It was the early morning of the first weekend of the new school year at Hogwarts and a nervous Harry stood in the common room. As was usual with him he rose early, being a weekend normally that meant he would be doing more chores and would need to do them quietly because his relatives would be sleeping in until almost noon. But here in the castle, he wasn't sure what he was required to do.

Stepping out into the hallways that lead to more parts of the castle, Harry made his way through the corridors, dimly lit by the slowly rising sun. He followed the normal path that every other student made during the week to go to the Great Hall for breakfast. Entering the large and empty room, Harry's footsteps echoed as he walked the length of the table and sat where he had for the previous days.

He thought to himself how strange it was that in an entirely empty room he still chose to seat himself in the same spot, when he could sit anywhere, possibly even at another table being that no one would be there to tell him otherwise.

Looking at the empty table he wondered if it were possible to get food early, as if recognizing his needs, he heard a soft pop near him. Turning his gaze to the side he saw the familiar elf, "Oh good morning Flipsy, how are you?"

"Oh Harry, Flipsy bes doing just wonderful, so much work for us elves to be doing with all the little kiddies running around," the delighful elf answered.

Harry smiled, he like that his friend was happy, "Is it too early to get breakfast?" he inquired.

Flipsy shook her head, "Nos, it bes okay to have breakfast now, what would you be liking Harry?"

Harry put him finger to his chin, he really wanted pancakes again, but he saw how fat his cousin had gotten over the years eating nothing but sweets, "Maybe some fruit and porridge."

"I be's getting that for you's Harry," Flipsy said as she snapped her fingers and disappeared again, leaving the young child to sit alone in the room.

A soft patter and the sound of rustling fabric drew Harry's attention to the side of the room behind him, the Slytherin table. Looking he noticed the potions professor Snape quietly striding to the head table. Or rather attempting to be quiet, seeing as the normally loud room was so quiet in the morning. "Oh, uh, g-good morning Professor Snape," Harry called out, attempting to be polite.

Snape stumbled in his walking as he had not been paying attention to his surroundings this morning. He had been up far too late weaving intricate lies to his snakes about the happenstance of the previous day, that he did not expect anyone let alone a student to be awake at this hour. "Potter, what are you doing out of bed at this hour," the professor grumbled.

"I just always wake up this early," Harry said. "Um, sir," he added quickly. Snape just shook his head and grumbled as he went to his seat at the staff table.

A moment later a bowl of oatmeal and a plate with some citrus fruit would placed in front of Harry. "Um Flipsy," Harry whispered.

"Yes Harry," Flipsy popped back into the room. "Is something being wrong with the food?" she said with worry in her tone, that Harry disliked the meal he was given.

"No, no, no, it's not that, the food is excellent," to demonstrate Harry took a quick spoonful from the bowl. It really was delicious. "But I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sitting with me for a bit, I know that you said house elves don't eat with people, but maybe you could sit and tell me about what it's like in the castle, please?" he asked with a hopeful look on his face.

Flipsy being ironwilled and the most stoic of the elves in the castle, did her best to not look at Harry's expectant face, but a quick glance saw how much he really wanted to hear from her, so she relented and took a seat next to him and began regaling him stories from her time working in the castle.

Harry ate and laughed as he listened to the fun misadventures that the elves had gotten themselves up to, such as the time Mumbly had waxed the floor outside the defense classroom, only to have Twooly come by not even a half hour later and also wax the floor there.

Unknowingly the boy and elf were being watched by the only other occupant of the room. "He really is so much like her," Snape whispered under his breath as thoughts of watching the enchanting red headed girl of his youth spend time just talking with the castle elves, solely because she enjoyed the company of anyone, human, centaur, elf, merfolk. It never mattered to Lily, she loved magic, in a way that he never saw in pure-bloods or even half-bloods like himself.

He was secretly jealous of mudbloods for that, to live in a world completely unaware of magic and then to one day experience the joy of seeing it was all real. When even he grew up around potions and spells, before his parents were always fighting, it seemed to detach the wonder of it all. But to see her son act the same way with the face of the man he loathed, it confused him. Harry seemed a bright child, if not intellectually smart, he had clearly learned other, sometimes more important lessons. How to survive, how to hide everything, skills he too learned growing up.

