The train ride came to its familiar, shuddering end as the Hogwarts Express began to slow, its mighty engine emitting a final, triumphant sigh of steam. Through the misted twilight of the early evening, the towering, majestic silhouette of Hogwarts Castle rose into view, its myriad turrets and battlements piercing the sky like an ancient, slumbering giant, its hundreds of windows already glowing with a warm, inviting light.
Inside the compartment, students bustled around them, a cacophony of excited voices, nervous chatter, and gleeful laughter. Harry adjusted the collar of his school robes, a fresh, crisp white shirt beneath, watching Ron fumble awkwardly with his new prefect badge, attempting to pin it to his chest with one hand while balancing his trunk with the other. Hermione, ever meticulous, checked hers for the hundredth time, ensuring it was perfectly aligned and that no dust motes dared to mar its gleaming surface.
As the train ground to a halt, a wave of eager students spilled into the corridor, a joyous torrent of anticipation, eager for the year to begin, eager to reunite with friends.
Harry leaned back into the seat with a half-smile, already bracing himself for the inevitable madness the new school year would bring.
By the time the carriages arrived, drawn by the skeletal, forms of the Thestrals, visible only to Harry, Luna, and those who had witnessed death, their presence, a silent, morbid testament to lost lives, silently pulled them toward the looming castle gates, the atmosphere had taken on a strange mixture of awe and foreboding.
Hogwarts, illuminated by the first twinkling lights from its windows, casting long, dancing shadows, loomed ahead, a place of both wonder and yet much hidden dangers, as he and his friends had learned over the years.
'To be honest, after the first 3 years, they should just be suspecting the DADA professor first if anything happens that would have made things a lot easier in the original Timeline/world? ah, whatever.'
As they approached the castle, Harry couldn't help but be truly awestruck. When he had first arrived as an eleven-year-old, bewildered and new to the magical world, it had been a place of simple wonder, breathtaking in its sheer magical grandeur, a place to escape his relatives and know about his parents, a fairytale made real.
But now, as a Campione, his senses were infinitely sharper, he could feel the magic humming beneath the stones, vibrating through the very air itself, almost like a living, breathing entity, a massive, ancient heart beating beneath his feet.
It was a breathtaking sensation, It was like climbing up a mountain and staring at the magnificent view of nature, free and ever flowing the only thing he had felt that was greater was the chaotic energy of a Heretic God.
He sensed the layers of protection, the echoes of countless generations of magic, the subtle wards, and the history reverberating through its walls. It was more than just a school.
It was a living monument of interwoven magic, a fortress built on the very essence of the arcane, a place of power that, to his new self, felt almost like a colossal, sleeping child. Pure and uncorrupted.
The Great Hall was a breathtaking sight, as always, alive with the warm glow of thousands of floating candles that chased away the twilight gloom, casting dancing shadows across the enchanted ceiling, which mirrored the star-dusted velvet sky outside with astonishing fidelity.
As they took their sits and welcomed each other back, laughing and smiling. The sorting of the new first years took its place and afterward the opening feast.
Platters piled high with succulent roast meats, steaming vegetables, and mountains of glistening puddings shimmered invitingly along the long House tables, their aromas filling the cavernous space. Ron was already digging in.
But Harry barely glanced at the magnificent feast as he entered alongside the other returning students, his attention already drawn elsewhere. His eyes scanned the staff table.
Ugh.....There she was.
Dolores Umbridge. He had forgotten about her, to be honest, he had met her during his trial but she was so insignificant that she slipped his mind.
Seated smugly between Professor Sprout and Professor McGonagall, she was an obnoxious splash of sickly sweet pink against the somber professorial robes, a glaring, almost painful contrast.
As much as he had tried to push the memory of her aside in favor of more immediate, concerns, Heretic Gods, the ongoing hunt for Horcruxes, the exploration of his own evolving powers, seeing her again sparked a visceral flicker of irritation, a low thrum of anger deep within him that threatened to boil over. This was the woman who tortured Him and other students or was it she was going to, well not anymore if he had anything to do about it.
