Frodo Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Frodo H.J. Baggins-Potter didn't live in a hole in the ground. He lived at #4 Privet Drive, a cozy little cottage in the village of Little Whinging in Surrey. He wasn't rich, he wasn't poor, but he lived comfortably with his kindly uncle, Bilbo Baggins—who spent most of his days reading books and maps and smoking some of the finest pipeweeds from California and Amsterdam. Which was fine with Frodo, because he loved reading too when he wasn’t pottering around in the garden with his friend Sam.

Frodo's parents had been killed in a car crash—or so he had believed until a letter was dropped on his head by an owl on his eleventh birthday. Uncle Bilbo's face turned grey when he saw Frodo tear open the letter. He had meant to tell Frodo the whole sad story one day, but had thought that the young lad was perhaps a wee bit too young to know the truth.

And now it was too late. Bilbo had never told Frodo that his mother, Lily—Bilbo's younger sister—and his father, James Potter, were wizards.

“I'm so sorry my dear boy. … Frodo, I lost track of time—I thought you were too young to know the truth about your parents and your scar—it's a terrifying tale for tender souls. But yes, your mum was a smashing witch and your father was a dashing wizard. Wherever they traveled, all roads opened before them...”

“You do go on and on, Uncle,” giggled Frodo. “Hurry up and get to the scary bit.”

Bilbo's eyes boggled. He hadn't imagined that sort of reaction from his young nephew. He was a brave boy indeed.

“Well then, my dear Frodo, the awful truth is that the villainous Dark Lord, Sauron, killed your parents and tried to kill you too—that’s how you got that scar. By all rights you should be dead, but something about you stumped him that day, and nobody knows why.

“In any case, you're alive, you're a wizard, and you're going to Hogwarts, Frodo—the finest academy of witchcraft and wizardry in Britain. The headmaster is the wisest and most powerful of all wizards. Gandalf has seen Hogwarts through thick and thin—he dueled twelve dragons simultaneously and defeated them all at once you know! Brilliant fellow... and the most wonderful fireworks.”

So Uncle Bilbo took Frodo to Diagon Alley in London to buy his wand and his school supplies. And a month later Frodo H.J. Baggins-Potter was preparing to step onto platform 9 and 3/4's. He was there two hours early, because the Bagginses were nothing if not punctual.

Frodo said his goodbyes to Uncle Bilbo and moments later he found himself an empty compartment on the empty train and hoped that he'd make some new friends when the rest of the students arrived. A girl with bushy brown hair and a cute overbite suddenly burst into Frodo's compartment.

“Oh... Hello! My name is Hermione Granger. I'm always early too. Do you mind if I sit next to you?” the girl asked eagerly.

Frodo opened his mouth to respond in the affirmative and she sat down anyway, before he even had a chance to say anything. Hermione Granger peered into Frodo's green eyes, then her own eyes glanced at the lightning shaped scar on Frodo's forehead.

“Oh!” she said with astonishment, “You're Frodo Baggins-Potter. You're very famous. I know all about you, of course—I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. I'm ever so sorry about your parents. That's a very sad thing to be famous for,” Hermione finished in a rush of words.

“It's alright,” said Frodo with a grin, “I have a really nice Uncle who looks after me.”

“Is he a hobbit or a wizard?” Hermione asked.

“What's a hobbit?” Frodo inquired with a puzzled expression.

“Non-magic people according to the Oxford Dictionary of Wizard Slang—like my parents. I didn't know I was a wizard until I got my letter.”

“Me neither!” Frodo exclaimed in amazement, excited to have something in common with a girl. “My uncle raised me as a... a hobbit. He thought I would be too scared to know how my parents died and that someone tried to kill me. But as soon as I got my school books at Diagon Alley I was so excited to learn how to be a wizard that I read them all front to back three times.”

Hermione's eyes nearly popped out of her head and her mouth gaped. She'd never met anyone else who read all of their school-books before term began too. Frodo and Hermione passed the time chatting about the things they had already learned, and a bit about their home lives as well.

Eventually, the rest of the students and their families began arriving on the platform and filling up the train. Shortly thereafter, a boy who said his name was Neville poked his head in the door.

“Have you seen a toad? I've lost mine,” he asked.

“We'll help you look, right Frodo?” said Hermione a bit bossily.

Frodo nodded cheerfully, eager for the chance to help someone find something which was lost.

“Of course. I'd be happy to help.”

So Frodo and Hermione looked up and down the corridors of the train, asking in all of the compartments and carriages.

They stuck their heads in the door of a compartment which housed a scruffy looking ginger boy with freckles showing off his half-dead rat to another very bored looking boy and waving his wand.

“Excuse us. Have either of you seen a toad?” Frodo asked politely. “Neville's lost one.”

“We already told him we haven't seen it,” said the red-haired boy.

“Are you doing magic?” asked Hermione eagerly, seeing the wand. “Go on, let's see then.”

Frodo and Hermione promptly sat down, startling the freckled boy and his friend.

“Oh... er, right then,” he said, waving his wand, “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”

Nothing!

“Are you sure that's a spell?” Hermione asked, looking rather dubious.

"It's not very good—but that’s why we’re all going to Hogwarts, isn’t it?" said Frodo cheerily.

Hermione stood right up again. “Come on Frodo, let’s go find Neville's toad then.”

Frodo got up too, then he spotted something on the ginger boy’s nose. “By the way...erm...”