Severus seeing what looked like his past coming back to haunt him caused the snide man to reconsider his life. His anger had made him fall into allegiance with the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord, and that got him nothing but pain. Hiding among Dumbledore's flock has only made him bitter towards other. Snape considered that maybe there had been another side in this whole situation, one that he had a hand in creating.

The sound of chatter and footsteps carried from the halls into the Great Hall where Harry turned to see who was coming in, which Flipsy used as a getaway, to not be seen by the other occupants of the castle.

Most students were barely awake and simply went to their house table, some were carrying in books and other writing materials that they would be using to complete homework and assignments that they had ignored. Harry was drawn from his people watching by a familiar weight nudging against him.

"Morning Harry," Tonks yawned as she sat down in the seat next to him and slammed large books on the table, along with other students throughout the hall, most of them wearing blue with a few spatterings of yellow and green.

"Good morning Tonks," Harry said as he took a bite from his bowl of fruit. He watched as she begrudgingly opened one of the large tomes and began to copy information from the book to parchment. Harry fascinated sat quietly so as not to disturb her work. When the fluttering of feathers drew his eyes skyward.

"Hmm, morning post is a little early," Tonks grumbled as she scratched out some words, they disappeared a second later and she wrote over the empty space. With her free hand she reached up and a large speckled black owl dropped a roll of paper into her hand. She dabbed her quill into the inkwell before unfurling the paper. "Oh no," she gasped and quickly looked to the boy sitting quietly next to her. "Harry take a look at this," Tonks said, turning to show him the front page.

"Daily Prophet, Harry Potter, Scarred Hero or Future Dark Lord? by Rita Skeeter," Harry said quietly as he quickly scanned the paper. "But I only learned about being a wizard a few months ago," Harry exclaimed as he looked to Tonks for help.

The article went into great detail about his past accomplishment of stopping He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, following that with providing vague accountings of others. A tactic that makes the second half that is harder to prove seem more truthful because the first part was correct. How Harry's sudden appearance after so long in hiding and displaying strange magical powers. Harry not knowing many influential figures did not recognize that one of the persons interviewed was Lucius Malfoy who gave an overly dramatized version of the injury his son sustained.

"Seems like they'd rather stir up some subscriptions with things being so quiet," Tonks grumbled as she quickly read through the rest of the articles so that should discard the offending paper. A quick glance to the side and she noticed that Harry was just pushing around the remaining fruit in his bowl. "Ignore them Harry," Tonks told him.

"But everyone's going to read that and think I'm a monster," Harry protested.

Tonks shrugged. "So, people you never met and likely never will already have their own thoughts and opinions about you. Just accept that and be you, then the real people will stick around to learn about you," she advised.

"That sounds like you're speaking from experience," Harry commented.

Tonks nodded as she recalled all the nasty rumors about her family and even about her. Being able to become whatever she wanted, she tried to be what other people wanted. Others naturally wanted more from her than she was willing to give, which ended up angering those who disliked the real Tonks. "Yeah, I am," she responded.

"How long until that starts to work," Harry asked, hoping for a timeline of when he could expect people to stop judging him.

"I'll let you know," Tonks sighed. Despite being so outgoing and friendly, she had very few friends. The ability to fix any perceived imperfection made other girls jealous and the lustful gaze of boys who wanted her to be the perfect woman all the time, soured her to most of the older students. One would think the younger ones would be fine, but they saw her as more of a novelty than anything else until they got bored with her.

"Oh," was all Harry could say to that and went back to eating his breakfast.

The next few weeks of classes, were in Harry's opinion simple, quite a bit of it was spent on theory. Which Harry guessed was because most students, at least half of them were muggleborn, so they had to be taught how magic worked before they tried it. So, Harry was spending most of his classes reading books.

The wandless classes, such as Herbology, Flying and Potions were different. Professor Snape had not been joking when he said the next class would use ingredients that irritated the skin. And this resulted in quite a number of point deductions because as he said, the Celebrity had already demonstrated what to do; and those who chose not to follow those simple instructions only had themselves to blame.

