Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

A/N: Thanks for all your reviews! They're very encouraging.

I know I said that I said this will eventually be H/D, but I must stress the word eventually. After all, they're only eleven at this point. I intend to go through all seven years, and their story will be a gradual, natural progression from adversaries to aquaintances to friends to lovers. They have to grow up first. And I'll be treating Quidditch differently. You'll have to read the chapter to find out on that one.

Thanks again for reviewing!

The next morning Harry noticed that Ron and Hermione seemed very cross with each other. The red-headed Gryffindor told Blaise and Harry after breakfast what had happened the previous night. Apparently they had accidentally gotten into the third-floor corridor on the right side, and found a huge three-headed dog guarding it, barely escaping with their lives and getting back to their dorms before curfew. Hermione had told Ron that the thing had been standing on a trap door, obviously guarding its contents, but she was more concerned with the possibility of being expelled if their accidental infraction was discovered than what might lay beneath the trap door.

The story set the wheels in Harry's head working. If the thing Hagrid had pulled out of vault 713 had been so valuable that it had been in such a high security vault, which Harry was sure they were the same, the coincidence was too great, then under the feet of that great beast was likely the best place in the school for it. What was it that it was so valuable, and who wanted to steal it? And if a Gringott's high security vault hadn't stopped them, what made Dumbledore think that a dog would, no matter how huge or how many heads? It worried him, and he wasn't really sure why.

Things had started to go smoothly for Harry at school. He was doing well in all of his classes, especially Herbology, which was his favorite subject. He loved plants, and he was patient enough to wait for them to grow, which was the problem many people had with it. So many wizards were used to instant gratification that they'd much rather just order what they needed rather than grow it themselves. He had several things growing in the greenhouse that weren't part of the normal curriculum, including a Serpent's Hutch for Richard to live in and not worry about the more aggressive plants in the garden. Harry had also warned Professor Sprout about the little snake so that she wouldn't try to oust him from her greenhouse.

He was even doing well in Potions, even if he had to deal with his head of house more than he'd prefer. As he'd told Snape before, he did have four other senses and an excellent memory. He made combination labels for all of his potions and ingredients, the top in English and the bottom in Braille. That ensured that he would not mix his ingredients up while he was brewing potions and that no one would get the wrong bottle if he asked for something. He was able to feel whether or not his scales were balanced when he was measuring out the ingredients. And he could tell from scent if something was wrong with his potion -- or anyone else's for that matter. It truly annoyed Snape that he was doing so well, but the man refused to show favoritism in his grading, one way or another, so Harry's grades were still good, and he was actually thankful to the snarky git.

He continued his flying lessons with Madame Hooch, who was training him to use any sound for echo location, not just his whistle. The whistle had the advantage of distance, as its sound would travel much farther, but he couldn't very well be blowing the thing in class when people were trying to study. It was amazing what a world she'd opened up for him. If he learned nothing else from his time at Hogwarts, flying and echo location had made the experience worth while.

Harry learned a lot about controlling his magic in Charms class. Professor Flitwick had gotten over his original shock and now treated him just like any other student, to Harry's great relief. He showed Harry how to focus through his wand and how to find his magical center and calm it. The day he achieved that, Harry felt like something important had slipped back into place after having been dislocated for some time. He had been jolted into magical awareness at a very early age thanks to the curse which had scarred him, and that early activity had supercharged his magic in order to help compensate for his lack of sight. This was why he would do wandless magic when he was frightened or angry, and why it was so much more active in him than in other children his age. Now he would be able to go through his school life and grow in power without loosing all control over it. And he could still use wandless magic on purpose if he wanted, something that was rather rare.

Transfiguration was still very hard for him. Every transfiguration spell Professor McGonagall had ever heard of involved visualizing both the object you were transfiguring and the object you were changing it into. It wasn't that Harry wasn't able to perform the spells; he just had no frame of reference to work with. It was one of Harry's yearmates, Morag MacDougal, who came up with the solution. She was getting rather good at transfiguration, and one day in class she said, "Why don't you visualize how it sounds when you do that echo location thing? You did say it was almost like seeing, didn't you?"

Harry had just paused for a moment. If he hadn't been blind, he'd have stared at her in amazement. Why hadn't he thought of that? "That just might work!" Harry told his whistle to blow and concentrated on the sounds that were reflected back to him from the goblet that Morag had just completed. He turned to the block of wood in front of him and did the same, and then he concentrated and performed the spell. He grinned when the two sonic images mirrored each other perfectly.

