Magic of the All Hallows Eve

Off to Hogwarts

31st July 1991

Harry jolted awake at half past five in the morning. He looked at the calendar to see if he was wrong. And no he wasn't — it was his 11th birthday! The boy who usually couldn't leave his bed before 10 was up and compromised 5 hours of his beloved sleep. He crawled out of bed quietly, took a vial of a potion he brew specifically for the day, and slowly crept into his parents' room to pour it down on their heads.

The sight was totally worth it — he was jolted from reading by a loud scream. He went to see his dad's hair sporting a blonde 1 on top and his mother's hair a purple 1. Initial horrors aside, they laughed really hard and even went on to give the most bewildering birthday wish ever.

James and Lily stood side-by-side and said, "May we have the courtesy to wish you happy birthday", they bowed their heads to read the number 11 together, "milord"

The potion wore off after an hour or so. His mother huffed and scoffed at the mention of the prank while his father gave proud pats and encouragements to do this at Hogwarts. But as soon as they finished breakfast, Harry couldn't help but feel overly restless.

"We'll go there soon, don't worry", Lily said calmly.

"But I've turned 11 for hours already", Harry pleaded with his best puppy-dog eyes.

"Alright. We'll leave in 20 minutes", Lily sighed and went to get ready.

They apparated along to a deserted alleyway right near the Leaky Cauldron. As expected, there were many greetings, cheers and squeals when the 'Man-Who-Conquered' entered the bar. When Harry was a kid he used to love the fact that he was a superhero in the Wizarding World, but now he realised that there were too many cons to being so too.

For starters, his father always needed to do facial transfigurations to somewhat lessen the crowd gatherings at every square, but still the remaining two Potters too were particularly famous. His father had applied such facial changes so much so that they had given him the identity of Jonathen Cook — the Potters' Butler.

And secondly, many moments that Harry had wished to spend alone with his dad were unceremoniously interrupted by different interventions. It started off with missing a couple quidditch matches and travel dates, but had gone as much as to him missing his last two consecutive birthdays.

But he was glad today they were doing neither of that. His father had strictly told Cornelius the fudgy minister to keep his 'unimaginably wide (something mom said not to use) out of their business' for today. And he had explicitly warned his juniors that unless it was a threat that cannot be seemingly handled by the likes of his undersecretary Amelia — which was really saying something, only then to dare call him.

They went to Mr. Mulpepper's apothecary first, where Harry personally took a lot more than his list had: he'd taken Rat tails, bat spleens, lavender, valerian, fairy wings, moonstone, unicorn hair, mistletoe berries, shrivelfigs, and upon a lot of insisting a bezoar and ashwinder eggs among a lot of other things*. Potions was the only subject in which he could do a bit of serious practical work, and had successfully made a lot of potions and elixirs, most for stupid pranks such as today.

As his trunk was filling up, he felt glad that he had mastered the movements of the feather-light charm and had managed the Shrinking and engorgement spells wandlessly, so that right after packing dragonhide gloves and brass scales into it he cast them and the would-be 30-40 pounds bag now fit in his pocket.

They decided to go to Flourish and Blotts (finally!) before getting him a wand.

"Now remember, only an hour and three extra books before we leave or the next time you'll get no other books", James said and glanced at his Rolex watch.

"Six extra", Harry persisted.

"Alright, five", and Harry ran off to the shelves. He hurriedly packed up his course books at the front and began barging into the bookstore and read anything new and interesting he could find. Unbeknownst to his parents, however, he had made a deal with the shopkeeper with his voucher that he'll shrink down nine to ten books which he could check immediately and take the money from his voucher he received last birthday. And the end result was that the most loyal customer of the store went with five extra books visible while having nine more in his back-pocket.

The Reducio spell was the best one he learned wandlessly.

They went to Ollivander's at the last where about after two hours and a hundred wand testing they landed on a holly wand with a phoenix feather core to which Mr. Ollivander went on to tell the tale that 'it's brother was the one to do great (Ahem, horrible) things'. He also bought an invisible wand holster, although his father said to come back next year for his secondary wand as it was too gruelling for them to continue now.

They landed like three big bears on the couch before Harry went to his room and engorgio-ed everything and arranged it into his trunk, although his sheer number of books needed to stay small to fit inside.

Things felt much different with a wand though. Although he'd taken his time with a stick to practice wand movements, it felt much different than doing things wandlessly. It kinda didn't feel right. He was so used to do simple things wandlessly, he'd even managed to do the potion-making spells* for the first to third year potions. But now, things didn't have the spice to it anymore. His magic seemed to flow through a thin tap as opposed to radiating out from his hand and body.

He felt glad he'd packed everything neatly before because August flew by in a wink, in between the quidditch league semis and finals with his favourite Puddlemere taking the League Cup yet again. And before he knew it, he was standing on Platform 9 ¾ wearing not only his Adidas jacket on a blue shirt, but also his signature lopsided grin inherited from his father.

"Call me through the mirror daily, huh? Do not dare to forget after getting sorted. It's alright if you bring in your dorm mates. Help Neville through his classes, and take care and time to make friends of your own", Lily was rambling on and drew him into a fierce hug.

"Come on, Mom. I'll be alright. Don't you remember? I had cast Fiendfyre at 7", she went into a flat face, "in the library", she pouted, "without a touch of soot on the walls", she scowled, "and most importantly without a wand or knowing what it means!", she smacked his shoulder but couldn't stay angry for long and ruffled his hair affectionately.

"Here's Marauders' Map v4.3, that is, the latest version. Padfoot has added more brilliant salutations to unwanted intruders, made it more resisting to detection spells, and most importantly added the Room of Requirement after Moony discovered it that week he was at Hogwarts to interview sixth years for the Potter Fund stipends", he said and handed him the map.

"Don't forget to help any fellow pranksters with your skills", he avoided Lily's icy glare, "and perform at least one prank a month", her death glare froze everyone in a ten-metre radius, "and try to find the first version of the map, I don't think it might've stayed in Filch's filthy office", if looks could kill, James would've been slain by a basilisk. "Now off you go. Love you, Prongslet", he smiled into his eyes and ruffled his hair.

"Love you both", he said and waved at Neville enthusiastically and after a few greetings with his parents boarded the train. (A/N: Dumbledore knew about the attack from Death's little trip).

They had boarded the train awfully early and hence most compartments were completely empty. When Neville struggled with his trunk, Harry casually performed the Feather-light charm and shrunk his trunk down.

"Wicked!", Neville exclaimed as Harry handed him the now keychain-sized trunk.

"Ooh, you're performing magic. . . ", they turned to see a busy-hair girl with chocolate-brown eyes.

A/N: A much longer chapter this time! Please vote and comment!

*Read from harrypotter.fandom.com. Even I didn't know that potions required a spell compulsorily to complete.