed. It had been a gradual change, but it was still there.

The thing that scared Narcissa the most, however, was the times she thought she heard her child hissing. But that had to be her imagination, didn't it?

END CHAPTER

A/N: Ok, first let me apologize for taking so long to get this out, and secondly for it being just over two thousand words. I had a nearly seven thousand word chapter completed, but my friggin laptop harddrive conked out on me, and it's going to be several months before I can afford to fix it. So I had to start working on my other computer and type this much from memory. In the coming days, I will be continuing my work on getting the chapter out.

In other new, I've started a Yahoo group that will be getting quicker (and shorter) releases for this story. Basically, as I get a thousand words done, I'll release it on that group, and after I encompass the major plot points I wanted, I will upload these sub chapters as a whole chapter on here.

Ok, that's all. Thanks for all the reviews! Enjoy!