As Harry shut his whistle off, Professor McGonagall applauded. "Well done, Mr. Potter! You only made one mistake on this, and given the circumstances, I think that's perfectly acceptable."

Harry frowned. "What mistake is that, Professor?"

There was a gentle smile in the older witch's voice. "Your goblet is completely black. Actually rather striking if it were to be part of a dinner set. Silver flatware and a white tablecloth along with a jet black dinnerware set. I think I'll try that in my dining room over the summer."

But Harry's frown didn't go away. Nothing he ever transfigured would have color, unless that color was intrinsic in the item, such as gold being gold colored and silver being silver colored. Their color was a property of their atomic composition. But a stoneware goblet could have any color glaze. Including black. Cloth would be black, wood would be black, even the fur of animals once he got that far would be black. He couldn't do it any other way. Because he didn't know what color was, and because his world was dark. No light could penetrate his kind of blackness.

Morag said, "Don't let it bother you, Harry. Transfiguration is always affected by the individual's world view. For example, my goblet came out as stoneware, and so did yours because you were using mine as an example. But Hermione's was silver and Professor McGonagall's was crystal. Two different people might transfigure a horse from a boulder using the same spell, and one will come out sorrel while the other's comes out bay or palomino. It's all a matter of the person's individuality. And if everything you do is black, then people will just know that it was you who did it. It won't seem strange. It's not really a mistake at all."

Professor McGonagall said, "Miss MacDougal is quite correct, Mr. Potter. I should not have said it was a mistake. Transfiguration is often a reflection of personality. It is as much art as science, as everyone sees the world differently."

Harry resolved not to let his lack of color get to him. It was Halloween, and he had resolved to enjoy the day, as he always had for some reason. He knew that was the anniversary of his parents death, but it couldn't dampen his enjoyment. As was his tradition, he'd lit a candle for them in his dormitory that morning and left it burning. He couldn't see the flame, but he could feel the heat when he was near it, and that had always been enough for him. He would then indulge in all the celebrations of the day. At the orphanage on Mung Street, he and the other boys would get candy, which they never did on any other day, and they would be allowed to sit up 'till all hours telling ghost stories. He imagined that Halloween here would be far better.

And he wasn't disappointed. Even before Harry walked into the Great Hall, he could hear them. Bats, thousands of them, all over the hall. They covered every surface and flitted through the air, making their high-pitched squeaks. Because of their racket, Harry had no trouble hearing everything on the table, and even though he couldn't see the color, he was very happy with it.

During the Halloween feast, he heard the gossip that Hermione Granger had been insulted by Ron and was in the girl's bathroom crying. Harry frowned, wondering if Draco wasn't the only one who needed to start apologizing to people. Why did they have to act like prats? Both of them could be very good wizards if they'd just shut their mouths.

Harry wanted to talk to Ron, but he knew he'd have to wait until they were out of the Hall because he had to be at the Slytherin table and Ron had to be at the Gryffindor table.

He was listening to Blaise tell some silly story about a ghost getting itself stuck in a closet when he heard someone running. It was Professor Quirrel, and he was screaming, "Troll! Troll -- in the dungeon!" There was a funny kind of pause, and then he quietly said, "Thought you ought to know," and collapsed with a thud to the ground.

For a moment there was complete silence, save for the bats, then everyone started shouting. It took a couple of mild explosions in the air to get everyone's attention, and then Dumbledore calmly took control of the situation. "Everyone will please remain calm. Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately."

As Higgs started people moving, Harry grasped Blaise's arm. "Blaise, get me to Ron."

"What?"

"Hermione'd been in the girl's bathroom all afternoon crying because of something she said to him. She doesn't know about this."

"Bloody -- you sure you're not a Gryffindor in disguise?"

Harry just grinned. They made their way in all the confusion to where Ron was trying to keep up with his housemates. "Ron!"

"Harry? What --"

"Where's Hermione?"

"They said she was in the bathroom."

"Then she doesn't know about the troll. We've got to get to her."

Knowing he'd been the one who set her crying in the first place, Ron could only agree. But Blaise elected to worry about his own skin and left Harry with Ron. "Be careful, guys."

The two headed for the girl's bathroom. They had just turned a corner when they heard footsteps behind them. "Percy!" They ducked around a column to hide.

But it wasn't Percy. Harry would know that gait anywhere. "No, it's Snape. Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"

"Search me."

