Chapter 46: Tracking Charms
Hermione let out a whoop of joy as the paper landed in her hand for the 10th time without fail.
She had finally done it.
After two whole months of practicing diligently, she had finally managed to get it right 10 out of 10 times.
Which meant that she was ready for the next exercise.
Harry had told her that it had taken him about 3 months before he was fairly proficient in it.
And she had done it in 2 months.
Which means that she had done it faster than Harry.
She let out another whoop of joy, in her mind of course, at finally besting Harry at something.
Then she remembered that Harry had no one to teach him when he first learned about this and that he had to chart out a path for himself on his own unlike her who already have a path drawn in front of her.
And then there's the fact that she's 12 years old right now and he was merely 7 years old when he created and completed this exercise.
She wondered if she would have been able to do such a thing at his age and her excitement dimmed down a bit.
But still, she had completed this exercise and that called for a celebration.
And celebration for Hermione Granger meant more books and tasks to do.
So she instantly jumped from her bed, ignoring her roommates who had taken to ignoring her as well and left for the room in which Harry must have been doing his thing.
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She was on her way to that room as she turned the corner when suddenly something fast and small blurred past her head scaring the living daylights out of her.
She turned around to see that the thing was a beautiful white colored hawk. Though where it had come from, she had no idea.
Then she heard the large foot steps coming from the other direction and realized that yes, she did have an idea.
"Hermione." Harry called out loudly as he ran toward her, looking for all the world like he had been running around the castle for the whole day and knowing him, he probably did.
"Did you see a brown hawk pass by this area? I think I was flying this way when I last checked it." He said, huffing every now as he took out a crude handmade device from his pocket which held a single needle which was pointing in the direction in which the hawk was flying while he wiped the sweat on his brows with his other hand.
"Yes. But why would are you chasing after it?" she asked without any surprise at his shenanigans as she was well used to his odd projects and experiments by now. Then she thought of something and took out a hankerchief and passed it on to him who waved it away without a second look.
Boys.
"I was working on a Blood tracking charm and had been learning for it for the past three hours. It took me one more hour to catch that hawk. And let me tell you, it is damn hard to catch a bird that's flying in the sky even with a Nimbus 2000."
Hermione distantly recalled that the Nimbus 2000 was some kind of hotshot broom for the quidditch players but didn't paid much attention to it. Instead she looked at the device in his hands oddly as it fluctuated a tiny amount every now and then. Possibly still tracking the hawk.
A part of her reminded her that blood tracking charms were borderline illegal but she ignored that part.
By now, she had seen Harry doing so many illegal things and breaking so many laws and rules that she didn't even care about little things like this.
"Isn't this working just fine?" she asked "Why are you running after the bird yourself?"
Harry was taking deep breaths now and Hermione had the sinking suspicion that the only reason why he stopped to reply to her was because he was too exhausted to chase after the hawk anymore.
"Because… I wanted to do more experiment on it before it almost bit my fingers off and flew out of the window. I've been chasing it for the past ten minutes throughout the castle."
*
"But why are you chasing after it. Wouldn't it be better to just pick up another bird and continue with your voodoo project. Or did that hawk had something special about it?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and Harry looked at her like she was a complete idiot, which she was not.
"Hermione. Did you hear what I said. It took me an hour to catch that blasted bird. I won't go outside searching for another when I could still catch this one while it's still inside the castle." He said looking annoyed.
"But… why didn't you just used the owls from the Owlery for your projects?" she asked curiously, wondering if there was some limitations in the the blood tracking charm. But as soon as she asked the question, Harry froze in his place and a tinge of red suddenly took over his cheeks.
No he didn't.
"Well…" he stammered out, looking highly embarrassed "The books said that… I thought that… I…"
"You forgot. Didn't you?" she asked barely holding in her laugh at his occasional stupidity and despite her best efforts her lips started twitching up wards and she knew that she won't be able to hold it in for long.
Apparently, he knew that as well cause he crossed his arms like a child and scowled petulantly at her "I might have… overlooked that possibility."
And Hermione lost it and started laughing uncontrollably at that.
It was only her care for her image as a girl that stopped her from clutching her stomach and rolling on the floor at his oversight.
This was so typical of Harry.
A genius at so many things that it left her envious but completely forgetful about some of the most basic things sometimes.
By the time she stopped, tears has formed at the corner of her eyes and Harry was looking at her with an indulgent expression.
"Alright. Ruin my fun." She complained "Okay I won't laugh at you anymore but you have to admit that it was pretty funny."
He gave her a gentle smile and shook his head at his own antics "Yeah. That was rather foolish of me. I was just so damn excited about the tracking charms and all that that I formed a tunnel vision for the subject. Then the book showed how the author caught a bird and then placed the blood tracking charms on it and I never even thought that instead of going outside and capturing a bird for myself, I could have just gone to the owlery instead."
"But leaving that aside. What are you doing here?" he asked as he started going back to their study room. "I thought you still needed two more hours for practicing?"
At his words, Hermione perked up once again and clutched his hands excitedly.
"Harry, I completed the exercise you gave me. I performed it 10 times continuously without failing even once." She told him smugly and he gave her an indulgent smile before they reached the room and upon opening it, Hermione realized that Penelope was sitting at the corner of the room, studying an old book about something. Probably ancient runes as that was her favourite subject.
Unlike Hermione, Penelope had found that exercise particularly hard and dropped it after a whole month when she still didn't see any significant results. She had said that she was already too old to be practicing something so completely new and that even if she started focusing on it right now, she would not become proficient enough by the end of her graduation.
Harry, for some reason, had not tried very hard to persuade her to continue with the exercises so Hermione had kept her tongue to her as well so now she was the only student of Great Master Harry Potter.
She giggled at that thought, causing Harry to look at her with a raised eyebrow before going back to the table he had been working on previously.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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