Professor Dumbledore took a long, slow breath.
Things were going… not nearly as well as they were supposed to.
Some months ago, a Special Report had made its way to his desk from the Student Instructor Program Management Team, sent directly to his office rather than at breakfast. The report had detailed every trap and challenge he had protecting the Philosopher’s Stone… and how each had been rather casually bypassed- bypassed, not overcome or defeated- by a pair of unidentified but ‘rather skilled’ first-year students.
They knew that singing wouldn’t calm a Cerberus… but apparently whistling would. For the drop to the Devil’s Snare, they simply descended with borrowed school brooms, and flew over the top of the deadly plant. Professor Flitwick’s room full of flying keys had been solved by a simple summoning charm, not on the key but on the door handle from five feet away, which overwhelmed the simple spring-loaded lock (which was supposed to overwhelm to let people out without the key, though not in) and caused the door to fly open. The spring to close the door again had been rendered useless by the presence of the other student’s hands to hold it open while they floated through on their broomsticks.
Broomsticks that they used to just fly over the top of Professor McGonagall’s giant chess set, without ever setting foot in the room… which meant the pieces never tried to block them from cheating, and so didn’t bother them at all.
After that had been the troll… but apparently, four months trapped alone in a locked room was enough to kill even a troll, so it was just a smelly corpse to fly over. After that, rather than solving Professor Snape’s riddle (which they had apparently solved in their heads while flying overtop), they had flown straight through the flame-free doorway, having never set foot in the room to trigger the trap. They had then come across his own protection… and while their method of bypass for that- his spell was supposed to mean that only one that wanted to find it, not to use it, would get it- hadn’t been described, he’d found the Stone lying on the floor in front of the Mirror of Erised when he’d come charging down after reading the report, testing the bypasses himself.
They had been entirely correct.
So the Stone had been moved to a filing cabinet in the corner of his office under cover of one of the most powerful notice-me-not charms he’d ever cast, and he’d followed the Report’s recommendation of putting the cabinet under the Fidelius Charm after storage, such that only he could breach it, but he also had easy access.
Shortly after that, he’d noticed a sudden drop in Hagrid’s gamekeeping performance… but that had only lasted a couple of weeks. Three days after he caught back up again, Hagrid had nervously come to his office in person to explain what had happened.
Apparently, he’d played a game of cards and won a dragon egg, then spent those two weeks caring for it before it got carted off to the Romanian dragon reserve, where his good friend Ronald Weasley’s brother Charlie would take care of it for him. In that regard, Ron had apparently been immensely helpful, both in helping take care of the dragon- a Norwegian Ridgeback he’d called Norbert- and in serving as a liaison to his brother in Romania, and his brother’s friends that had done the transportation.
The reason he had come to tell the story was that, not too long after Norbert had been sent down, Ron had apparently been down to report that Charlie had determined that Norbert was actually a female dragon… and asked, in depth, about how he’d gotten the egg.
The danger had been in the conversation over the cards… and the copious amount of alcohol the man he’d won the egg from had fed him. Hagrid hadn’t remembered it very well at all, but he had remembered revealing Fluffy’s musical secret to them.
He’d acted like it was a serious problem, even though that hiding place had since been converted entirely into a red herring (with a troll-like magical projection of his own design instead of a real troll), and had thanked Hagrid for the information.
If nothing else, it helped him narrow down the culprit… or at least, he’d thought it would. Hagrid had remembered so few details of the man that he hadn’t been able to get anywhere on that.
Somewhere around the same time, he’d noticed a sudden lack of reports- from his various sources- pertaining to a certain Malfoy heir outside of classes. However, when he’d looked into it, even the excessively efficient Student Instructor Program had been hard-pressed to turn up a copy of his course schedule. He was still waiting on that.
In other news, a girl by the name of Silversong had started drawing the attention of her housemates, quickly giving the Weasley twins a run for the position of Chief Hogwarts Prankster, an award the Student Instructor Program had come up with but had yet to actually grant, as the three pranksters entered into a War of the Pranks with each other.
It was really quite amazing, as Silversong simultaneously wore a badge, declaring her first as a Student Instructor for Potions, and later as a Lead Student Instructor for Potions for First-Year Gryffindors… and according to the response when he’d written to Starlight to request some information, she had been awarded the Lead Student Instructor position as a reward for being one of their best Student Instructors school-wide.
Everything had seemed to go smoothly after that… until the very end of the year. He’d gotten a sudden summons from the Ministry- and when he’d gone to investigate it, he’d found himself turning back halfway to spring the trap on Voldemort.