Quietly as possible, they crept along the next corridor after Snape's fading footsteps.

"He's heading for the third floor. And what is that smell?" It was a foul stench, like a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean. And then they heard it -- a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Harry pinpointed the sound as coming from the end of a passage to the left, and it was moving toward them. They shrank back to hide. Then Harry heard Ron's breath hitch. He whispered, "Troll?"

"Yeah."

The stench was awful, and it seemed to pervade the entire corridor. Along with the sounds of its movement was a wooden scraping that Harry couldn't identify.

Ron said, "He's going in that door up there." They waited, wondering what to do when they heard a wooden crash and a high-pitched scream of fear. "Oh no!"

"Hermione!" they said together.

It was the last thing they would have wanted to do, but they ran for the bathroom door. They knew if they didn't then the girl was toast. Harry flung the door open, and Ron had to dodge to avoid getting hit with it. Harry wasn't planning on wasting time. He wasn't a Slytherin for nothing, and he'd use any means necessary, to a point, to get what he wanted, which in this instance was Hermione's safety. He already had his wand out, knowing it would be a much better weapon than his cane, which he was accustomed to using to defend himself and others. He grasped his whistle as they went in and shouted "Blow!" The charm obeyed him immediately, allowing him to hear the room with greater efficiency. "Hermione!"

"She's under the sinks!"

Harry moved toward the frightened girl, but apparently the noise from the whistle was annoying the troll, and he had identified Harry as the source of it. Harry leapt out of the way as the beast swung his club right for him. "Hermione, move!" He prayed that she would take advantage of the troll's distraction and get herself out of harm's way. Trolls hated loud noises, and he was providing plenty of volume with his whistle.

But the girl was too frightened to move. "Ron, I'll keep him distracted. You get her out of there. Now!"

The troll spotted the other boy as he moved toward Hermione and swung for the sinks, barely missing the both of them. Harry did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed hold of his magical center and grasped at any loose object he could find, chunking it at the troll with speed enough to hurt even this thick-skinned creature. The beast howled in pain, swinging the club without aiming, smashing the occasional flying tile or bit of wood or glass with deadly force, but no real intent. Trolls weren't the brightest creatures.

Finally, Ron had one too many close encounters with the huge chunk of wood and pulled his own wand, crying out the first spell that came to his mind. "Wingardium Leviosa!" And he did it correctly, as he had not in class, which had led to his argument with Hermione in the first place. The troll's club came out of his hand and rose in a graceful arc before falling -- onto it's owner's bewildered head. The troll swayed on the spot then fell flat on its face, with a thud that made the whole room tremble.

Harry was shaking and out of breath as he allowed the broken bits of bathroom fall where they were. People never realized how much effort that took, especially when he was directing each individual flight path and throwing the pieces with as much force as he could manage. As a weapon, it needed work. As a distraction, it was ideal. And he definately needed to practice so he would not become exhausted every time he used wandless magic. And as he caught his breath, he knew that he would need to keep that practicing as secret as possible. He just wasn't sure why. It was intuition, and he never ignored it. Such feelings had saved him from more than one beating at the hands of the orphanage bullies.

Hermione was the first to speak, save for Harry telling his whistle to stop. "Is it -- dead?"

Harry shook his head, hearing the troll breathing. "No, just knocked out. Good job Ron."

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps alerted them to the arrival of the teachers. Harry only then realized that they had been loud enough for those searching for the troll downstairs to hear them. Professor McGonagall's gasp and Professor Quirrell's fearful whimper were the first things he heard from them.

Professor McGonagall had never sounded so angry. "What on earth were you thinking of?" she said, cold fury in her voice. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitories?"

Snape was the unidentified teacher. "Well, Potter?" Great. He already hates me. Now he'll have an excuse to punish me.

Then a small voice came out of the shadows. "Please, Professors -- they were looking for me."

"Miss Granger!"

Hermione had finally managed to get to her feet. "I went looking for the troll because I -- I thought I could deal with it on my own -- you know, because I've read all about them." Ron and Harry were shocked. Hermione, the girl who held the rules to be sacred, was telling an outright lie to a teacher? "If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. Harry was throwing things at it to distract it and Ron knocked it out with its own club. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."

Harry kept his battle mask up, which no one he'd ever met, so far, could read any emotion through. He only prayed that Ron could keep a straight face.

"Well -- in that case..." said Professor McGonagall, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

Hermione was silent.

"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this. I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."

