Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 33: The End of the Beginning Pt 1

In the end, Slytherin won the House Cup by forty points. After discovering that Professor Snape was not in his rooms, Olivia Kolumbiko used her cheetah Patronus to send a message to Snape, McGonagall and Flitwick advising them that she had an important message from Harry Potter about a life-threatening emergency involving Professor Quirrell and "some stone" stored on the Third Floor. It was actually Flitwick who awarded her ten points for quick thinking and a creative use of an extremely difficult Charm. Harry made a point of not gloating or even looking at Jim as Dumbledore awarded the Cup to the Sytherins, which the Boy-Who-Lived thought was probably the nicest gesture Harry had ever made to him.

Hermione finished the year top-ranked among the firsties, as expected, though Neville topped her in Herbology and Harry narrowly did in DADA. In potions, she only beat out Lavender Brown by two points, which the other girl accepted with good humor even as she promised to study all summer long so she could beat Hermione in the fall. Among Slytherins, Harry finished at the top, followed by Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and Draco Malfoy. Theo Nott had solid grades, and Crabbe and Goyle passed by a comfortable margin to the astonishment of them both. Jim barely snuck into the top ten in his class, with Ron quite a bit lower. Finally, early on the morning of the 20th, the students loaded onto the Hogwarts Express for the long journey home. For Harry, that meant the Dursleys, though he'd been communicating with his solicitors for weeks and was actually looking forward to seeing his relatives again ... and their reaction to the changes that were forthcoming.

As his two sons were boarding the train for home, James Potter was hundreds of miles away, sitting in a stately office with a panoramic window view of Gringotts Bank and the London skyline beyond it. While Harry communicated with his solicitors through owls, James had both the time and money for a private consultation. The receptionist, a pretty young Beauxbatons graduate named Yvette, presented him with a tray of tea, watercress sandwiches and biscuits and politely asked "Lord Potter" to wait patiently for just a few minutes, as her employer was on an important floo call but would be in soon. Left to his own devices, James took in the expensive artwork on the walls and the antique desk in front of the window. He considered once again how well his friend had done for himself over the last decade, a success that was due in no small part James' own patronage. As he waited, James idly bit into a macaroon while thinking back to his last conversation with Dumbledore. The old man wasn't totally on board. He was still outraged by James' treatment of Harry, which was only fair since James was quite disgusted with it himself. But once James had revealed his secret to the Headmaster, Albus agreed to remain neutral in the Wizengamot, at least for the time being. He still insisted that he would reveal the Prophecy to Harry if and when he mastered Occlumency. James shuddered. He remembered his own Occlumency training at the Auror Academy. He'd reached third level (the minimum requirement for an auror) and stopped, unnerved by the way Occlumency affected his personality, and he was uncomfortable with Harry learning it, let alone Jim. Of course, he'd pretty much forfeited his right to forbid Harry from studying the field at this point, but he hoped the boy wouldn't delve too far into mind magic.

Suddenly, the door opened, and a dignified man roughly James's age strode in. He'd lost a good bit of weight since the last time James had been here in person, but his elegant professional robes still fit well. James seemed to remember the man complaining about a new diet the healers had him on during their last floo call. It was obviously working – although still rather stout, the other man was down to only one chin. His face was leaner and his hair was so much better styled than the scraggly mullet he'd worn during their school days. He was by no means a handsome man, but the years had been relatively kind, and his wealth and success made up for his physical appearance, though even today, many people were still put off by that burning, rat-like gleam that his eyes always held.