DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE READ "After the Dawn: The First Years" OTHERWISE IT WILL NOT MAKE SENSE!!
NOTE ON THE TITLE: I'm Australian, and go by the British version of the books, therefore it is the Philosopher's Stone, not the Sorcerers Stone, just to iron out any confusion, and for people who didn't see the notice at the bottom of the last chapter of The First Years.
Disclaimer: events of this story closely follow those of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', by J. K. Rowling. These events, along with the characters, settings and main plot line are the property of J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and all other companies involved. I own nothing.
After the Dawn: Philosopher's Stone
Chapter One: Birthday Boy
Sirius slunk silently into his godson's bedroom. It was only about six in the morning, the world was still dark, for the sun had not yet chosen to come out.
It was the thirty first of July. Harry's eleventh birthday, and Sirius intended to get his godson back for all the times he'd been woken up at ridiculous hours of the morning to do obscure things like snowball wars, playing chess, and staring at fires.
He did not turn the light on when he entered the room – nothing was going to give away the game until he woke up his godson he own way.
He crept silently to the bed, there was Harry, lying curled up tightly, his back to Sirius, sleeping soundly. Sirius bounded forwards in a suddenly swift movement and wrenched the covers off his godsons sleeping form.
For a July morning, it was rather cool, so he was sure that his godson would be shocked awake – if he wasn't … Well, Sirius had been prankster once, and he hadn't given up yet!
But just as Sirius threw back the blankets, surprise registered on his face before a ghastly half-roar half-yell echoed from behind him and something thudded into his back.
"Ahh!" Sirius yelped, toppling forward on the bed, his face buried in the pillows he'd taken to be his godson's sleeping form.
"Gotcha!" Harry laughed from Sirius's back. "I really surprised you that time, didn't I Sirius! Didn't I?"
"Yes," Sirius muttered into the pillows. "You certainly did."
Suddenly he rolled over, trapping Harry beneath him, and tickled the eleven year old unmercifully. Harry shrieked with laughed protests, and finally managed to slip away from his godfather, only to lie panting on the bed, trying to stop laughing.
"Well, you're eleven years old mate!" Sirius said, grinning. "Your first 'coming of age', and your acceptance into Hogwarts."
"But I won't be able to go to Hogwarts, not really," Harry pointed out.
"It'll work you," Sirius promised his godson. "You're enrolled there, of course, but you can't go as you … Leave it to your godfather – Padfoot knows what he'd about!"
"So what are we doing today?" Harry asked.
"We're going to Diagon Alley," Sirius replied. "I'll buy you a pet to take with you to Hogwarts as your main birthday present, and your wand, and then we'll come back and have a party here, how's that sound?"
"Good enough for me," Harry replied happily, bouncing to his feet.
"Then get dressed and meet me in the dining room for birthday breakfast before we go," Sirius told him with a smile, leaving his godson to follow the instruction.
Ten minutes later Harry joined Sirius in the dining room.
Harry was wearing long baggy black pants, a tight black t-shirt with 'Rebel' written across it, and his hair was spiked up.
"Nice," Sirius said, nodding approvingly. He liked to think that he'd given Harry at least some of his taste in Muggle clothing – he remembered the first time that Lily had taken him and James shopping in 'Muggle Land,' as they'd jokingly called it. He'd picked out similar clothes that time, as had James. Lily had laughed at both of them.
Harry smiled faintly at his godfather, settling down to eat a hearty breakfast before they left.
After breakfast they Flooed from Potter Mansion to the Leaky Cauldron, though they had to assume disguises. Harry now had blue-grey eyes with hints of green, his hair had lengthened to his shoulders, and was neat and mainly straight, and become a dark brown.
His ears seemed to be a little pointed, and he had 'grown' two centimetres. His body seemed part-way between the change from childhood to adolescence already.
Sirius had medium brown hair, which was cut short, and sapphire eyes. He was a little shorter than he normally was, and the shape of his face was subtly different.
He was calling himself Patrick, and Harry was still Harry. 'Patrick' was Harry second cousin – or at least, that was the story.
"Now, into Diagon Alley," Sirius murmured, leading Harry into the back yard of the Leaky Cauldron. It had been a long time since Harry had been in Diagon Alley, and he didn't completely remember it, so he was looking forward to coming again.
Sirius rapped the brick that would open the gateway sharply with his wand, and stood back with Harry to watch the wall shift into the entrance to the famous wizard street, Diagon Alley.
Harry and Sirius meandered down the street, Harry looking at everything he could. "You should have brought me here before," Harry complained quietly, trying to look at everything at once.
"Come on, we have to get to Gringotts," Sirius replied, but he was smiling. "And don't worry, we'll be coming here more often in the next few years."
Harry nodded. "Gringotts is the bank, right?" he asked, "run by goblins?"