When he had arrived in the final chamber on his broom, it had been to find Professor Quirrell arguing with the mirror about the Stone…. And seeking the counsel of Lord Voldemort for how to proceed. In an effort to protect the Dark mirror from destruction, he’d had a brief but decisive duel with Professor Quirrell… and managed to apply a tracer spell to the phantom that had burst from the back of the man’s head.
At least now he understood why the Student Instructor Program had basically taken over the entire Defense Against the Dark Arts subject, holding classes for upper-year students all the way up through the seventh year and completely disregarding Professor Quirrell’s lessons in the process.
And now, all that was left was the end-of-term feast… and to send the students home for the summer.
And, of course, to find a new Defense teacher, and to see if being able to track Voldemort would finally let him formulate a plan that might actually hold together under the Student Instructor Program’s terminal competence.
And perhaps find Harry Potter, or figure out who Ginny’s friend was, or… any number of things he hadn’t been able to do all year.
If that is so why not just add a few more
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Because I ran out of things for them to send letters about...
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Can't there be circumstances in the future where it can be done again?
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In theory.
The letters are really fun, I always enjoy reading stories that use communication formats like that, but it does run the rather pesky problem of not being able to use as much detail, like with Silversong's necklace, that entire chapter in her perspective would've been erased with the letter format. I am definitely going to miss that format when Ginny goes to Hogwarts next year
What?! She is him, ain't she?
Why would she consider this as a possibility unless she want Dumbledore focus his attention on whatever that was this time thinking that's Voldi, but then who'll tell him and what this time possessed Quirrell and who's responsible for that?
And someone trade this Quirrell S for his excess of L's. He really need to take a break and munch some nuts.
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She’s acknowledging that she’s not the only part of Voldemort capable of possessing someone…. And that Hailey doesn’t know who she is. And the phantom probably felt familiar.
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Hmm... Wait, does Quirrell have Voldie's horcrux? I don't recall was this in the book or not. Those are his parts and technically can possess others.
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That was the main plot of the second book, yes.
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But wasn't Quirrell originally possessed by the actual wraith of Voldemort? I think that was the case. Horcrux can technically possess by imposing its will, but not actually possess since soul fragment is bound to the artifact. Yet, here we had a wraith leaving the body.
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Yes. Hence Ginny saying Voldemort shouldn’t be able to do that, even though she’s not too familiar with the details of the matter- there was a phantom that spawned and fled when she killed herself by attacking Harry.
Several questions. Some of this, I'm sure, is just being tired of going over book 1 all the time.
First: Harry, er, Hailey seems to be some sort of one-punch woman in this story. Punching the male-ness off Draco to reveal Silversong, punching death away from people to bring them back to health, etc.
Second: What we see in year one's description was that Dumbledore was wondering why the S.I. program did not come to him for anything, and the S.I. program wondering why Dumbledore never asked them for any feedback. That ... That would make sense if this was the first year of the S.I. program. But a re-read says it's not -- the S.I. program here has been going on for a few years now as enrollment has gone way, way up.
Which mean the S.I. program, and Dumbledore, should have had a few years to get things like that worked out. There should be an established "how the two groups talk to each other" by now -- heck, the whole S.I. program should now be part of the official staffing system, given the whole several years of expanded enrollment + secondary teachers (is the Hogwarts Board of Directors really refusing to hire more qualified teachers? ...)
Student count: Hogwarts really seems to be by-year segregated. So, 10 years in, about 1000 new students in year 1, 500 in year 2, 250 in year 3, 125 in year 4, 65 in year 5, 30 in year 6, 15 in year 7.
Years 6 and 7 are almost noise, and they've had plenty of time to adjust. Even 5 and 4 should be able to adjust after all this time.
So it's really the first three years where the S.I. program is needed, and there should be not only three years of implementation practice to find out what works and doesn't work (really, if it wasn't started 4 years ago with all the extra train cars/magic being used back then, then what the hay was the plan?), but Hogwarts should have started prepping for this many students over the next 7 years starting years back.
Also, I'm realizing that the student count should be stabilizing. The numbers so far seem to indicate that all 10 years worth of incoming students are still around, yet Hogwarts only educates for 7. So the first few years of students should have gone through and be done.
Now, granted, that's tiny at first -- 3 years were only 7, that's noise. If the incoming student rate stops doubling every year -- and it really should -- then the total population should stabilize. And ... are you honestly going to say that a mysterious portal that has taken over a thousand ponies out of Equestria has not been located yet?
If it's not moving, then it has to be in Canterlot, given the names we have of who it has taken. Ponyville doesn't have the population to support that many disappearances, and there's no other town/city nearby. The likelyhood that Celestia has NOT found the portal by now is really low. So if we are still seeing ponies go through it ... no, a moving portal is actually the only thing that makes sense.
