Keeping The Dark Lord (on his toes)

Chapter - 7 Holiday ( 21 to 31 December 1991 )

~Harry~

Harry woke up to find the sun streaming through his bedroom windows and he allowed himself to lay in for a bit. School holidays were the one thing he missed when he started working and he vowed to make full use of it while he could as he even ordered breakfast in bed. He was surprised to see that the elves looked all too happy to have him back and he was treated to a breakfast that almost had anything he could think of.

He made sure to divide what he wanted to eat from the rest before ordering the elf to make sure that all of the elves had a good breakfast.

When the elf looked almost upset, Harry explained that he needed his elves to be in top shape if they were to serve him, and they could only do that if they were taking care of themselves.

After that, it was like a frenzy started and Harry was almost too afraid to know how the elves had been treated in the past because they went all out with every request he made.

Mina looked at him with hopeful eyes whenever he asked an elf to take him somewhere and he finally decided to make it her main job, while she also had to help the other elves when she didn’t have anything to do.

A week later, on the 28th December, he invited Severus over and the man earnestly looked around to try and spot his guardian until Harry finally got him to sit down before requesting an oath of secrecy. Severus made the oath with the condition that he could share the secret if it had something to do with Harry’s health and Harry barely kept himself from snorting as he tried to cover up his embarrassment. “Here’s something that might describe things a little better..”

He showed his godfather the documentation from Gringotts, and when he finished reading he looked at Harry in shock, “You’re 25 years old? But that would mean that you came to the past for some reason…” Harry nodded before he proceeded to tell Severus about what happened in the other timeline.

To say that his godfather was shocked was an understatement but Harry couldn’t bring himself to tell Severus that he’d died, though he could tell the man had figured it out that he hadn’t survived.

Luckily the man seemed content to leave him to do his own thing with only the promise of being there to check on him now and again.

By the time Yule came around, Harry found that he was quite bored and he eagerly accepted Draco’s invitation for a visit. He knew that Lucius wouldn’t dare harm him as Voldemort hadn’t made his presence known yet.

When Draco showed him around, Harry was happy that they hadn’t invited him to the party that the Malfoy’s held annually, even as Draco apologized non-stop until Harry reassured him that it was safer that way.

~~~

On the 29th of December, Harry knew that Dumbledore would be visiting Grindelwald and so he took the chance to sneak into Hogwarts through its tunnels late that evening. He then threw his invisibility cloak over him (the one in Dumbledore’s possession had disappeared the moment Harry arrived in the past).

After that, it was easy to get below the trap door, as Hagrid had probably taken Fluffy out of the chamber for a bit, and after Hermione’s help in the past, it was easy to get past the Devil’s Snare. After that, he found the correct key and opened the door.

The game of chess was taken care of as he snuck through it under his cloak, and so was the troll, but Harry almost found him second-guessing himself when it came to the potions riddle. Finally, he was sure that he’d gotten it right and it was easy to then step through the fire to reach the Mirror of Erised.

It still held true that he didn’t want the stone for his own selfish desires because he really wanted the stone to help Voldemort and so the mirror seemed to accept the exchange of the real stone for the fake.