"Yup, that's right. It's the big white building down there," Sirius pointed it out.
"How are we going to get money from your account, won't they know who's it is?" Harry asked quietly.
"No, I made mine a 'silent' account when I first got it. It's only got a number, not a name," Sirius replied. "Yours, on the other hand, is under the family name, and that's what you'd asked for."
"Oh," Harry said, nodding his understanding as the stepped up to the first set of doors. There was a goblin standing there, and it bowed, pushing the bronze doors open.
Ahead of them were silver doors, engraved upon them in beautiful script that Harry couldn't help but read was:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits of the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
"Goblins are very protective of gold, whether it is there's or not," Sirius murmured. "If they found anyone trying to take gold that wasn't theirs … The results would not be pretty."
"It must be the safest place on earth," Harry murmured, as a pair of goblins waved them through the doors into a huge marble chamber.
"Nah," a voice from behind them interupted the conversation. Harry turned to see a huge man walk into the room, his beard a fierce tangle that mingled seamlessly with his hair. Harry thought he could see black eyes dancing cheerfully somewhere in the wild hair.
"What?" Harry asked, confused.
"Gringotts aint quite the safest place on Earth," the giant man replied. "Tha'd be Hogwarts. 'Scuse me," he walked up to a free goblin.
"Who was that? You look like you know him," Harry murmured to Sirius.
"That's Hagrid. He's the gamekeeper at Hogwarts," Sirius replied softly. "Absolutely loyal to Dumbledore, and not without reason either."
Harry caught a fragment of the conversation going on between Hagrid and the goblin, "Dumbledore … me for … you know what … vault you know which…" he was interested, but the conversation seemed to end here.
As Hagrid made his way from the counter, Sirius and Harry stepped quickly forwards to take his place. "Hello, we'd like to take some money from vault number seven hundred and eleven," Sirius told the goblin, producing a slim golden key.
The goblin took it, examined it carefully, then nodded grudgingly. "This appears to be in order. Griphook!" he waved them away as another goblin appeared, leading them towards one of the many doors that went off the sides of the great chamber.
Griphook, the goblin, opened the door, and Harry was a little surprised to find a dark, dingy looking passageway lined with railway lines after the bright marble of the other room.
Griphook whistled, and a small, rickety cart came up to them, and they clambered into it and took off. Harry made sure to keep his eyes open, despite the stingy, looking at everything.
"What's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?" Harry called to Sirius as they passed over a deep chasm. "I never can remember it."
"Stalactites cling tight the ceiling," Sirius called back. Harry nodded his understanding, fixing the phrase in his mind.
A moment later they came to a halt outside of a vault. Griphook to Sirius's key and opened the door. Harry smiled slightly at the amount of money that was within the vault. Sirius would be able to live off that very comfortably for the rest of his life – easily.
Sirius filled several sacks full of coins. "I mightn't be back this way for awhile, I like to be prepared. Now, what are the coins worth?" he asked Harry.
"Bronze Knuts are lowest," Harry replied dutifully, "then silver sickles. There's twenty nine Knuts in a sickle, and seventeen sickles in a gold galleon."
"Good," Sirius nodded approvingly. "Now, let's get back to the sunlight, we've got shopping to do."
"You sound like a mother," Harry said, grinning.
"I never said what kind of shopping. Shopping for pranks is quite different to shopping for books or robes," Sirius replied with a sniff as they climbed back into the cart.
Griphook took them hurtling back up to ground level, where they thanked him politely (he just sneered at them, somewhat unpleasantly), and left.
As they were walking towards the door, the man Hagrid came hurrying towards them, looking a little green and somewhat nervous – he kept glancing around him.
As he passed Harry and Sirius, he stumbled slightly over a step and something fell out of his jacket, sliding a halt just in front of Harry. The boy picked up quickly – it was a small package rapped in dirty brown paper which looked quite unremarkable.
Harry dusted it off and quickly offered it back to Hagrid. He was fairly sure that this was what the man had picked up just then in the vaults, because it had a number stamped onto the underside of it, which Harry had noted while he was dusting it off – V. 713. Harry was certain this stood for vault seven hundred and thirteen.
"Thank yeh kindly," Hagrid said, taking the package from Harry and carefully examining it, as if to be sure that it was not broken.
Harry just nodded. 'Welcome," he replied. But his mind wasn't on the words he spoke, but rather on the half overheard conversation between Hagrid and the goblin – the you know what in vault you know which. He would have bet anything right now that vault 'you know which' was seven hundred and thirteen.
"Come on, we'd best get the boring stuff out of the way," Sirius decided, leading Harry over to the shop called 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions'.
Harry pretended to make a face, though really he didn't mind that much. "Hello," a cheery witch greeted them at the counter. "How can help you? Hogwarts?"