For the most part the amount of staring had decreased as people got used to seeing Harry around in classes or the halls. But the whispering became bolder and Harry would hear smatterings of conversations here and there. Harry was starting to feel comfortable around other people, until he noticed a shift.

The day was October 31st, Halloween. As always Harry had gotten up earlier than anyone else, showered and dressed himself. The first change was when he was pulled into a hug by Tonks. She was always affectionate when no one else was looking, but Susan and Hannah also giving him a hug and whispering kind words, confused him greatly. Over the course of the day other students would thank him and pay respects to his parents. When he remembered what McGonagall had told him, that Voldemort was stopped on Halloween.

Nothing was unusual except that in Flitwick's charms class, he had a bit of difficulty with the Latin of the levitation charm and Hermione corrected him. Doing so he was able to complete the incantation correctly and levitated the feather up to the ceiling.

Class was let out and Harry was walking with the other students to the great hall for lunch. He silently walked next to Neville while Hannah and Susan chatted with Hermione, until a brash voice was heard.

"Can you believe that bird, trying to correct Harry, he's so great, he doesn't need the help," Ron said loudly as he shoved Seamus. "It's Levi-O-sah, not Levio-SAH," the redhead mocked Hermione's assistance.

Harry was prepared to say something when a body shoved between him and Neville. Hermione was sniffling as tears rolled down her cheeks and she quickly ran into the castle.

"Uh oh, I think she heard you Ron," Dean said as he poked Ron's shoulder.

"You're such a twit Weasley," Susan shouted as she and Hannah chased after their friend.

"What did I say?" Ron shrugged.

Harry huffed in annoyance and shouted, "You shouldn't say mean things about people."

Ron put up his hands in defense, recalling the last time Harry had an outburst, "It was all a joke, I didn't mean nothing by it, honest."

"Oi, our ickle Ronnie-kins tellin' jokes," Fred or maybe it was George asked.

Ron paled as he felt two of his older brothers wrap their arms around him.

George, or quite possibly Fred answered the rhetorical question. "Can't be, he hasn't a funny bone in his body. We could give him one though," the redheaded teen suggested, which one it was no one knew.

"Right-O Gred," Forge responded as they picked up their brother and started to carry him into the castle.

"Onward Forge," Gred shouted as they disappeared from sight around a corner.

"Strange," Harry said as he took a step to follow them, only a firm hand prevented him from continuing.

Neville quickly shook his head. "Don't get involved Harry, the twins will chew you up and spit you out, maybe literally." The pudgy boy noticed a look of confusion on Harry's face. "They're magical pranksters, ask a teacher about some of the shenanigans they pulled on other people and themselves."

Dinner was different, on normal days the food appeared without much fanfare, unless an announcement had to be made. But today there was a toast, in remembrance of those fallen and those who sacrificed to stop the nightmare many of them barely remembered. Harry was nervous about all the attention he was getting from people but was happy that his parents would never be forgotten.

Susan was trying to keep a straight face, but Harry noticed some glances to the closed doors of the great hall. He leaned forward and whispered, "What's wrong Susan?"

"Hermione still hasn't come back," Susan grumbled. "She wanted to be left alone."

Harry blinked in confusion. "Where is she then?"

"The third-floor girls' lavatory," Susan answered. "She's been crying since that dunderhead Ronald made fun of her."

Harry's next thought was cut off when the doors flung open and Professor Quirrell ran in screaming about a troll in the dungeons, before falling to the floor. The students began to scream in a panic and shove each other out of the way as they rushed to the door.

Albus Dumbledore's magically enhanced voice easily carried over the crowd of students. "SIIII-lence, thank you," he calmly finished. "Prefects if you would kindly and orderly escort your housemates to their common rooms, teachers," Dumbledore nodded to his staff. "Let us go and find this troll."

Harry and pulled Susan and Hannah back. "Hermione, you said she was in the bathroom?" he questioned.

