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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Tasks	By : QueenB Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 5179 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in anyway, shape or form. The rights of such belong solely to J.K Rowling. I do not make any money or accrue any monetary benefit on this story.

Chapter List
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Title: Harry Potter and the Soceror’s Tasks
Author: QueenBoadicea
Pairing: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Distribution: Do your worst—it can’t compare to my worst ;)

Harry’s dad, James Potter, hadn’t been the best of students when he was younger. He could exert himself when he chose to but being a wizard was a thing mainly of prestige for him rather than scholastic pursuits. But he’d proven to have a flair for Transfigurations, resulting in his own astonishing change into a stag Animagus when he was only in his third year. It was a great feat for one so young and had drawn the attention of the beautiful, redheaded Muggleborn Lily Evans.
When they had been married only a little over a year, Lily had given birth to a splendid little green-eyed boy. Most other wizards and witches had only one child; the notoriously widowed mother of Blaise Zabini had had seven husbands and only managed to squeeze one baby boy out of the whole lot. So, in spite of repeated attempts, James and Lily weren’t too upset that they had only their little Harry. He was their pride and joy; they didn’t need more.
They had high hopes for Harry. At least James did. He had been a great Quidditch player and was thrilled to find out that his son had inherited his athletic abilities.
“Look at him, Lily! See the way he flies and he’s only nine months old!” James crowed as baby Harry zipped along on a miniature broomstick. He hovered only a few inches off the floor and laughed with a baby’s childish glee over the sensation of flight.
“Now, James, we agreed. We weren’t going to let Harry on a broom until he’s older,” Lily argued, eyeing her only child a little worriedly.
“There’s no harm in it. I’m being careful and, besides, he’s curious. Just a quick turn about the room,” James begged.
“Just one. Then he’ll have to get off that. James, you did promise.” She’d never cared much about Quidditch one way or the other. She only thought it was too dangerous for a baby boy to be messing about with a broom. But Lily had to admit her handsome husband looked good crouched over a broomstick. And little Harry was so happy playing with his father.
They were much of a pair, with Harry looking more and more like James every day. But he had her eyes and a touch of her thoughtful nature, something that her friends were always quick to point out to her. Not that she was a pushover, as her husband could attest.
“Lily, why do you want to send Harry to a Muggle school, of all places?” John asked, his exasperation clear. Sometimes his Muggleborn wife had the strangest ideas.
“Because I don’t want him ignorant of what our world has to offer. Sometimes I was shocked when I talked to people at Hogwarts who didn’t understand anything about telephones, refrigerators, fax machines or computers. They’d give me these blank looks like I’d grown another head!”
“Who needs any of that when you’ve got magic?”
“I survived for years without magic because I had all that,” she replied tartly. “The magical community is such a tiny part of the world. I don’t want Harry just crammed into learning about magic and being baffled about a simple thing like a television.”
“Fine,” he sighed, conceding the point. “But we can’t keep him ignorant forever.”
She smiled, remembering her happy days at wizarding school. “Don’t worry. We won’t.”
So, when Harry was 11 years old, he went to Hogwarts, the most prestigious school for witches and wizards in Britain. (Some people said the world but they may have been prejudiced.)
Harry had been taken from his mother’s chosen school two years earlier, something that hadn’t bothered him too much. Children are quick to sniff out those that are different from them and there was something about Harry that kept the other kids from getting too close.
There was also the problem of Dudley Dursley, his cousin on his mother’s side. Dudley had hated Harry, something he’d never understood. The fat Dursley boy had kept saying that his mum had told him Harry was weird. Since Dudley was bigger and meaner than the other kids, he’d been very good at discouraging them from making friends with Harry. Only Harry’s speed at outrunning his tormentors had kept him from serious injury.
After he’d been pulled out, his parents had drawn him aside and told him the truth.
“Harry, there’s something we need to tell you,” his mum said. She and his father were seated at either side of the table, smiling at him. They book looked excited but at what he couldn’t guess. While he hadn’t been sorry to leave school, he privately wondered if he’d done something wrong to be yanked out.
“You ever notice how things just seem to happen around you…without any real explanation why?” his father asked, looking into his eyes.