Something was tickling Harry's nose. "Hermione, were you hurt? I smell blood, and it's not coming from that troll."

The girl sounded confused. "No, Harry."

"What about you, Ron?"

"No. And you don't seem to be bleeding either. You're smelling things, mate."

Harry frowned. His nose had never failed him before on such a matter. Oh well. It was a rather minor mystery. Hermione left the destroyed bathroom, and Professor McGonagall addressed the two boys. "Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win five points for your houses. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go. Harry, do you need a guide?"

"Very well."

Hermione was waiting for them just outside. "Thank you both for coming after me." Then she walked away.

Harry smiled at her retreating footsteps. As the Slytherin dungeons used the same flight of stairs as Gryffindor tower, Harry and Ron walked together for a time. It was a relief to be away from the stench of the troll, quite apart from anything else. Ron spoke quietly as they walked. "Good of her to get us out of trouble like that."

"What did you say that had her in there in the first place?"

Ron mumbled, then seemed to realize it. "We had just gotten out of Charms. She was the only one to do Wingardium Leviosa correctly, and she was trying to correct me on how I was doing it. I got annoyed with her, and when I was walking with Dean Thomas, I called her a nightmare and said it was no wonder she didn't have any friends. She was right behind us."

"Ouch. You've got to stop insulting people just because you don't like them or something they've done. Your mouth is going to get you into some serious trouble one of these days. You did the same thing on the train, laughing at Malfoy's name."

"But he's Malfoy! He's a bloody prat!"

"You know that now, but did you then? And haven't you given him plenty of reason?"

Ron stopped talking, thinking about what Harry had said. Then he sighed. "I guess you're right. And Hermione certainly didn't deserve what I said to her. I'll apologize to Hermione. But I won't apologize to Malfoy. He'd never accept it."

"You need to watch your temper, though."

There was a light pause that might have been a shrug. "What can I say? I'm a red-head."

Harry smirked. "Doesn't mean a bloody thing to me."

Ron snorted. "No, I guess it wouldn't."

They reached the staircases and separated, Ron going up and Harry going down. Once Harry reached the Slytherin dorms, he was instantly accosted by Blaise. "Harry! What the hell happened to you? You look like hell!"

Harry laughed. "Thanks!"

Blaise laughed, too. "Sorry, mate, but you do. And what in god's name is that stench?"

"Let's just say I hope you never meet a mountain troll. The smell is a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone but Voldemort."

By the next morning, the entire school knew about the encounter with the troll, and even though Harry was very careful to give full credit to Ron for knocking the beast out, everyone seemed to ignore that and believe that it was he who had defeated it. It annoyed Harry, to say the least. People seemed to have set him on a pedestal, and he was afraid of what would happen when he fell off of it. He was a Slytherin. It was inevitable at some point, if only because he didn't actually care what they thought of him. He only cared what they would do about it.

Hermione became his friend after that, as well as Ron's. There were just some things that you couldn't go through together and continue to hold on to petty differences. Facing and defeating a twelve-foot mountain troll was one of them. They all knew that they'd barely escaped death that evening. Harry thought it was ironic that he'd nearly died on the anniversary of his parents' murder.

As the first game of the Quidditch season drew nearer, Harry thought it might be interesting to test his flight skill against one of the players. He knew of Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor team captain, and thought he was probably the best player in the school, but the house rivalries were the worst amongst the Quidditch teams, and he thought better of asking him, so he asked Fred and George. He didn't ask any of his own house's team members because they were all being huge prats about the game, even Higgs, who was by far the most level-headed of the players on Slytherin's team.

The little practice matches were not full team matches. They only had the quaffle and one bludger, and either Fred or George would sit out, playing referee, with Blaise, Morag, Ron and Hermione watching. Some times others would come, but all of them had to threaten people from both Slytherin and Gryffindor to keep their beaks shut about the house rivalry. The twins were well known for pranking people, and they could be bloody vicious about it if they wanted. And Harry was just plain scary. It was just a part of who he was.

Harry used the matches to perfect his skills, and so did the Weasly twins. And Harry could prove to be quite a workout for either of them. Things came to a head over it, though, when Draco showed up at one of the matches. Three minutes into the match, the other Slytherin shouted, "Traitor!"