"Yes," Sirius replied. "We require the usual Hogwarts garb for my cousin. Can I leave him here for a moment while I go and get something else?"
"Of course dear," the witch replied. "We've another lad being fitted up right now. Come on, round the back and we'll see what we can do."
Harry wasn't sure what Sirius was doing, but waved as his godfather departed anyway – he was fairly sure that by the time he was out of the robe shop Sirius would be back, and would explain it.
Out the back, the other lad was standing on a stool. His face had an cold, aristocratic expression, and he looked quite bored with the current goings on.
"Hello," he drawled at Harry.
Harry just ducked his head slightly in greeting – he didn't like that tone, nor did he like the face that he was confronted with.
"Are you going to Hogwarts?" the boy asked as a black robe, quite a bit too long, was dropped over Harry's head.
"Yes," Harry replied shortly. This did not deter the other boy at all.
"First year?" he enquired.
"Yes," Harry replied.
"Same. My father's next door buying books, and mother is at Olivanders looking at wands," the boy continued. "As soon as I'm out of here, I'm dragging them over to look at the new Nimbus Two Thousand … Do you own a broom?"
"Yes," Harry said wearily, wishing the other would take a hint and stop talking.
"Play Quidditch?"
"Yes …"
"So do I. Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house team," the boy said, sounding proud.
"Really? Well, you won't have a chance till second year anyway – we aren't even supposed to bring brooms to school with us," Harry pointed out.
"I'll try and smuggle one in somehow. When they see me fly, they'll have to put me on the team. Seeker, I should think," the boy said. "What are your parents doing?"
"Lying six feet underground," Harry growled, temper slightly frayed.
"Oh, sorry," the boy said, though he didn't sound it. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"
"Yes," Harry replied, wishing once more that the boy would take a hint and shut up.
"They shouldn't let the other sort in, I don't think. They aren't brought up to know about us, and you never know how many Muggles they might tell about our world. Father hates them, Muggles that is, and I must say, I agree with him."
So, he was talking with a pureblood who's father could quite possibly be a Death Eater. Harry shrugged non-commitantly, not sure if he wanted to insult the boy or not.
"What house do you think you'll be in? I think I'll be in Slytherin, all the Malfoy's have been," the boy added.
So, Harry thought. He was talking with a Malfoy. He'd heard about the Malfoy family – they had a very dark name. "I'll probably be a Gryffindor. My parents both were, and so was my second cousin, he raised me," Harry said coolly.
"Oh," the Malfoy said, and this seemed to shut him up … For a moment. "So, what's your last name?"
"You're done dear," the witch told Harry suddenly. "Your cousin is waiting out the front to pay for you."
Harry hopped down from the school, glad of the excuse to avoid the other's questioning.
Sirius paid the witch calmly and steered Harry from the store. "Make a friend?" he asked Harry.
"Huh?"
"The boy out the back – did you make a friend of him?"
"He was a Malfoy," Harry replied.
"Ah, I take that as a 'no', then," Sirius said.
"Yup," Harry replied. "He hates Muggles, and he's probably never even met one."
"Of course not – Malfoys' always deem that beneath them," Sirius replied matter-of-factly. "Now, I've got your list … Don't look at me like that, what do you think I was doing while you were getting robes? – and we'll go the bookstore now."
"Don't we have most of the books at home?" Harry asked.
"Most of them? No. We've got A History of Magic, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them, but there are five others on the list we don't have," Sirius replied.
Harry nodded and walked with Sirius to the shop Flourish and Blott's, which appeared to sell books.
Sirius and Harry stayed only to get the required books, then left again. Harry was sure that his library at home would have most of the interesting books on the list.
"Now, we have plenty of cauldrons back home, and telescopes, but we may as well buy you some nice scales and phials, so we need to go to the Apothecary."
This trip also didn't take long, and Harry was out of the shop before he'd even had a chance to look around. "Now, pet … I think you may as well get an owl, since they carry post. There are a few back home, but you want one that is really yours. Sirius will be going with you as well, I'd expect."
"Of course," Harry agreed. Sirius was saying that he'd come with him in dog form to school, and Harry was glad of it – he didn't want to be alone in the huge castle, as he was already fairly sure that he would not make many, if any, friends among the students for sometime, if ever.
"So, to Eeylops Owl Emporium," Sirius said, pointing Harry in the correct direction.
The first sensation upon entering the store was that of darkness. A warm, friendly darkness filled with rustlings. Harry and Sirius prowled through the rows of owls, looking for one that stood out to them as the 'right' one for Harry.
Finally, Harry selected a 'bubo coromandus', or dusky eagle owl. It had pale brown and grey feathers and brilliant amber eyes. "That one's only been in the stall for a few days," the clerk remarked cheerily. "You were lucky you didn't come much earlier!"