“It's Ron, Ron Weasley.”

“An’ I’m Seamus,” said Ron’s friend. “Seamus Finnegan.”

“I'm Frodo, Frodo Baggins-Potter—”

“And I’m Hermione Granger,” Hermione interjected primly, suddenly realising that she had forgotten to introduce herself properly too.

“Anyway,” said Frodo to Ron, “you've got a bit of dirt on your nose—just thought you should know."

Hermione grabbed Frodo’s hand and led him away from the gobsmacked Ron Weasley.

Further down the corridor, Frodo and Hermione happened across a posh, smarmy looking blond boy and his gorilla-shaped mates.

"It's you," drawled the blond boy as he peered down his pointy nose. “I heard Frodo Baggins-Potter was on the train. My name is Draco Malfoy, and this is Crabbe and Goyle.”

Malfoy gave Hermione a sneery sort of look, then turned his attention back to Frodo.

“You’ll soon find out that there’s a right sort of friend and a wrong sort,” he said snidely. “I can help you make the right sort of friends," Malfoy concluded, holding out his hand.

Frodo didn't really care for Malfoy, but he didn't like to be rude, so he shook Draco's hand. Hermione peered at Malfoy suspiciously.

“Well, I'm quite alright making my own friends, but thank you all the same,” Frodo said with a polite smile, hoping to avoid him in the future. “I'm sure I'll see you again. By the way, Draco is a pretty cool name—so no need to worry, I’m sure you’ll make plenty of nice friends at Hogwarts.”

Frodo took Hermione's hand and led her away from a gobsmacked Draco Malfoy. Eventually, they found Trevor the toad, much to Neville’s delight.

Finally, just after nightfall, the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station and all of the students piled out onto the platform. An enormous beast of a man about eleven feet tall whose face was nearly obscured by wild hair and a beard towered over them.

“Righ' then, Firs’ Years this way,” the hairy giant bellowed in a gruff, but not unkind voice.

The giant led all of the young students to a number of tiny little two person boats. Frodo got into one of the coracles with Hermione, and it began to slip silently across the smooth surface of the lake. The castle drew nearer as their boat glided through a sea of stars, reflections of the twinkling diamonds above. Frodo beamed at Hermione. She blushed and they both gazed up at the starry sky.

Once they had disembarked in the harbour under the castle, they were led up some steps to a massive stone door. The giant hairy man, Hagrid, knocked on the door and a stern looking witch beckoned.

“Firs' Years, this here is Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid. “She'll take the lot o’ yeh the rest o’ the way,”

They were all led into an enormous hall with four giant wooden tables resting on a marble floor, around which many students were already seated. And the professors were seated at another long mahogany table at the end of the hall with stained glass windows behind them. The ceiling seemed to disappear and the stars in the night sky shone through.

One by one, the new students were directed to sit under a very grumpy looking tattered old hat, and each in turn was sent by the hat to one of the four Great Houses which Frodo and Hermione had read about in Hogwarts, a History. Gryffindor table erupted into cheers when Hermione Granger and Frodo Baggins-Potter were sorted into their House.

Gandalf the headmaster made a speech, for a moment catching Frodo's green eyes with his own sparkling blue ones, and then the feast began. Frodo glanced back up at the staff-table as the food began appearing on silver platters, and a burning pain shot through his scar. One of the professors—the one with greasy black hair and a hooked nose—was glaring malevolently at him.

Frodo rubbed at his paining scar and averted his eyes, wondering what that was all about. He turned his attention back to the delicious looking feast and began piling roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and mashed potatoes and peas onto his plate, and then smothered the lot with gravy.

Hermione followed suit, and grimaced at Ron Weasley who was chattering merrily away with Seamus Finnegan, his mouth full of mashed potato and gravy dribbling down his chin…

---

I have this one-shot posted at several other sites, but I reckon that there couldn't be a better home for it than Forumshire.  

I like it

Somewhat, er....derivative is it not?

Thank you Azriel!

And to you, Halfwise, I say verily, the entire point of fanfiction is that it is transformative.

"Derivative" is a term which applies to original fiction.

Subtle point, that. But valid.

Forum fanfic has been the dominant mode of creative writing on here for so long that I wonder if the normal meaning of the term "fanfic" has been lost to the mists of time.

I like the concept, GB, and lovely execution! I've read a few of your HP stories over the years but hadn't seen this one before, so thanks for sharing it on here.

Thanks Eldy!

Given how much "staying in character" seems to have been a constant feature of Forumshire, that's not too surprising really.

The roots of it go back almost to the beginning, but over the years Forumshire ended up turning into a fairly elaborate 'verse in its own right. In case you ever find yourself bereft of literally anything interesting, I edited a 937K word anthology of essentially all forum-verse fanfic to have been posted on the site up until a year ago when I did that project. You make a number of appearances within those pages, but I accept no liability for any depictions, even the ones I wrote!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yjYiz8nuL3LqJ-yP9crpDKu_BH-1LwJU/view (pls 2 ignore deadname)

Lol!

I'll definitely have to check some of that out when I'm not writing. My Muse has finally worked out a problem I've been having on a story.

{{{Working on stories ... that is a thing people do, yes. }}}

Sweet Eloovetarrr! Eetz hoom, und heez bark!!! Lik uh fartfromzapust! Uddu woen bee hipphuppee!!! Noooo!