Susan nodded. "Ye-yeah, oh bollocks," she swore, Hannah gasping at the language. "She doesn't know, but she's on the third-floor and the troll was in the dungeon so if we go quickly, she'll be on her way upstairs before anyone notices," Susan planned.

Harry quickly slipped away from the crowd of students and took an alternate set of stairs that would lead them towards the bathroom. Hannah shivered nervously as they walked down the dark corridor. "This is dangerous why didn't we tell a prefect, or get T-Tonks," she complained.

"It's just a quick walk down the hall and tell her to go back to the Gryffindor common room, it's perfectly," Susan said as she turned a corner gasped and jumped back, keeping Harry and Hannah from stepping forward. "It's supposed to be in the basement," she snarled.

"What is?" Harry asked as he peaked around the corner and saw the bathroom door close.

"The troll," Susan hissed. "It's up here, somehow, why is it here?" she glared.

Hannah shrugged. "Maybe it's a girl troll and has to go?"

A blood-curdling shriek was heard from the room followed by a roar. Harry realized that the troll had found Hermione and rushed down the hallway and slammed his shoulder into the door.

Hermione noticed the latest entrant into the room and screamed as loud as she could when the troll slammed its club into the sink above her, shattering it. "Please, help me," she cried out.

Harry stared dumbfounded at the twelve-foot-tall, grey monster. It somehow looked like a bigger, dumber version of his cousin, "Bwuh," he mouthed before he waved his wand at the creature and levitated a rock at the creature, momentarily distracting it from braining Hermione with its club.

Susan and Hannah burst in a second later and saw a screaming and crying Hermione, hiding under a sink in the corner, the mountain troll blinking dumbly at Harry who himself was standing stock still.

Hannah shook her friend. "Quick use that spell your aunt taught you," she screamed.

"Alright, calm down," Susan ordered as she drew her wand. "Stupify," she shouted as the bright red stunner shot from her wand and impacted the troll dead center on the forehead. It rubbed the spot that was struck before snarling and charged the two girls who screamed and ran out of the way.

"Stupify," Susan shouted again and landed another shot on the large body, but to ill effect. "Stupify, Stupify, Stupify," she began firing the spell rapidly, draining herself of energy quickly. "It's not working," she shouted.

Harry starred up at the large creature and could only see his bully of a cousin, felt small and weak again as the creature towered over him, "Come on," he muttered to himself. "I need you," he tried to pull the Obscurus out of his body, it was more than powerful enough to defeat this monster. "Please, my friends are going to die," he begged but received no response.

The troll's club slammed into a stall and exploded the area into a shower of splinters, the wood flying everywhere, Susan and Hannah had been backed into a corner by the creature next to Hermione.

Mentally Harry was berating himself, he didn't know any spell strong enough to fight a troll and he couldn't get his one useful power to work. "Or do I," he thought, his mind rapidly pulling up a memory almost forgotten.

"No please, take me instead," Lily begged.

"Foolish girl," Voldemort sneered as he pointed his wand at the woman.

Harry raised his wand and glared. "AVADA KEDAVRA," he screamed as a sickly green bolt of energy shot out of his wand and struck the troll in the spine, it froze in its advance and dropped to the floor in a mass of flesh, dead as could be, its soul forcibly ripped from its body.

Harry huffed as he felt himself drained of energy before a mass of footsteps was heard approaching quickly, the door which had been broken from its hinges did nothing to hinder the professors who burst into the bathroom, wands glowing and prepared to fight. McGonagall looked around the warzone that was a bathroom and saw three girls huddled in a corner, a dead troll and Harry Potter who stared at her for a moment before collapsing.

"What happened here," she demanded an answer as Poppy quickly moved to Harry's side.

Susan, Hannah and Hermione all began talking at once, their stories and excuses overlapping each other into a cacophony of unintelligible noise.

Minerva shot her hand up. "One at a time," she stopped them. "Hermione let's start with you," she asked her cub.

"I was in the bathroom, and then this thing," she said as she pointed to the corpse on the floor. "It came in and tried to kill me," she said.

"Why were you here and not going to the common room with the others?" Minerva asked.

