บท 6: Chapter 6 Classes and First Impressions
The Come and Go Room was more than Harry hoped was possible for training. If he wanted to practice swordsmanship, a training sword and magic training dummy would appear. If he wanted to run a lap at a specific multiple of gravity, the long room would set itself only to that gravity and a track and field lap matching what he wanted would appear.
Harry really wanted to see the limits of what this room could do, but all too quickly breakfast time approached and Harry made his way back to the dormitory. Harry really liked the slide shortcuts.
After giving the fat lady in the portrait the password she opened up and Harry returned to the common room to find Hermione and Neville along with the rest of his house.
Hermione spotted him first and said, "Harry! Where were you? Neville said he didn't see you when he got up and was worried."
Harry noticed a bit of worry in her own voice as well which made Harry feel warm. Having friends who cared for him was very different for him.
"I'm sorry Hermione, I left to explore the castle. Do they have maps or something because without one it's not going to be easy finding anything."
The twin redheads seemed to appear from the shadows and the first said, "You can ask the professor for a map," the second twin continued, "But the maps don't show any of the secret paths."
Harry remembered what his father said about making his own map but said most of the work was done by Remus Lupin so Harry doubted he could make another from scratch without putting more time than he wanted or seeing the original. Then again he only needed a map to cover for his own so he didn't want to dedicate that much time to it.
Hermione looked like she wanted to say something before looking at Harry and getting distracted by something. She asked with the barest hint of a blush, "Harry, those robes aren't Madam Malkin's are they?"
Harry did notice that his robes had a nicer sheen and cleaner edges along with a complete lack of fuzz on top of the cloth compared to everyone else's robes. Harry answered, "I don't know. I found them in a closet in my family's manor so I don't know who made them. They look nice though."
Another brown haired girl half a head taller than Hermione said, "They do look good on you. Maybe a bit tight but in a good way."
Harry noticed that she was looking at his butt and Harry immediately started to blush. A few of the girls who saw this unconsciously smiled.
Hermione, wanting to move to a safer topic, said "The Prefect said Professor McGonagall should be here soon with our schedules soon."
No sooner had Hermione spoken then the portrait door had opened revealing their head of house. She handed a stack of papers to three of the taller students who started calling out names before she went to Harry and said, "Mr. Potter, a word if you please," before motioning for Harry to follow her away from the crowd.
Harry followed but was a bit tense. He was only slightly relieved by the fact that his father really put him through the ringer when it came to training for lying on the spot so Harry would simply have to see if it was worth it.
Once out of earshot of the other students, the Professor said, "Here is your schedule, but I'd like a few answers from you. Where have you been for the last thirteen months?"
Harry nodded, expecting this of course. "For the last month I stayed in Potter Manor which the Goblins gave me a portkey to. The twelve months before that however I don't know. Five weeks ago I woke up in a park with two letters. One said it was from my father and gave some instructions. The other said I have been obliviated for the last 12 months for my own protection and the protection of others. The letters said to burn them which I didn't at first. Then I found out how famous I was and what people thought happened to me. If whoever wrote them was bad, I wouldn't be here, so I did burn them."
The Professor was following the story and watching her young ward very closely. Harry however mixed some truth into the lies which she would be able to confirm and the lies had no way to be found out. At least according to Harry's father who fabricated the story for him.
McGonagall thought the situation over for some time before saying, "Do you have all your school materials?"
Harry shrugged. "I think so. I found a trunk in Potter Manor that had what I think was my dad's school things and a wand which works fine for me. It had a lot of books, a cauldron, and a bunch of other things. I took that and some robes I found in a closet."
Harry pretended to only now notice the look of worry on his head of House's expression and quickly said, "I'll ask Hermione if there is anything I'm missing and get back to you later on that. Is that alright."
The Professor nodded and said, "Very well. May I ask what the instructions on those letters were for?"
