Harry Potter and The Shadowed Light

Magical Maze's

Previously

Thinking about the stone, Harry had come to a conclusion. He couldn't let Quirrellmort get it. Letting Voldemort return now would be disastrous, as he would return insane like he had in Harry's fourth year, and Harry refused to allow that to happen. He would rather Tom be forced to wait, wandering as a spirit, than return as an insane Voldemort. However, Harry didn't really want Dumbledore to have the stone either; he didn't want to rescue it and go through all of the trials he had last time just to have the old coot destroy it. Instead, Harry had a better idea. He would take the stone and hide it away secretly. Then, after he had fixed Tom, which he would do, he could give it to him as a peace offering for delaying his return.

With that in mind, Harry started to plan; he couldn't have to old coot growing too suspicious of him, now.

~

Finding ways to ditch Ron was becoming tiresome for Harry as Christmas approached. The redhead just would not take the hint that Harry had no desire for his presence. His persistence would have been commendable, if not for the fact he was ultimately trying to befriend Harry in the hopes of stealing from him and killing him.

With the lack of students, Harry had taken to literally running everywhere he needed to go and checking around the corners. He would have just worn his invisibility cloak, but he didn't want people to become worried and therefore pay closer attention to him if they realised he hadn't been seen for hours on end. So, instead, he dodged and checked as if he was a criminal on the run.

Harry had taken to trying to ignore him after a few days as it seemed that whenever he left his common room, Ron would appear. If it wasn't for the fact that Harry had checked twice, he would have thought he had a tracker on him, alerting the redhead of his movements.

"Come on, mate, stop being so boring. All you seem to do is want to read books and hang out in the library," Ron whined as Harry continued to walk towards the library. He needed to check one final thing before he could go after the stone.

"Well, I am a Ravenclaw - and there's nothing wrong with the library," Harry said. He almost cringed as he mimicked Hermione and then internally cringed again as he remembered her broken body.

"The library, really?" Ron asked skeptically, before he developed a slightly odd look. "Why are you in there so much anyway? Are you researching something - a mystery?"

Harry considered what to say for a moment before he concluded that putting Ron on the case would help him in the end. Dumbledore would once again be sure of Harry's path and Ron would hopefully leave Harry alone.

"Well, I have this theory," Harry said, "that whatever was stolen from Gringotts is now in the school, I just don't know what. It's probably on the 3rd floor, I saw a three headed dog there."

Harry watched as Ron's eyes lit up with glee. "I can help you, Harry!" he practically shouted. "This can be our adventure."

Harry fought his eye roll and instead smiled. "Great, why don't you go look up animal books for me? That would really help," Harry lied, relieved when the redhead ran off with an air of triumph.

After that day, Ron became easier to distract; all Harry had to do was mention their so-called adventure and the redhead would run off and look up books on animals.

Morning - December 25th 1991 Hogwarts

Eventually Christmas morning came and Harry woke up to find he had a larger pile of presents than he had been expecting. He had sent Hedwig off earlier in the week to deliver Neville, Hannah, and Susan's presents and he had decided to send everyone in his study group a box of candy from Honeydukes. For Neville, he had ordered a book on rare and exotic plants and gotten him the clipping from one of the more obscure ones; for Hannah, Harry had got some silver hair pins with butterflies on it; and for, Susan, he bought gold hairpins with flowers.