Chapter 4
“Wingardium Leviosa!” He said loudly, without putting any effort or magic into levitation. His feather didn’t even twitch. He added the disappointed face he’d practiced as part of his persona, and smiled inwardly when Mandy giggled at him and correctly demonstrated her mastery of the levitation spell.
“That’s how it’s done, Potter.” She gloated.
He just sat down heavily and crossed his arms. He’d ‘try’ again in a minute. Surprisingly, his failure seemed to be the norm for the class. He’d been told that Ravenclaws were the intellectuals, so his expectation of advanced comprehension was logical. It turned out however, that once again logic did not visit Hogwarts.
At least the Hufflepuffs kept trying until they succeeded. The rest of his own class tried halfheartedly a few times, and if it didn’t work, they got bored and did something else. It was rather like poor Draco, who expected to be the best at everything even when he’d never attempted it before. The boy tried to hide it, but when his inevitable failure surfaced, he simply got angry and abandoned the task entirely. Someone ought to have told Lucius that blowing sunshine up his son’s arse was not an education.
He ‘barely succeeded’ at making his feather move just before the end of class, and trudged with the others toward the dining hall. The food wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t spectacular either.
He ducked out of sight into an alcove and let the rest of his dorm mates pass, he had a quick rendezvous to get to before he joined them for dinner.
He was a little disappointed by the troll itself, but not much. It was what came after that was the challenge - to see if the professors could discover the way in which he had killed it.
He didn't think so.
It really didn't matter either way, he was just curious and the result would give him a greater understanding of the topmost ability in the British wizarding world. He knew Dumbledore regularly sandbagged his capabilities, and his dotty grandfather act caused people to underestimate him. One had already told him all about Dumbledore, his strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots, but he was still interested in the test results.
Two days later Hermione sat next to him, facing him at breakfast.
"I thought about what you said, and did some experimenting. I also noticed you study by yourself exclusively." She said. "I have come to the conclusion that you were - barring any unexpected changes - wholly correct. Thank you."
"You're welcome." He said.
"If you're amenable, I'd like to be your friend." She stated boldly, "Or, failing that, I'd like to study with you. You seem very far ahead, and I will be as well regardless, but I'd prefer company."
He looked at her for a moment. Was she sincere? She seemed sincere, she had all the biomarkers of truthfulness. Perhaps there was something to what One taught him about relationships.
"If you're alright with me, I think that would be fine." He said.
She frowned slightly. "What do you mean alright with you? What's wrong with you?"
"My emotions have been magically dampened, and I don't understand human interaction or feelings much - that's why I was studying human nature. I probably won't be a very good friend." He whispered to her.
She gasped. "That's horrid!" She whispered back, "I'm so sorry! Who would do such a thing?!"
He wasn't about to tell her yet, not before she was far more invested, so he shrugged.
"You don't know?" She asked.
"It's not relevant to what being my friend means for you."
Her lips tightened and her brow furrowed. "I suppose not, but it's still terrible. I don't like that someone has done that to you regardless what it means for me."
It was strange receiving concern. Training hadn't covered it.
"That makes you a better person than I. Maybe I'll learn something from you." He said.
"I hope so." She smiled, "I've already learned something life-changing from you."
"So we're friends then?" He asked.
"Friends. And study partners?" She said with a hopeful glimmer in her voice.
"Friends and study partners." He confirmed. That meant that at least some of his free time would be taken up reviewing the spells in the Hogwarts curriculum, which wasn't a bad thing. He'd mostly just been filling time after confirming there was nothing new to study in the Restricted Section. He’d already finished copying the entire library, and there was only so many times a day he could sharpen his knives.
"Good." She flounced and faced the table, then began to pull breakfast onto her plate.
80 finished his breakfast with an apple, and as Hermione ate, the morning owl post arrived. Hermione was quick to cover her breakfast with her arm, but as the owl dropped a newspaper toward her, 80 caught it and handed it to her.
"Thank you." She smiled at him as she took it, and unrolled it to read the front page. She immediately frowned as she read voraciously.
"That's the tenth one since school started." She whispered to herself.
"Tenth what?" He asked quietly.
She leaned closer to show him the paper. There was no picture involved - he had been sure there wouldn't be - but the headline read 'SELWYN MURDERED'.
"Someone is killing off old families." She explained quietly, "The murders have been accompanied by messages that You-Know-Who or his followers would use, though some of the dead were his followers so I'm not sure what the motivation is."
"Maybe Voldemort's a bit incensed with those particular followers? He hasn't exactly proven his overwhelming common sense." 80 offered.
