Reborn As A Squib In Harry potter

"Fred and George don't know anything except pranks," Ron sighed. "And I doubt Percy would help. He's too much a stick in the mud. And Charlie and Bill are busy with their jobs to answer random questions. Mom would be suspicious about the question and probably find out about what we're doing, and then get mad at us."

"My grans not the most forth-coming woman in the world. She prefers me to find my own answers, but it couldn't hurt to try," Neville said with a shrug, and Susan nodded in agreement.

"My aunt is often busy, so I don't want to bother her with this," Susan admitted.

"And my parents aren't the most knowledgeable about magical stuff. Mom prefers the Muggle World after her family and friends died in the war, and dad's a muggle himself," Hannah said.

"Besides, I think that the fewer people who know we're looking into this, the better," Ron argued, folding his arms. "I don't think we should involve anyone else in this."

"That's not a bad idea," Harry admitted. "I mean, I still think we should see if Edward or someone else can help later on, we should definitely keep our lips sealed about why we want this information."

"So, uh, to the library, then?" Hermione asked hopefully, and everyone else shared amused looks before Ron nodded.

"Yes, Hermione, to the library."

She grinned, and began to skip off to the massive repository of books, eager to start looking for tomes and the knowledge within. Harry had a feeling it would be hard to pry her out of there even with all of them working together.

....

Dumbledore POV

'And there we go,' Dumbledore mused to himself quietly as he levitated the cloth-covered mirror over to its spot in the corner of an old, disused room.

Setting up the Mirror of Erised here might have seemed like an odd choice, but it was the best place to do so. It was out of the way for any students, and nobody was going to enter the place accidentally. Which was why it was the perfect place to tuck it away until he needed Harry Potter to find it.

He'd have to place the Compulsion charm onto the Potter's cloak around Christmas. The invisibility cloak - which Dumbledore had his suspicions about - was oddly resistant to spells, and anything cast onto it would fade rapidly. Even the strongest charms wouldn't last a month, which was unusual, to say the least.

Still, he had doubts that it would take that long for Harry Potter to try on the cloak. And the next time the boy needed to hide while wearing the cloak, it would guide him to this very room, where he'd find the mirror.

It was perhaps cruel, to taunt a child with the impossible dreams locked away behind the mirror's surface, but he needed to do it. Harry Potter needed to have his desires revealed and tested. Dumbledore needed to weaken the boy's resolve, fill him with hope and the desire to be loved. Only then, would he be able to defeat Voldemort.

Love. Such a strange thing. Powerful. Fickle. Able to move men to do great but also terrible things. And it was something Voldemort had never known. Either as Tom Riddle or the Dark Lord. But Harry did. Even if but a brief moment, Harry Potter had known true love, and this would be the key to defeating Britain's latest threat.

Dumbledore had checked, of course. The barrier of pure love Lily Potter had managed to cast upon her son was still intact - and he was quite curious how a mere Muggleborn had found a way to cast a lost spell only mentioned of in the oldest texts - and the old headmaster had a feeling it was going to be vital in the fight against Voldemort.

With a nod to himself, Dumbledore confirmed his plans with the boy and the mirror. When Christmas rolled around, he would charm the cloak and send it to the boy. Then, Harry would discover the mirror. A discreet ward would let the headmaster know when Harry showed up. And then he could guide the boy to the right decision and mindset needed for victory in the future.

And once that was done, Dumbledore would move the mirror to the last room in his trap for Voldemort. Or rather, Quirrell.

He snorted to himself. Did Tom really think he could hide from him that easily? It was admittedly a novel approach to bypassing the wards around Hogwarts by possessing the poor professor, but Dumbledore had picked up plenty of tricks in his century-plus of life. The turban the DADA teacher wore was used by Middle Eastern mages to bind and obscure spirits. The scent of garlic would cover up the stink of rot as the poor man's body broke down. And

But it served Dumbledore's goals to have the Dark Lord believe he had fooled him. And then, he would hide the stone in the mirror shortly before the end of school, which would force the possessed professor to hurry to steal it.

'And which any luck, I'll be able to convince Harry to go after him. Yes, an early confrontation with Voldemort will galvanize the boy. It will be good for him,' Dumbledore mused. And it would be a good test for the Boy-Who-Lived as well. Would he also fail to retrieve the stone? Or would it be locked away from him as well?

Dumbledore couldn't help but think of his old mentor as he thought about the mystical artifact he'd be using as bait. Nicholas Flamel had surrendered the Philosopher's Stone far more easily than he'd expected, but it was understandable. Perhaps not to men like Tom, but Dumbledore completely understood why the alchemist and his wife would want to go out on their own terms. The old wizard wondered when he'd be able to do the same?

'Only when my work is done,' Dumbledore thought to himself. The Magical World had to survive. And if two young men had to die for that to happen? So be it.

....

Join my P*atreon for 100 premium chapters ahead of the public release. 

Link: pa*treon.com/MysticVerse (Remove the *)

Free members also get 2 advanced chapters for free.