"Just how to get to Gringotts, what to ask of the goblins to get Potter Manor's portkey, and how to get to Hogwarts." Harry spoke in a flat tone and purposefully fidgeted which was an easy cue for McGonagall to pick up on to 'guess' he was lying or leaving something out. One of his favorite shows to watch while dead was a crime drama that explained the science of lying and deception and he spent a long time deciphering and practicing the art with his father using that as a base.
Harry noticed a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth showing her amusement at seeing Harry lie so badly meaning she was less likely to question the validity of the rest of his story.
Without calling Harry out on his lie, McGonagall told him he could return to his friends and get some breakfast.
Harry knew she would investigate or ask others to investigate his tale. The best she could do was take Harry's picture and show it around every store in Diagon Alley. All that would accomplish however, if they recognized Harry with black hair, was learning what Harry bought and where he bought it. Even this would take time and wasn't guaranteed to work. The main thing however was that it would distract from the twelve months before that meaning the only facts that could get out was that he lied about where he got his supplies. This was on purpose as Harry already covered that by being caught lying about the letter's instructions, so he could easily amend his story and say the letters told him where to go and what to buy.
Harry found Hermione and Neville waiting for him before heading out to the Great Hall for breakfast. Hermione asked what the professor wanted and Harry repeated back McGonagall's questions. Hermione and Neville both caught on that Harry had likely lied to her but neither brought it up.
Breakfast was slightly interrupted when the redheaded first year who had yet to introduce himself saw Harry approach the table and started telling him which things were good and which were great like a professional food critic. Harry didn't let it bother him and responded when questioned which seemed to settle the redhead for now.
The schedule was broken into breakfast, early morning period, late morning period, lunch, afternoon period, and evening period. The only exception was wednesdays which included a midnight period specifically for astrology. Not all periods each day always had a class. Thursday early morning was blank so everyone could sleep in after the prior midnight class.
Today's schedule had Herbology, then Charms, followed by Transfiguration after lunch. Lily had told him that once third year started three electives were required meaning the first two years would have many empty time slots which would be filled later. Harry had very little intention of wasting that time.
Harry called over Hermione and Neville, "There's loads of free time so if we get through our homework quickly we can practice and study the good stuff."
Hermione looked like she wanted to complain about getting through the homework quickly but Harry had already told her that whether or not every homework assignment was graded Outstanding or Troll, none of it mattered except the finals of each year. Even if that wasn't a good enough reason to slack on the homework, the time saved being used to study higher level subject matter was too much of a temptation for the young bookworm.
Not too surprisingly, the first class of each subject was the introduction and safety practices that they all had to go over. The only class which had some flavor was Transfiguration. In the beginning of the class, Harry saw a grey tabby cat with a ridiculously high concentration of exotic energy for a cat. Once everyone had arrived to class, it jumped off and transformed into the teacher. McGonagall's introduction to Transfiguration included a warning that if anyone messed around in her class, they would not be coming back.
After the final class Hermione almost started walking in the direction of the Gryffindor common rooms but Harry told her there were plenty of empty classrooms to use to study. Hermione was almost tempted to argue until she recalled the redhead who kept inviting them to play chess against him over and over.
Harry finished his homework first only giving just slightly more than the minimum required length before he went to help Neville. After they both finished Harry checked on Hermione and had to spend five minutes explaining to her that regurgitating everything she could think of onto a paper and exceeding the length requirements three-fold was not helping her become smarter. Time spent showing off how much she knew was better spent learning something she didn't know. She eventually relented but Harry recognized that some habits die easier than others.
Harry already knew that studying with them wouldn't make him stronger but he intended to use the time to grind his Scholar Path which not only made it easier to teach, but easier to learn as well. The time he lost in tutoring would be gained back with faster learning later.
He started them on their next three weeks worth of lessons on the three classes they took, showing both of them the different ways to cast the same spell and letting them both try and feel the differences.