The woman's saccharine smile, stretched too wide across her fleshy, jowly face, and her absurdly pink, fluffy cardigan was more nauseating than he remembered, an almost physical affront to his senses, like a grating chalk on a blackboard to his enhanced hearing.
He inwardly scoffed at the sight of the overgrown, mutated toad, imagining the sheer delight he would take in simply crushing her beneath his foot.
Dumbledore stood to speak, his usual calm radiating outward, his long white beard gleaming in the candlelight, a benevolent patriarch about to welcome his charges. His voice, amplified magically, filled the hall, resonant and comforting. "Welcome back to Hogwarts for another year of magical learning—"
"Hem-hem."
The interruption was deliberate. Jarring. A sharp, high-pitched clearing of the throat that cut through Dumbledore's welcoming address like a rusted knife through silk, stealing the attention of every student and professor present. All eyes swiveled to the source, drawn by the sheer audacity of the interruption.
Umbridge stood, radiating an aura of self-importance, her hands primly folded in front of her, her pink bow neatly tied, a fixed, saccharine smile stretched across her toad-like face. Her eyes, however, were shrewd.
"Thank you, Headmaster," she said, her voice dripping with cloying sweetness that made Harry's teeth ache, like biting into pure sugar. "If I might borrow a moment of the students' precious time before the feast, to impart a few words from the Ministry of Magic…" The pause that followed was sharp, an almost aggressive assertion of authority, a deliberate challenge to Dumbledore's long-held tradition. Dumbledore, though clearly displeased, gave a curt nod, his eyes losing their twinkle, replaced by a weary resignation.
"The Ministry of Magic," Umbridge began, her voice now amplified by her own hidden magic, resonating with a bureaucratic dryness that grated on the ears, echoing around the vast hall, "believes that a stronger, more unified educational structure is required at Hogwarts. In recent years, a certain… laxity has crept into the curriculum, and, regrettably, rumors and misinformation have been allowed to fester amongst you impressionable young minds. Some of you may have been misled… into thinking that dark forces have returned, that certain individuals possess unique, unverified insights into matters beyond their ken, fostering an unnecessary climate of fear and dissent."
She didn't look at Harry directly, not overtly, at least, but her gaze lingered pointedly on the table where he sat, her words like poisoned honey, a thinly veiled accusation aimed squarely at him and Dumbledore, implying their shared fabrication of Voldemort's return.
All around the Great Hall, heads subtly turned, whispers rustled like dry leaves, and hundreds of eyes flickered towards Harry, filled with a complex mixture of curiosity, skepticism, and outright suspicion, influenced by the Ministry's relentless propaganda.
Harry ignored them all. He calmly reached for a roast chicken leg, tearing a piece off with practiced ease, his expression neutral, almost bored, his eyes fixed on his plate, the entire speech was nothing more than meaningless background noise, the droning of a particularly annoying insect.
He took a deliberate bite, chewing slowly, letting the warm, savory taste ground him, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a reaction. As he looked up to look at her directly, eyes bored and that seemed to annoy her before she schooled her face and continued.
Umbridge droned on, her words honeyed with condescension and bureaucratic smugness, everything was just for the ministry to outline their, restrictive policies for Hogwarts, policies designed to stifle independent thought and critical inquiry.
He ignored them, nothing she was saying mattered to him and he was unborthered by it but there was one thing annoying him and that was the old man.
Dumbledore's eyes, however, remained fixed on Harry as she gave her speech.
Harry could feel them. Even without looking up, with his heightened senses, he felt the old man's intense, unwavering gaze on him, a constant, almost palpable pressure.
Every time Harry subtly glanced upward, the old goats would subtly shift his gaze to avoid looking at him directly.
It was creepy. Incredibly, unsettlingly creepy. An old man constantly watching a fifteen-year-old boy from afar, perpetually assessing his every move? It was a huge red flag, bordering on predatory behavior, especially given Dumbledore's known, if discreetly rumored, preference for men.