Oh no, they knew. He had nodded reluctantly, shrinking in his seat. “Um, yeah.”
“Such as?”
Both of his parents seemed to be waiting for something. For what, he couldn’t tell but he was getting more nervous by the minute. “What do you mean?” he hedged.
His mum reached out and stroked his hair. She never did that when she was angry at him and Harry relaxed, feeling much better. “It’s all right, Harry. We’re not angry with you. We just want you to tell us what happened.”
He licked his lips. “Well, this one time, Dudley was chasing me…and…”
“And?” His father was fairly twitching, like he had a secret he was bursting to tell.
Harry shivered at the memory. “I found myself…on the school roof. I don’t know how I got there. I don’t remember climbing the stairs or anything.” What he did remember was Dudley and his bullies gaping at him from the school courtyard before running off howling. Dudley’s babbling story later of Harry having flown up to the roof hadn’t been taken at all seriously. The only positive outcome from that disaster was that, for a while, Dudley and his gang had been regarded as the lying freaks.
His father leaned back, grinning from ear to ear. “That’s perfectly normal, Harry!”
“It is?”
“It means you’re a wizard.”
“A w-what?” What was his dad banging on about?
His mum rolled her eyes. “James, we discussed leading Harry into this gradually. That’s hardly subtle.”
“Lily, there’s no subtle way of letting a person know this!” James pulled out a short stick from his sleeve. “See this, Harry?”
Harry squinted. “What’s that?”
“It’s a wand, Harry. It’s a…tool that witches and wizards use when they want to do magic.”
“Really? Like Merlin and all those other people in the stories mum would read to me?”
“That’s right.” James gestured at a teakettle and said some weird phrase Harry wasn’t able to make out. The kettle rose through the air and floated to the table. Harry’s mouth dropped open at the bizarre sight.
“Dad? H-how’d you do that?” he breathed. “Was that…?”
“Magic,” his father finished smugly. “That’s because I’m a wizard.”
“Your father and I can do magic, Harry. And so can you.” His mother peered at him, no doubt gauging his reaction to all this. “You do it by accident now. But when you’re older you’ll be able to practice and do it whenever you want.”
“You’re a wizard, too?”
“Actually, your mother’s a witch, since she’s a girl.” At Lily’s raised eyebrow, he amended quickly, “Woman, that is.”
Harry grinned. “Brilliant!”
The news had been less of a shock than his mum had imagined. From the way the other kids acted, Harry had guessed he was different; his only worry had been that it made him a freak like Dudley was always saying. The news that he wasn’t alone, that there were others like him, had been a blessed relief.
Their parents had moved shortly after that, taking Harry into a whole new world. James hadn’t been comfortable hiding among Muggles, although he’d been secretly fascinated by things like cars and motorcycles (courtesy of Harry’s godfather Sirius). But when his great-grandfather had died and left James his house at Godric’s Hollow, he had leapt at the chance to move back to his family roots.

Acceptance had come quickly and Harry had been eager to learn all he could…all he could manage without a wand, anyway. His father had told him a wand wouldn’t come until he was 11 years old. Until then, he would absorb as much as he could without one.
__________
“Harry, you’re not concentrating!” Hermione scolded.
“I am, Hermione. This is just difficult.”
“Just check your book again. You can’t expect me to do everything,” the 16-year-old girl huffed.
Harry nodded but his attention soon drifted again. The library was quiet enough, making it the ideal place to study. History was just so dull and boring! Who could be expected to remember all these random names and the dates attached to them? Throw in goblin names and titles, filled with jaw cracking, difficult-to-pronounce consonants, and history became a meaningless whirl of places, names, battles and years all jumbled together in a tangled mental yarn. Make that yawn.
The green-eyed Gryffindor surreptitiously slid a copy of Witch Weekly from under his textbook. Looking at it helped to pass the time. He smiled to see that Viktor Krum was once more in the papers. It seemed he was dating a young witch by the name of Alida Henshaw.
It seemed hard to believe that Viktor Krum came from Durmstrang. It was the school to send your kids to if you wanted them to learn the Dark Arts. But, while Viktor had been the most fantastic Quidditch player he’d ever seen, Harry had found him more moody than sinister. But there was no arguing against Durmstrang’s reputation.