Discord.
Discord is doing some chaos stuff. So what is happening on that side that Discord is able to do this over a 10 year period? It only makes sense if this is before his "destoning", while Canterlot thinks he's still a statue.
The Stone:
So, Hermione is the one that went to stop Quirrell. Err, no.
In book 1, Quirrell uses the distraction to go down there on his own, and uses Harry when he shows up -- and he gets there with the aid of everyone else.
Here? Hermione does not go down there on her own, she's kidnapped to be used by Quirrell. Why? ... not explained? Kinda big -- what was Q/V's reasoning here?
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This is actually the first year of the Student Instructor Program, which involves 1st and 2nd years…. The year before saw students helping tutor one another, but this year is the first with the official Student Instructor Program, which has apparently been out-of-sight-out-of-mind to Dumbledore, even though both 1st and 2nd year students are present.
Also…. According to my notes, at this point, Hogwarts has exactly 2069 students, of which 827 are first-years. Yes, 3rd-year class sizes of around 135 are pretty huge, but I guess Dumbledore forgot to include them when assigning the SIP the job of keeping anything from changing?
Yes, the numbers will cap off at some point, then drop again as the adult population of Equestria is exhausted of potential students, and all that is left is the (real) 11-year-olds.
Ohh .... wow. So:
First, yea, I did mis-read -- the S.I. program was stated as starting this year. Ok, so as I said, being the first year, that type of mis-communication is fine.
Second: ... The portal is only sending people over who are 11 or older. Hmmm. A portal that can move to, and pick people up from, Canterlot, or Our Town, or Manehatten, or ...
Yea, Discord. For what purpose?
And, over 10 years so far, starting with Sunset's trip to flee Canterlot, ... hold on, how far back was that? A quick look at EqG, Sunset was in senior year of high school, looking to get the crown to make magical zombies. And that portal opened every 2.5 years -- so if Sunset had gone back more than 5 years back, the timeline would not fit. So, year 1/Sunset's arrival was either around the start of season 1, or at most 2.5 years before that -- and if seasons 1-3 are about a single year (actually strong evidence for that, just throw out the assumption that "airing order is actual chronological order", and replace it with "episodes are retellings, possibly embellished, of historical events, told at least slightly out of sequence"), then ... 10 years later would be well after Discord was "released" from stone, made friendly by Fluttershy, and Twilight's taken over.
So what the heck is happening on the pony side that this is still going on, unhindered, with Twilight now in charge? Pushing Sunset's arrival far enough back that Twilight is not in charge 10 years later would break the EqG plot completely.
Whatever Discord is doing, it's been happening for 11 years now. It's somehow seasonal, just in time for school, avoiding taking young ponies, and ... hold on. No one goes home?
That's going to drain Equestria of all adults, putting all of them into H.P.
That's actually a national emergency for them.
That's not Discord. He might play games, but he wouldn't go that far.
So who the hay is responsible for this, and how has none of Discord/Celestia/Twilight resolved this yet? ... I mean, we haven't seen Changelings come across in this version, have we?
Discord would do this for fun and silly, which means if he was responsible, he'd start turning it down or off now that Harry's class is completely disrupted.
And if it keeps growing next year, then that's a good sign it's not Discord, especially given how much he's supposed to be co-operating with the new rulership on the other side.
(Do I think too much about world building? Yes I do.)
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I always love reading your comments, but every once in a while- like now- answering any of the questions would be spoilers; they’re all answered over the next few dozen chapters!
It's Hagrid, he is a grown man, you are 11 years old student. If he is stupid enough to get a dragon egg it's his problem and not yours
So, finally uploaded the rewritten version of this chapter. Yeah, I know, it took me long enough.
Well. Here's a divider to mark the difference between comments posted on the old version and comments posted on the new version:
This is a very different chapter.
So ... just fly over everything on school brooms ... and let the entire "obstacle course" be a shell game, with the real prize in a plain ordinary filing cabinet and fidelus charm ... that's just too good of an answer.
Meanwhile, I like the idea that *Dumbledore* is the one who fought Tom/Quirrell in the final room. So much more satisfying than Harry Potter doing the job.
Main soul and a Horcrux are activ. I once had a story writen about a malfunctioning Horcrux that got to merge with a Veela girl that became a mentaly redeemed Voldemort/Tom Riddle.
Looking forward to Ginnyvolt to kick her own darker ass.
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Is that story still around to read?
Or did you delete it? you wrote #> I once had a story <# so it sounds like it's not?
Many fan stories find ways to overcome the trials of the stone. Always very entertaining to read.
So did Quirrel died or enjoys Azkaban?