The thought, however fleeting, made a shiver of revulsion run down Harry's spine, despite his logical understanding of the situation. If he didn't know that Dumbledore's obsession stemmed from the prophecy and his connection to Voldemort if he hadn't the Jacob memories to provide a logical (if unsettling) explanation for the Headmaster's unnerving focus, he would've assumed something far more disturbing.
But even with the context, the constant, probing observation was deeply creepy.
He suppressed a scoff, a cynical twist of his lips that went unnoticed by anyone. He stabbed his potatoes with more aggression than necessary, imagining the potato to be Umbridge's toad-like face, then Dumbledore's serene one.
He knew Dumbledore's game. The old man was trying to subtly pressure him, trying to make him feel the weight of expectation, to guilt him into crawling back into the fold, into becoming the docile, manipulable "Boy-Who-Lived" Dumbledore so desperately needed for his grand, convoluted plans. His martyr.
Jokes on the old man, he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon and as a Campione, he had centuries ahead.
Dumbledore wanted him to break, to come running back, seeking guidance, seeking reassurance, needing the old man's wisdom. If Dumbledore was hoping for such a capitulation, he'd be sorely disappointed.
The feast was over after a while and everyone went to their their houses.
Classes began a few days later, dragging everyone back into the familiar, yet oddly stifling, rhythm of homework assignments, class rotations through the ancient castle, and long, candlelit nights in the common room, punctuated by frantic essay writing and the desperate whispers of students trying to cram for pop quizzes. The academic routine, once a comforting anchor, now felt like a mundane chore, a distraction from the larger, more exciting realities Harry inhabited.
And there she was again.
Daphne Greengrass.
It didn't feel like just accidental encounters anymore, it felt almost deliberate, or perhaps, simply a consequence of their heightened awareness of each other. She seemed to pass him in the corridors with uncanny regularity, no, it was just that he was now more aware of her, her dark green robes a swish of elegance, her head held high.
She sat across from his desk in Transfiguration with her friend Tracy, her sharp, focused gaze a silent counterpoint to his own. Always poised. Always cool. Always radiating that aura of detached, aristocratic grace that set her apart.
And always, now, glancing his way. Her icy blue eyes, usually so impassive, would flick to him, a brief, assessing look, a silent question or observation, before returning to her work with an almost imperceptible shift of focus.
They hadn't spoken since their brief exchange on the train, but the silence between them was different from before.
Harry was still unsure what to make of it. He knew her reputation—sharp, untouchable, the Slytherin ice queen, a pure-blood heiress who kept everyone at arm's length with a chilling efficiency.
He had heard she once froze a 5th year's bits in her 3rd year when he kept bothering her.
He found himself intrigued, a novel feeling where a Slytherin was concerned, especially one so enigmatic beautiful, and surprisingly witty.
Then came the real pain.
His timetable. Thursday, a cruel joke from the universe, meticulously printed on flimsy parchment, a tangible representation of his impending suffering.
Defense Against the Dark Arts followed immediately by Potions.
In one excruciating day.
"Fantastic," he muttered, running a hand through his hair in exasperation, the phrase dripping with sarcasm and weary resignation.
"The sadist manbat and the Ugly toad, back-to-back. Umbridge's sickly sweet condescension followed by Snape's oily sneer. It's like a punishment designed by a deranged fiend. If I survive this year without snapping someone's wand or their neck, for that matter, it'll be a bloody miracle, a testament to my newfound patience."
The thought of facing both his most despised teachers on the same day, enduring their combined passive aggression and outright malice, filled him with a potent blend of killing intent. Maybe he should just kill them now and be done with it.
He had no doubt he was going to snap and kill one or both before the year's end, it felt less like a prediction and more like an inevitability, a dark promise to himself that he was increasingly tempted to fulfill sooner rather than later.
He sighed a deep, exasperated sound, DADA first.
Time to face the toad, and perhaps, lose a little more of his patience, along with his temper. He would need every ounce of his newfound self-control, to get through the day.
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