"I didn't know, I was in here all afternoon crying," she mumbled the last part, but McGonagall had exceptional hearing.

"Why would you be in here all afternoon crying?"

Hermione sniffled and rubbed her eyes. "I got b-bullied and,"

"That prat Weasley made fun of her and," Susan started to defend her friend before the Deputy Headmistress stopped her tirade.

"And what were you, Ms. Abbot and Mr. Potter doing here," Minerva quirked an eyebrow.

Susan cleared her throat, having faced a similar glare from her aunt, she wasn't cowed by McGonagall's glare, as much. "We knew that Hermione wasn't in the hall when we were told to go back to the common rooms, so we figured since she was here on the third floor that we'd get her real quick so no one got in trouble, since the troll was supposed to be in the dungeons," she added annoyance to her tone.

"And you didn't think to get a prefect or teacher?"

"Well it's bloody good tha' we didnae, that bugger was already 'ere by tha' time that me, 'annah an 'arry got 'ere. Lucky that we did," Susan ranted back in anger, not enjoying having her decision being questioned. "An is' right good we did, this girl'd be dead if not for us."

Snape who had finished inspecting the corpse to confirm it was infact dead skulked over. "And how exactly," he said with a tone. "Did three first years manage to kill a fully-grown mountain troll?" he questioned.

Susan paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer, doing so made her collect herself and lose her native accent. "Well you see um, professor, we didn't," she pointed across to Harry. "He did."

Quirking an eyebrow Snape looked at Harry. "Accidental magic," he suggested, implying the Obscurus did in the beast.

Hannah quickly responded. "No the Obscurus didn't come out," before gasping and covering her mouth. "Sorry," she whimpered in shame.

"How do you know about that?" Minerva questioned.

"Harry told us," Susan said. "And Hannah's right, The Obscurus didn't kill it, Harry used," she again paused. "He used um."

Snape rolled his eyes. "Well, out with-it silly girl," he snarled.

"He used the killing curse," Susan whispered.

Minerva gasped and looked at the unconscious young boy. Snape glared. "Preposterous, no first-year child has that kind of power, control and let alone the desire to kill to perform that dark magic," he quickly strode over and performed a spell to reveal the last spell cast. He quickly dropped the wand as if it had burned him and strode out of the room.

Minerva didn't need to perform the same spell to know that what she was told was indeed true, "Please, all of you follow me to the medical wing, we'll check you for injuries," she ushered the children along.

Harry woke up as the morning light struck him. Groaning he slowly rose up in the bed he had been placed in. "Where am I, the troll, HERMIONE, SUSAN, HANNAH," he frantically shouted as he struggled to get out of bed.

"Harry, Harry, Harry," Poppy called out to him. "They're fine, it's okay, nobody got hurt," she calmed him as she bustled over to his bed.

Pomona Sprout rose from her seat as she was accompanied by the rest of the staff this morning. "Harry Potter, Troll Slayer," she mused. "Now I'm taking 10 points from Hufflepuff for going and doing something incredibly foolish, like a Gryffindor," she smirked as she glanced at McGonagall who rolled her eyes. "But," she added on. "I am awarding 50 points for showing loyalty and teamwork," she smiled.

Harry adjusted himself in the bed as he noticed the teachers gave him strange looks. "So what happened," he questioned.

Albus Dumbledore approached the bed and Harry tensed up, his last experience with the old man had not been pleasant. "Young Harry," Dumbledore said fatherly. "I need to know, who taught you that spell," he asked firmly.

"I don't…" Harry waited as he thought about the events of the previous night. "No one, I just remembered, that Volde-, You-Know-Who," he corrected himself when he saw the teachers begin to cringe. "He used that on my mother, and it seemed like it was powerful and the Obscurus wasn't coming out. And I didn't want Susan or Hannah or Hermione to get hurt or die. And I just acted, and I didn't mean to kill it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kill it, please," tears rolled down his cheeks as he pleaded for mercy about taking a life.