“Harry!”
He looked up guiltily to see Hermione staring at him, exasperated. “What?”
“I know what you’re doing. Just put the stupid rag away and concentrate. If you hope to become an Auror, you’ll have to get really good grades on your N.E.W.T.s. And that means acing your O.W.L.s.”
Harry grimaced, sighed and lowered his book over the newspaper. She was right. There were far more important things in life than the love affairs of a Quidditch player, no matter how famous he was. He wondered if there were Charms that could be used to increase learning. He’d have to ask Hermione about it…
With that thought, he put Krum out of his mind and engaged Hermione in a passionate conversation about study aids and which would be better to create them, Charms or Potions. At least it was more interesting than history.
__________
Harry pored over his O.W.L. report. It wasn’t bad, not bad at all. High marks in DADA, Potions and Transfigurations. History and Divination had been lousy but that was as he expected. Hermione hadn’t done well in Divination either but then she hadn’t cared. She thought the whole thing was completely moronic, a “fake science with no real validity” as she put it, and would have no bearing in her future life anyway.
Now Harry would have a chance to choose his classes and he already knew which ones he was going to take. Before he could discuss it with Ron, a slight disturbance from the front of the hall caught his attention.
The Headmaster stood up from his chair at the Head Table and a gradual wave of silence ran flowed through the Great Hall as the students registered his movement. Harry blinked at what the man was wearing today. Was that purple with green stars? Not for the first time, he inwardly questioned whether Dumbledore might not be colorblind.
“Students, I realize you are all eager to leave for your holidays,” Dumbledore began. The impatient murmurs from the assembled children definitely bore that out. “However, I thought I’d assign a special task for you.”
A groan went up from the crowd. A task? For their summer holidays? Was the man a sadist?
“It doesn’t have to be anything too arduous,” Dumbledore assured them in mild tones. “We understand how many students felt left out because of the Triwizard Tournament. This is a chance for younger students to contribute to their house as well.”
Now the tenor of the mutterings changed to excited interest. Colin Creevey sat up straighter. “What’s the Headmaster talking about? He’s not proposing a contest for the first years, is he?” he whispered. Hermione shushed him, leaning forward to hear.
The ancient wizard continued. “Simply bring back an item – something rare, unique or simply odd – to show here before your assembled classmates on the first day of your return. Whoever has the most original item…” He paused for dramatic effect “…will win 200 points for his or her house for the start of the school year.”
Stunned silence fell after this announcement. Then a babble of enthusiastic conversation filled the room as all the students began talking at once.
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged startled glances. “A rare item?” Hermione murmured, her brown eyes glowing.
“Blimey. Wonder what Dumbledore could have in mind?” Ron added, his mind furiously turning over possibilities.
Harry shrugged, trying without success to imagine what a wizard who had the world’s only living phoenix as his familiar would consider “rare, unique or merely odd”. “I ‘spect that’s something we’re supposed to figure out for ourselves. What would you get, Hermione?” he asked her.
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, pursing her lips in thought. “I don’t know. Some rare book perhaps.”
Ron snorted. “Yeah. Should have seen that one coming.”
“And what’s wrong with a book?” Hermione snapped. “We’re still in school. A rare book that isn’t in the school library would be the perfect scholastic choice. I suppose you’d try to find the very first Quidditch Snitch ever made.”
Ron either ignored the sarcasm or he didn’t hear it. “No way I’d manage that without a Time Turner.” He brightened. “Maybe my dad could get one of those from the Ministry.”
“Not unless he wanted to lose his job,” Hermione chimed in tartly.
Ron slumped. “You’re right. Daft idea.”
“You’ll figure out something,” Harry assured him. Privately, he was excited. Magic was a lot of fun but lately he found himself wishing for something more to do with it, to put his powers to the test. The Triwizard Tournament had whetted his desire for a real challenge. To bring back something more valuable than a trophy would be grand.
Barely able to contain himself, he paid very little attention to his roast beef, his last school meal of the year.

TBC
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Tasks