So..." Professor Dumbledore peered

So..." Professor Dumbledore peered at Harry over his half-moon spectacles. "You were raised by fairies, I understand."

Harry smiled up at the old man. He had taken an immediate liking to the Hogwarts headmaster with the lovely white hair and the twinkling blue eyes. And his wondrous beard! Not even gnomes had beards like that! The headmaster's beard was as long as his name, and that was saying something.

"Yes, I was raised by my friend Leaf." Harry reached out and petted Dumbledore's friend, a scarlet bird with a strange accent. "Excuse me, but I think your friend wants... fire-bread? I'm afraid I can't quite make out everything he is saying; he seems to speak a very old-fashioned dialect of Bird."

Dumbledore blinked at him. "You understand what Fawkes is saying? That's quite astonishing. I've never come across anyone who speaks Phoenix before... Yes, it is time for his mid-morning toast, isn't it? Here you go, Fawkes." He handed the bird a piece of toast from a plate on his desk. The bird thanked him politely, but suggested gently that the respected and venerable elder might consider guarding the bread's outlying areas against the ferocity of the flames in the future, if convenient.

"The toast is a little too burnt around the edges," translated Harry, and Dumbledore immediately tore off a less singed piece and offered it to his friend.

"Thank you, Harry. We may need you to translate for us again, Fawkes and I. I have been suffering from the unfortunate delusion that he preferred his toast well done, and I am most grateful to you for setting me straight." Dumbledore beamed at him. "Now, Harry, I trust you are settling in well here at Hogwarts? It must be quite different from what you are used to."

"A bit, yes," admitted Harry. "But it's all very pleasant, and the other Slytherin students are very friendly to Ron and me."

"Ah, yes. I dare say they are, all things considered." Dumbledore smiled a little behind his beard. "Speaking of your friend Mr. Weasley, I happened to run into him the other night. It seems that he is much given to wandering around this school at night, and that he takes particular pleasure in walking through locked doors. A skill he has learned from you, perhaps?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. Ron was ever so quick at learning how to do that. It's a very useful thing to know, of course."

"I'm sure it is." The headmaster nodded thoughtfully. "The thing is, Harry, it is sometimes safer not to walk through every locked door in sight. You never know what you will find on the other side. So I would strongly advise you and Mr. Weasley not to wander around the school at night. There may be parts of this castle that are not entirely safe for first year students, no matter how bright and clever they may be."

"Oh." Harry pondered this for a moment. "We will be very careful, then."

"Good." Dumbledore smiled at him. After a slight pause, he added: "I happened to come across your friend Mr. Weasley in one of the empty classrooms the other night, gazing into a very old mirror that was kept there."

"Oh, yes, he told me about that."

"Did he now?" Dumbledore studied Harry over the rim of his half-moon spectacles. "What did he tell you about that mirror?"

Harry shrugged. "I think he must have been sleepwalking a bit. He said that he saw himself in the mirror, only he was a fairy. I suppose he must have been dreaming, because he doesn't usually look much like a fairy at all."

Dumbledore smiled ever so slightly. "No, I don't suppose he does. What about you, Harry? Did you look into that mirror at all?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, Ron came and found me. He wanted me to see the mirror for myself."

"Did he?" Dumbledore leaned forward across his desk. "And you stood in front of the mirror as well? Tell me, Harry: What did you see when you looked into the mirror?"

Harry stared at the headmaster. Oh, dear. Dumbledore was very, very old, wasn't he? Perhaps he was becoming a little confused about things, the way fairies sometimes did when they turned three hundred or so?

Harry patted the headmaster's old wrinkled hand. "When I looked into the mirror, I saw me," he said gently. "That's how mirrors work, you see."

"You saw yourself?" Dumbledore gazed at him. "Only yourself, Harry?"

"Yes," said Harry patiently. "That's because I was the only one standing in front of the mirror, you see. If someone else had been standing next to me, I would have seen them too. That's how mirrors are. They work just like clear ponds, only better." He felt terribly bad for the old man who had forgotten something that simple and ordinary.

"I see." Dumbledore sat quite still for a moment and stroked his long snowy beard. Then he said: "You are quite a remarkable young wizard, Harry. In more ways than one..."

...

