The New Trio and the Philosopher's Stone

Chapter 2: The Vanishing Blocks

And so it happened, about a month after Sirius and Remus were given custody of Harry, the Potter's half-kneazle cat arrived, scrawny and bedraggled. As the house was supposed to be under the Fidelius Charm, Sirius had no idea how it had found them. The cat was an ugly thing, with a squashed face like a pug, but Harry, all of one year old, completely loved him, so Crookshanks was (unwillingly on Sirius and Remus' part) integrated into their lives.

Harry grew up in a household full of pranks, laughter, and, most importantly, love.

After a few years, The two godfathers realised Harry was becoming lonely, so they reached out to people they knew from the Order, like Arthur and Molly Weasley. Ron and Harry became inseparable almost immediately, with Ginny often trailing behind them as they embarked on their adventures. Harry and shy Neville also struck an acquaintance, and met up, although not as frequently, to spend many happy hours in the Longbottom Manor's greenhouses. Neville's exposure to Harry, and sometimes Ron, made him open up emotionally, as well as magically. His first case of accidental magic came at age five, during his and Harry's joined birthday party, when he managed to enlarge one of the Leaping Toadstools, that Sirius had gifted him with, to three times its normal size. This caused his surprised Great Uncle Algie to buy him a small toad in celebration, whom Neville happily named Trevor.

Then came a day that, in hindsight, Harry would look upon as the day everything changed: his tenth birthday. The day before, he'd received a frantic firecall from Neville, who had told him that his Gran had taken him to Gringotts to get confirmed as the house of Longbottom. What was surprising was that, as they'd done the Blood Test, another house had claimed him as its heir; the Most Ancient and Noble House of Gryffindor.

Harry had rejoiced for his friend, saying that it couldn't have happened to a better person and that he couldn't wait to see his heir's rings. Then it had occurred to him that perhaps Sirius and Remus (or Pads and Moony, as he called them) were going to take him to Gringotts the next day. He'd approached them anxiously, afraid that if he was wrong, he'd be disappointed, but was pleasantly surprised when Sirius' head shot up in alarm and he half-shouted the next half of his sentence. "How did you— Oh, little Nev told you, right?"

Harry nodded eagerly, and Remus let out a bark of laughter. "Yes, pup, we're visiting Gringotts tomorrow."

Harry launched himself at his godfathers, happy that he'd been right, but also exhilarated that they thought him grown up enough to have a say, however small, in what happened to the Potter fortune. He knew his parents had left him a small vault to himself, and he knew that his godfathers would most likely end up paying for most of his stuff anyway, but what the Potter vaults might have was really interesting.

Neville said that some of his family's vaults only had heirlooms and history books, but the one that had interested him the most was filled with things that his recent ancestors, including his parents, had owned. Apparently, he'd even tried out their wands, but none of them had worked for him.

So, as his birthday dawned, he woke and couldn't get to sleep again. He knew he shouldn't go downstairs, since it was tradition for his godfathers to set up the table the night before and put up a prank which would only go off if he went downstairs too soon. Therefore, he decided to clean his room (which was a first for him to do without being asked) so it looked like what he thought befitted an heir of two Most Ancient and Noble houses, and had a quick shower, before sitting down at his desk and getting out his watercolours. He was quite proud of his artistic ability, and had taken it upon himself to do at least one drawing or painting a week, unless he decided on using ink or acrylic paint, since they always took him longer to do.

Finally, after what seemed like days, he hears his godfathers' door open and two sets of footsteps padding down from their level to his. He quickly capped his paints and slipped back into bed. The door opened with nary a creak, and he heard Remus' quiet footsteps sneak across the room to his bed, then his hand was on his shoulder, jostling him softly.