I own nothing of the marketing empire birthed from J.K.Rowling's fevered genius, and get nothing from this save the brief satisfaction of favourable reviews…

Prelude

As per normal procedure, the house elf (it was Tippy today) collected the dirty clothes from where they were scattered about the first year Gryffindor boys dormitory.

Rumour among the house elves was that the little Master Harry Potter had been in some trouble and had been attacked by the Dark Lord.

Tippy thought to herself. Well that would explain the bloodstains and ripped state of the young master's clothing.

Going through the pockets and pouches of the uniforms, Tippy removed several coins, a couple of scraps of parchment, and a couple of owl treats, returning them to the trunks of their respective owners.

Tippy paused briefly over Potter's trousers, fishing a tiny speck of red stone out of his pocket. To the house elf, the magical aura surrounding that tiny speck was completely out of proportion to it's size.

Clicking her tongue over wizardly carelessness, she sealed the speck into a glass vial and placed it into Potter's trunk…it wouldn't do for something so potent to be lost.

Upon returning to the laundry, Tippy mentioned the fragment to Miffy, who had just completed cleaning the Headmaster's office…where she too had found a tiny fragment of the stone.

The next time Miffy cleaned the Headmaster's office, she removed the tiny fragment from the corner of the drawer where she had left it, and passed it on to Tippy to return to the Potter boy.

Word spread quickly among the house elves, and by the end of the week an additional four tiny chunks of red stone sat in a vial at the bottom of Harry Potter's school trunk.

Buried…

Forgotten…