Harry batted the bludger that was coming at him aiming directly for Draco. The boy squeaked and leapt out of the way, landing on his butt. The wild ball smashed into the earth where he had been standing. Harry flew in a tight dive and then pulled up in a sudden stop right over Draco. "Traitor, am I? This is just a friendly match, one meant to increase my skill. I chose Fred and George because they wouldn't make a big deal over houses and they weren't too busy worrying about the game to give me the time of day, which everyone on Slytherin team was. But, by all means, why don't you get on a broom and we'll make it a fair match? Two on two, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor." Draco said nothing for a moment. Harry turned around. "Fred! George! What do you say to a little more of a challenge here?"

"Damn you, Potter. Now I have to play, or they'll think me a coward." Harry smirked. "All right. I'll play your game."

"Good. If we're both playing against them, I can't be a traitor, can I?"

Draco snorted. "Snitch?"

"Yeah. We'll switch off being Seeker."

"Fine."

Harry was magic on a broom, but Draco had been following the game for a very long time, and he knew quite a few tricks. Neither was solely responsible for their victory against the Weasly twins. They played three matches that Saturday. The Slytherins won the first match when Draco caught the Snitch. The Gryffindors won the second when Fred caught it.

It was the third and final match when Harry started having a problem. One minute he'd pinged the Snitch and was hurtling towards it, closely followed by George, when his broom suddenly started acting up. It bucked wildly, up and down, back and forth, as if it were a wild animal that strongly objected to having him on its back. The game came to a screeching halt as all three other players set aside their differences to keep Harry from being thrown, Draco grabbing the stick end, Fred going for the back end and George going for Harry to make sure that if he did fall he could be caught. Harry would have grabbed George for support, but the broom bucked again and he was thrown forward into Draco, causing both Slytherins to hurtle toward the ground. Luckily they weren't very far up, only a couple of yards by that point, but it still hurt hitting the ground. And when he sat up, he had the Snitch in his hand.

Harry knew that someone had been messing with his broom, but he had no way of knowing who it was. "Who jinxed the broom, Draco? Did you see them?"

"I don't know. We've drawn quite an audience. It could be any one of a hundred different people."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Someone just tried to kill me, Draco. They're going to find out just how the son of two Gryffindors got into Slytherin if they try it again, you just better believe it."

"I do. You're bloody scary when you want to be, Harry."

"Good."

But no one had seen who had jinxed the broom, though everyone agreed that was what it was, including Professor Snape, who had happened by and stopped to watch the final match of the day, and Professor Quirrel, who was an avid fan of the game and had watched all three matches. Ron quietly evinced his opinion that it had been Snape who'd tried to kill Harry, but he disagreed. After all, why would his own head of house, whether he hated him or not, seek to murder him? It didn't make any sense. "But Harry, Hermione and I saw him."

"He's right, Harry. He wouldn't take his eyes off you and he was mumbling something. You have to keep your eyes on the target to use a jinx."

"Or a counter jinx." Hermione quieted. Harry was right and she knew it. Snape could have been trying to save him rather than kill him.

Harry had noticed, however, that the professor was limping, and he wondered if whatever ailed the Potions Master might not be the source of the blood he'd smelled on Halloween night. A few facts started to click together in his head. The three headed dog on the third floor. The troll had likely been a ruse for someone to take a crack at whatever the dog was guarding. Snape was no fool, and he'd realized this, so he'd gone to head them off and gotten bit by the dog. He didn't think it would be a student, as it would need to be someone very skilled indeed. But that left the teachers, and who among the teachers of this school would attempt to steal what it's headmaster had brought here for safe keeping?

He went to Hagrid later that afternoon and talked to him about his concerns. Hagrid's first question was "How do you know about Fluffy?"

"Fluffy?"

"Yeah -- he's mine -- I bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year --I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the --"

"Yes?" Harry hoped he'd tell him about the object.

"Now don't ask me any more. That's top secret, that is."

"But I think someone's trying to steal it! And Snape --"

"It isn't Snape. He'd never try and kill a student!"

"I know that, but he knows there's someone trying to steal this thing too. They made one try for it all ready and Snape went to stop them, and he got bit by your dog. That's why he's limping and that's why I smelt fresh blood on Halloween night."

"Now you listen to me, Harry -- you're meddlin' in things that don't concern ye. You forget about that dog and forget about what he's guardin'. That's between Professor Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel --" Harry said nothing. "I shouldn't have said that." He sounded furious with himself.

Hagrid wouldn't tell him, but Harry intended to find out. Who was Nicholas Flamel and where had he heard that name before?

Well, there's the next chapter. Now I get to figure out how to deal with that blasted mirror. Any suggestions? Review please!