A stranger in a Familiar face.
The Great Hall buzzed with energy, but something was amiss—an uncomfortable tension that no one could shake off. The sorting ceremony had ended, but the room was not as full of excitement as it usually was. The students, still murmuring amongst themselves, were whispering about the new Slytherin—the boy who had just been sorted into the house of ambition. The boy who had once been just a name, a legend, and now, he was here—Harry Potter.
The staff at the head table exchanged glances, their eyes drawn to the child they had not seen in a decade. Harry Potter had vanished from the wizarding world when he was just a baby, and now he was here, sitting in the very house that had been the birthplace of so much of the wizarding world's history.
Albus Dumbledore, for all his calm and collected demeanor, couldn’t hide the slight tension in his gaze as he looked at the child now seated at the Slytherin table. He had heard of Harry’s disappearance, but he had never truly thought the boy would be back.
“Is that truly him?” Professor McGonagall’s voice was low, filled with both awe and concern as her gaze flitted over to the child.
“Yes,” Dumbledore responded, his voice soft, but laced with something that could only be described as regret. “That is Harry Potter. He’s grown so much since we last saw him.”
The boy before them was not what they had expected. Gone was the infant they had last seen cradled in his mother’s arms. Gone was the helpless child they had imagined would be at the center of the prophecy. In his place was a young boy with an air of unsettling maturity, and an almost unnatural poise for someone his age.
Harry’s presence in the Great Hall seemed to shift the atmosphere. He wasn’t wide-eyed or nervous like most first-years; rather, he sat with an unnatural confidence, as though he had always belonged here. His demeanor gave off an air of someone who had been through much more than any child should have.
“I... I can’t believe it,” McGonagall whispered, her hand gripping the edge of the table. “He looks so different. How has he grown up like this?”
Snape’s lips were drawn into a thin, almost unreadable line, but his sharp eyes never left Harry. “He doesn’t look like the boy we were told would be the one to defeat the Dark Lord. He looks... changed.”
“Indeed,” Dumbledore agreed, his voice soft, but steady. “Changed by something we dont understand.”
Far from the Great Hall, in the shadows of Professor Quirrell’s mind, Voldemort’s eyes—hidden deep within Quirrell's mind—narrowed as he observed Harry for the first time in ten years. The boy was still small—still just a child—but his presence was enough to stir something dark within the pit of Voldemort’s soul.
His scar burned. A sharp, stinging sensation that crawled up the back of his skull and into the very roots of his thoughts.
Harry.
Voldemort couldn’t help but feel a surge of recognition. This was the same boy—the one who had survived him all those years ago. But now, the child before him was no longer the weak, frightened infant that had been placed in the care of the Muggles. He was someone else. Voldemort could feel it. This Harry Potter was not the same.
Quirrell's eyes flickered as Voldemort’s presence took full control of the mind.
“Impossible,” Voldemort hissed inside Quirrell’s head, his thoughts dark and swirling. “This... child has changed. He is not like any boy I have known.”
His attention fixed on the boy, Voldemort’s thoughts turned toward the scar—the link that remained between them, that same scar that had caused the connection all those years ago. It pulsed faintly now. Harry hadn’t noticed yet, but Voldemort knew that the boy was more aware than anyone could have expected.
He felt Harry’s awareness of him. The boy’s scar—it burned when Voldemort was near.
The Dark Lord’s mind was a whirl of thoughts as he considered this development. Harry had always been a piece in his grand design, but now, Voldemort wasn’t so sure. The boy had been lost to him for so long. And now, here he was—grown, different, and with an air of confidence that unsettled Voldemort more than he wanted to admit.
“Stay calm,” Voldemort instructed himself, although there was no one to hear. “The boy is not yet a threat.”
But deep within Quirrell’s mind, Voldemort was already plotting. The boy would need to be tested. He needed to be made to understand his true place in the world—a place where he could serve the Dark Lord. Harry would be his, one way or another.
Later that evening, once the students had retired to their common rooms, the Hogwarts staff gathered in the staff room. They were quiet, each still processing the sight of Harry Potter—his presence, his strange confidence, and the mysterious air that surrounded him.
“I can’t say I expected this,” McGonagall murmured, her arms crossed as she leaned against the fireplace. “He looks like Harry, but at the same time, he doesn’t. Something’s off about him.”
Dumbledore nodded, his eyes distant, lost in thought. “It’s not just that he’s changed. It’s as though he’s not quite the same boy we knew. The world outside has shaped him in ways we cannot comprehend.”
“It’s the way he carries himself,” Flitwick piped up, his voice full of concern. “There’s something almost... unsettling about him. Too confident for a child his age.”
“Too self-assured,” Snape muttered darkly. “He has the look of someone who’s been through far too much.”
Dumbledore sighed deeply, his gaze fixed on the door leading out of the room. “We must be careful. Harry is not the same child who disappeared all those years ago. There is a darkness in him now—whether we can draw it out or not, only time will tell.”