Harry enjoyed his classes a great deal, although there were a few unfortunate misunderstandings at times. Harry could never quite get the hang of the very odd charms that professor Flitwick was trying to teach them. He tried to get into the spirit of things and say funny words to feathers to make them fly, like Hermione did, but it seemed like an unnecessarily complicated way of doing things.

Hermione would sometimes catch him doing things a bit differently and speak a little sternly to him about it after class.

"Harry! Your feather was flying beautifully in Charms class again," she would say. "Except that I happened to hear the charm you used, and you said Wind Guards the Roses instead of Wingardium Leviosa."

Harry flushed a little. He didn't think anyone would have noticed. "I'm afraid I forgot the word we were supposed to use," he muttered. "It's so hard to remember all those long words."

Hermione stared at him. "But how did you make your feather fly if you didn't remember the right spell?"

Harry looked down. How terribly embarassing, to be caught cheating like this! Perhaps he should have tried a little harder to remember the right words. "Well, I just pushed the feather around with my magic. It's so much easier than remembering the right word for every little thing..."

"You just pushed the feather around with your magic?" repeated Hermione slowly. "But that's..." She paused, eyes on Harry's wand. "Harry? Where did you get that wand? It looks a little... different."

Harry showed her his wand. "I got it from a holly tree back home in the forest where I lived. The holly was actually very pleased that one of her twigs was going to go to school and learn magic. She was telling all her neighbors about it."

Hermione turned the wand over and over in her hand. "But Harry, this is a live piece of holly. Wands are usually made from dead wood, with a magical core inserted into them. What sort of core does your wand have?"

"Er..." Harry thought for a moment. "Tree sap?" He felt very confused. What else could you possible expect to find at the core of a piece of wood?

"Tree sap?" Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. Then she said: "Listen, Harry, I'm not sure if yours is a proper magical wand. Would you mind if I try it for a moment?"

"Of course!" Harry smiled at her.

"Let's see, then..." Hermione looked doubtfully at the wand. Then she gave it a little flick and said: "Avis!"

The next moment, the corridor filled with birds of every imaginable color and size, hundreds of them, thousands of them... Some were dark crimson, others gold or silver, emerald green, cobalt blue, or deep purple. They sparkled and glittered in the flickering light from the torches that lined the ancient corridor, and the sweetest birdsong Harry had ever heard filled the air.

Hermione stared at the birds, her eyes wide. "What... What species of birds are those? I have never seen anything like them before in my life..."

"I don't think they are birds of any particular species," said Harry and lifted a large turqouise and silver one off his head. "They seem to be quite new. You were the one who made them up, so I don't think they have any names yet. They are very lovely, though."

Hermione stared down at Harry's wand for a long moment. Then she smiled and said: "You know what? I think your wand is just perfect, even if it is a little different from everyone else's. Perhaps wands that are given to you by the trees themselves are the most magical ones after all. Finite Incantatem."

...

Harry liked all his new teachers a great deal. Professor McGonagall was very clever at speaking Cat, and she and Harry sometimes had animated Cat conversations in the hallways, which always made Draco Malfoy shudder a little if he happened to walk by. But Harry's favorite adult friend of all, after the desperately shy Professor Quirrell, was Hagrid. Hagrid lived in a little hut on the school grounds with his friend Fang, and he knew more about animals than anyone Harry had ever met. Hagrid couldn't talk to the animals in their own languages very well, but he managed to make himself widely understood with friendly grunts and a lot of patience.

Harry loved roaming through the forest behind Hagrid's hut and talking to all the friendly creatures he met there. In the beginning, Hagrid was a little hesitant about Harry walking around in the forest at night.

"Yeh shouldn't be in the forest alone at night, Harry," he exclaimed one night when he came upon Harry and the Sorting Hat fishing in a small forest stream in the moonlight.

"Mr. Potter is not alone!" said the Sorting Hat a little huffily. "Surely, you can see that he is accompanied by qualified school staff?"

Hagrid looked doubtfully at their little campfire, where a couple of trouts were already roasting over the flames. The Sorting Hat had brought along an old sword that worked perfectly as a roasting spit.

"Well..." Hagrid was still a little hesitant, but he ate one of the trouts Harry offered him with a good appetite. "I think it's still against the school rules fer students to be in the forest at night, Harry."

But when Harry explained to him what Leaf had said about the difference between Rules and Laws, Hagr