The amassed teachers felt sick, this child who had to kill to protect his friends was seeking forgiveness from a group of people who themselves had killed in the previous war. Surprisingly it was Snape who made the first move. "Harry," he called out. "There are times when killing is unavoidable," he said as he tried to explain life and death to a child. "Just, make sure that if you do kill it's to protect others and not for selfish reasons," he finished quickly and vacated the room. Seeing Lily's eyes full of tears was tugging at his heartstrings in ways he did not like.

"So strange," Flitwick muttered.

Minerva quickly shook herself out of the stupor of watching Severus try to comfort a child. "Harry, you protected your friends last night, while what you did was incredibly dark magic, you did it for a good reason, but," she continued. "You must NEVER use that spell again, especially not on a person," she firmly said as Harry rapidly nodded.

"I don't want to kill," he whimpered and sobbed in silence.

Minerva started shoving the teachers back, "Shoo, the lot of you, he's not going to get better being watched like two erumpents in heat. So go tend to your students and Albus, go, do headmaster things," she ordered.

"He's my student," Pomona protested.

"Yes yes, all well and good," Minerva responded. "I'll bring him back to the common room soon as he's presentable." Once the other professors had been removed from the room Minerva called out to her house elf.

"Yes, Misses Kitty," Flipsy snickered at the jokey name, but gasped as she saw how distraught Harry was. "Oh nos, Harry," the house elf scampered over to the child's side. "Is you being okay," she asked with concern.

Harry slowly nodded.

"I be doubting that," Flipsy pouted. "I bes thinking you need a hug," she said as she tightly wrapped her arms around the boy who returned the contact.

Minerva cleared her throat after a minute. "Flipsy would you please collect Harry a change of clothes from his trunk and his morning belongings, so he can make himself presentable to the rest of the students," she asked.

Flipsy nodded and disappeared silently to carry out the orders she had been given.

"Harry. I want you to come see me tonight. I want to know how you are handling this. Taking a life, even one of a monster like that troll, is changing for a person," Minerva pontificated. "I want to make sure you come out the other side of this well."

Harry slowly nodded in response; he didn't feel much like talking at the moment. When Flipsy returned with his belonging's he used the hospital wing's bathroom to change and shower. He stepped back into the infirmary where the nurse was waiting for him.

"Just want to make one last diagnostic check before I release you," the kindly witch said. "You've been excused from classes today, so take the time you need to recover," she instructed him as she waved her wand around. "If you start to feel faint, please come see me, my door is open."

Harry left the hospital wing and Minerva took him back to the Hufflepuff common room, the moment he stepped through the door the conversations had stopped, mostly Seventh years who were studying were in the area, even if there weren't a lot.

Harry was swept off his feet when Tonks barreled into him and pulled him into a rib crushing hug. "Oh Harry, you damn daft, brave, stupid, brilliant, idiot boy," She shook him back and forth. "Why the buggering hell didn't you get me to help. You shouldn't have faced a troll all by yourself," she cooed as she stroked his hair.

"Ahem, we were there too Tonks," Susan scoffed as she and Hannah extricated Harry from the emotional teens grip. He wobbled as he felt his circulation flowing properly again.

"Thanks Harry," Susan said as she gave him a smaller, more tender hug.

Hannah squealed, "It was just like one of your books." Her hug felt more like Tonks'. "Oh, we have to find Hermione, she'll want to thank you as well."

Tonks stood in their way, "Oi you little blighters, you ain't going nowhere, without me escorting you now, too much shenanigans and in only two months," she glared down at the firsties with her fists on her hips.

Harry nodded and grabbed Tonks' hand and pulled her out of the common room. The sudden connection making the teen blush and her hair turn pink. "H-Harry," she protested as she heard the other students snicker.

Minerva walked across the room and closed Tonks' books for her and moved them out of the way so it didn't take up much of the space on the table. Noticing the reading she had been doing, "Constant Vigilance," by Alastor "Mad-eye" Moody. McGonagall hummed to herself as she thought about an earlier conversation she had this year.

Author's Notes: Not much to say here. I fell into a slump and then found it easier to write works in other fandoms, while this one kept getting pushed back as I couldn't figure out how I wanted to write the scene.