"No, I suppose not." She admitted. She didn't look convinced.
"What I don't understand is why you're trying to do an Auror's job as a first year student." He said. "Don't you have enough to learn?"
"Harry.” She folded the paper in front of her. “I don’t want to know who did it or why. I want to know their pattern to determine whether or not my parents are in danger. The last time someone ran around murdering people, people like me were high on the list, so were my parents.”
“That’s a fair point.” He conceded. “I’ll try to help, but I’m not sure I’ll be any.”
She seemed to relax, and put the paper in her bag. “Thank you Harry, it’s nice of you to offer. Let’s get to Defense, that’s put me off my breakfast.”
80 shrugged and accompanied her to the Defense classroom. There was no-one else there yet, but even so the stench Quirrell emitted lingered in the air.
80 took a deep sniff as they took seats side by side. “Smell that?” He asked.
Hermione wrinkled her nose. “Yes of course. Professor Quirrell leaves a lasting aroma.”
“Not the garlic. Can you smell what the garlic is hiding?”
She paused, and sniffed again several times. “It’s faint. It’s sort of sweet, but also hideously foul.”
“That’s one way you know your parents are attentive and health-conscious.” He said, “The fact that you don’t know that smell.”
She frowned at him. “What? Why? What is it?”
“It’s rot.” He said. “That’s what meat smells like when it rots.”
Hermione’s cheeks drained of color. “Really?”
He nodded. “I visited a farm in Texas where they study decomposition. I’ll never forget it.” It had been an exercise to desensitize him to the smell.
“Ugh.” She pinched the collar of her shirt and brought it to her nose and kept it there for a minute while she breathed, and gradually the color returned to her face.
“What could make him smell like that?” She asked after a while.
“I’m sure there are books in the library we could look for the answer in.” He replied.
She smiled at that, and went back to breathing in her own shirt.
The rest of the first year Ravenclaws began to show up then, and were all seated before the first Gyrffindor turned up. Quirrell entered the room and closed the door behind him. Ron and Seamus opened the door and quickly took their seats a minute later.
Even Hermione was bored waiting for Quirrell to say something worth writing down, and when class ended they filed out with everyone else.
“See you at lunch.” Hermione said as they parted ways.
“See you at lunch.” He agreed.
He met Hermione at the Ravenclaw table for lunch, but she had other ideas. She grabbed a couple sandwiches from the table and nearly dragged him by the robe sleeve to the library. It took most of the lunch hour, but she narrowed the possibilities down to three.
“Well he’s not an inferi. He’d be unable to speak and would have eaten everyone.” She huffed as she scratched inferi off the list. “Likewise, he’s not a zombie or he’d be unable to speak and would try to eat people while bits of him fell off.” She scratched that off the list as well.
“What’s that leave?” He asked calmly.
“Parasitic possession.” She said, and looked that up in the book. “When a witch or wizard is possessed by an evil spirit, the spirit will feed on the life force of the host and rot it from within.” She read from the text. “Only...”
“Only?”
“Well, it also says the only way anyone can be possessed fully is to openly welcome the foreign spirit into her or his body.” She curled her lip in disgust.
“Which means?”
“It points to Quirell being possessed by a parasitic spirit, but I don’t see how that’s possible, Headmaster Dumbledore wouldn’t allow him in! The charms on the school tell him when anything like that touches them.”
“When you have eliminated that which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “You’ve read Sherlock Holmes.”
“I went through a period when I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes. Visiting the decomposition farm was part of that.” He gave her the encouraging smile he’d been working on.
She shut the books in front of her and stacked them together. “So Quirrell is possessed.” She said.
“And the Headmaster knows it. He is either waiting for Quirrell to do something before he acts, or he doesn’t care. Either way, he’s put hundreds of children in danger.”
She turned to look at him accusingly. “You knew it too! I bet you knew the first day!”
He nodded. “I’m eleven. Who is going to believe me over Dumbledore?”
“Headmaster Dumbledore.” She corrected, and then sat down to stare at the tabletop. “What do we do then?” She asked in a quiet voice. “What can we do?”
“Have you deduced the identity of the spirit yet?” He asked in an equally quiet voice.
She had, he could see it in her eyes. She just didn’t want to believe it.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” She whispered.
“Who else would it be, and why else would Headmaster Dumbledore tell everyone in the Great Hall there was something valuable in the third floor corridor?”
Her eyes went wide as she pieced it together. “But..! He’s playing some kind of chess game with You-Know-Who right here! Right now!”
He nodded, thoroughly pleased with her mind. “And we’re the pawns.” He said.