Harry nodded politely while Sirius gave over some money. "Well, that's everything but a wand now," Sirius said to Harry as they walked into the sunlight.
Harry nodded and smiled. He'd been looking forward to getting a wand – one that felt right, as no other that he'd lifted had.
They walked in the dusty shop named Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC.
A bell rang somewhere in the distance as they entered Mr. Ollivanders shop. Sirius waved Harry into the single rickety chair and faded into the shadows himself, before returning to Harry's side as Padfoot. Harry was unsure why this was, but he would be able to question Sirius later on.
A moment later a short pale man with glasses that made his eyes bulge stepped into the room and made his way over to Harry.
"Hello there," he murmured, peering closely at Harry. "Hmm … You don't seem familiar? Your parents anyone I'd know?" he asked.
"No," Harry said nervously. "We aren't from this country."
"Ah, that would explain it. Where are your parents?"
"Having a drink in the Leaky Cauldron," Harry replied, making it up as he went along. "They thought that I could find a wand on my own."
Mr. Ollivanders nodded absently. "Which is your wand hand?"
Harry gave him a slightly confused look, then smiled faintly. "I use either," he replied.
One pale eyebrow raised slightly. "Really? Well, this should provide a challenge. Stand straight!" he said.
Harry did so quickly, and Mr. Ollivanders whipped out a tape measure and started measuring Harry's arms, hands, fingers … soon, he left the tape measure to it's own work (Harry wasn't sure how the measurement of between his nostrils would help anything).
A moment later the old man waved a hand and the tape measure crumpled to the floor. He walked over to Harry and offered him a wand.
Harry touched his finger tips to it, and shook his head. "It doesn't feel right," he told the man, who seemed delighted by this reaction.
"How do you know?" he asked, putting the wand down. "The moment I gave it to you, I didn't think it was right, but …"
"I have held my parents wands," Harry replied. "They didn't feel right either."
Mr. Ollivanders nodded and went back to the shelves, coming back with an arm full over about five different wand boxes. "Here you are then, try these!"
Harry touched his fingers to each of the five and shook his head for all of them. Mr. Ollivanders pranced off looking for other wands, appearing positively delighted.
"Well," he said twenty minutes later as the pile of rejected wands rose. "You are a tricky customer."
At that moment someone else walked into the shop – a young girl with frizzy brown hair. "Well … two customers at once! How interesting," the store owner murmured. He turned to Harry. "As I haven't been able to find you a wand, why don't you go and see if you can locate one," he turned his attention to the new girl.
"Sir, will that dog hurt me?" she asked nervously, pointing at Sirius.
"Not if you don't hurt him first," Harry called over his shoulder and he walked down the rows of wands, his fingers trailing across the boxes.
Within them he could sense the wands, and in each of them was that same 'wrongness' that he had always felt. At the very back of the store, he found a dusty corner that seemed to have been left alone for a long time.
He knelt, feeling drawn to it, and touched his hand to the single wand that lay there. He smiled – this was it. He lifted the box and walked back to the front of the store. "This one," he said to Mr. Ollivander. The brown haired girl had already left, it seemed.
"That one?" Mr. Ollivander looked more than a little surprised. "Well, that one has been sitting there for a long time. A very unusual combination – ebony and phoenix feather, ten inches, nice and supple. A good dueller, that one. I hadn't expected it to ever sell, and it wasn't you that I had thought would buy it."
He looked hard at Harry. "Curious," he murmured.
"What is?"
"That anyone should buy this wand. Well … I suppose it isn't really, but I hadn't thought …"
"What is curious about it?" Harry asked again.
"The phoenix that gave it's feather for this wand gave one other … That other resides in the wand of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – yew, thirteen and a half inches," Mr. Ollivander replied. "I remember every wand I have ever made, and those two were possibly the best of them all. I think the world can expect great things of this, and of you. It's brother did great things, terrible, yes, but great."
"Interesting," Harry murmured. He was beginning to think that this wand had been intended for him – though under a different name. His real one.
He paid for the wand with handful of galleons and walked out in the sunlight. Sirius followed a dog still. They walked together through the archway and found themselves standing alone in the little back yard of the Leaky Cauldron, where Sirius quickly transformed.
"Come on," he murmured. "Let's be off – we can unpack this stuff at home and find the rest of the books and things you need."
Harry nodded. He could question his godfather at a later date.
***
Well, how was that? It was nearly 4000 words for a start! *grins*. As may have been noticed in the chapter above, I am keeping loosely to the books, but adding things and changing things at the same time.
Please review and let me know what you think of the new part of the 'After the Dawn' series! I'll update after I've gotten at least 30 reviews – but that won't be hard, you guys CONSTANTLY give me more than I'd think you would *grins*
~WolfMoon~