The Rise of The Dark Lord

T.M.R.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling. No money is being made.

Harry woke up with a sore neck, not really understanding why until he remembered where he was.

The day before had been the last day of school before the Yule holidays and after having said good-bye to Theo and being the only Slytherin that stayed at Hogwarts he decided to have a long bath inside his trunk. After his bath he decided to stay in his trunk, so he had picked a book and sat in an armchair in his living-room, where he apparently fell asleep which was where his sore neck came from.

The previous months passed with nothing more exciting than flying lessons happening and Harry was quite happy with that. It appeared that his House had learned their lesson, at least for the moment. He was sure that he would have to reinforce the lesson for some idiot sooner or later. He hoped it would be later, considering the circumstances. After the Potions class where Snape had asked him to stay behind the man hadn't talked to him anymore, however Harry knew that Snape spent most of the day watching him. He knew that the professor didn't like him and he knew that Snape thought that he had been the one that had sent Jugson and his friends to the Infirmary, so he held his child-like behavior most of the time, every time he saw the professor near. So he hoped that no one caused him trouble, it would be quite bad if he slipped even more in front of Snape.

Jugson though, Jugson had surprised him. Instead of avoiding him like the plague and plotting revenge he had instead decided to spend time with him. He was with him almost as much as Theo was.

At least twice a week he would join them in the library, he would usually do his homework, however one time he saw what Harry was working on and noticed his interest in runes and offered to help him, to see which runes he had already drawn or craved and even offered him his notes from class so that Harry could understand the subject better.

Harry accepted, curious to see what Jugson wanted, but so far Jugson had only done his homework and talked with Harry about runes. Harry admitted that the conversations with Jugson were interesting, runes was one of Jugson's favorite subjects so he knew quite a lot about them.

Harry stretched and went to take a shower. He loved the castle but he was happy to finally have a little time for himself and have the opportunity to lose all of his masks in the safety of his trunk.

Though he wanted to he knew that he couldn't spend the entire holiday inside his trunk, even so he only left his trunk at lunch time.

As there had been very few students that stayed at Hogwarts for the holidays, the professors decided that they would all eat together at one table. Supposedly it was so that the few students that stayed could be more at ease with each other and spend some time together, regardless of their House.

To Harry it made no difference, the students stayed away from him, most still believed that he was the next Dark Lord, even though, as far as they knew, he hadn't done anything since entering Hogwarts. He had to wonder if they were truly that stupid or if they just pretended to believe it so as not to be seen as being on the side of the evil Slytherin. Honestly he didn't know what was worse, the stupidity or the lack of a back bone. He was eleven! Did they think he sat in his room at night with Theo and made plans for world domination?

Grumbling under his breath about human stupidity he chose a seat near the professors and sat beside professor Quirrell. He didn't know why but the professor had an aura that calmed him, he supposed it was the man's magic. Harry had the feeling that the man used as many masks as he did.

Wishing the professors a good morning he started his lunch. Not wanting to spend more time than what he absolutely had to in the great hall, he finished rather quickly and went straight to the library. Now that the castle was almost empty he could explore the library to his heart's content. He lamented that he couldn't explore the restricted section, but he didn't think that any teacher would give him a pass, it didn't matter how good he was he was still a first year student and they would without a doubt think that he was far too young to be in there. At least he still had thousands of books at his disposal, something that he would not waste.