Once done, Harry said he intended to do some self study in another part of the castle and encouraged Hermione to figure out what she wanted to learn next without being told by a teacher or syllabus. This of course led her to scurrying off to the library. Neville went back to the Gryffindor common rooms to see what the other students were doing. Harry noticed Neville's confidence increased once Harry showed him how to use magic in spite of his wand rather than with it. Neville was using a badly fitted wand for him and Harry had already told him he should either get a new one or learn wandless magic. Considering how much his gran worried him, Neville seemed inclined towards the latter.
Harry didn't bother getting dinner as he already put a lot of food in his inventory which would help him speed his stamina recovery later. He returned to the room of requirements but instead of asking for a workout room, he asked for a room that would assist him in meditation.
The room obliged and Harry found a room that appeared to have ritual markings and candles around. Harry sat in the middle and started his battle mediation. He couldn't risk doing this somewhere he could be observed as absorbing energy had odd effects around him which he couldn't bet would go unnoticed.
[Dimensional Energy: Recommended level 50~200
Exotic Energy: Recommended level 10~30
Concentrated Exotic Energy: Recommended level 30~90
Time Energy: Recommended level 300~500]
The list of available energies he could absorb showed some changes but not many. The Concentrated Exotic Energy was a specific feature of the school. Centuries of housing hundreds of witches and wizards left the very foundation of the school saturated with exotic energy that let Harry know anything more complicated than a typewriter would fry the moment it entered this castle. And that was to say nothing of the three intersecting ley lines Hogwarts was built atop.
Harry selected Concentrated exotic energies and spent the next two hours slaying familiar looking magic creatures such as adult fire crabs and two headed snakes. The snakes themselves were odd as Harry could quite clearly understand both heads as they declared him dinner. It reminded him that he once spoke with a garden snake in his aunt's garden. Harry mentally browsed through his library and found the ability was called Parseltongue and someone who had that ability was called a Parselmouth, someone who could speak to snakes.
Some of the books referenced specific magics that needed to be cast in Parseltongue but none of them had any details on such magics as Parseltongue was a rare, rather frowned upon gift associated with the darker arts of which there were none in the Potter Library.
After getting to level 32, Harry finished his meditation and changed the room back to the gravity gym and did everything he could to tear his body down for the next ninety minutes. Once thoroughly exhausted, Harry got his dinner from his inventory and finished it to recover the stamina needed to return to the dormitory.
One interesting thing about Harry's physiology was that he did in fact sweat and it did have a smell, but after a short while both sweat and smell would vanish just like any blood taken from him. It was thanks to this that Harry didn't look completely soaked or smell like a gym bag by the time he returned to the dormitory.
Harry was once more accosted by the unnamed redhead and relented to playing a game of chess with him. Wizard's Chess anyways. The pieces apparently would try to tell him what they wanted him to do and argue with the moves he made instead. Harry had never actually played chess before but knew the rules. Most of them anyways. Harry got most of his pieces taken quickly but learned much by then and though he still lost he prolonged the inevitable for a while. The redhead asked if he wanted to play again but Harry said he'd be up for it tomorrow which the redhead seemed to accept.
Neville was playing another game with some of the other dorm-mates and the red headed twins were trying to get some first years to eat some candy. A second year kindly warned Harry that those two were Fred and George Weasley, sixth years and the opposite of their brother Percy who was a seventh year and Head Boy. While Percy was a stick in the mud and would deduct points to enforce his authority, the twins were troublemakers who enjoyed coming up with new pranks and testing them on 'unsuspectin firsties.'
Harry thanked the man who actually bothered to introduce himself as Cormac McLaggen and took the advice to heart. Outwardly anyways. Harry felt his father would be greatly disappointed in him if he didn't react accordingly when challenged at pranking.
A half hour before bed time Hermione returned and went straight for Harry with an assortment of questions. She actually had a list of topics she'd written down she wanted clarification on. Partially. Harry felt at least half the list was specifically to find a subject matter Harry did not know about. It did however remind Harry he needed to check out the school library. Then again, if he needed books, perhaps the Room of Requirements had something.
Although Hermione didn't come up with any subjects he wasn't familiar with, she did at least get a better grasp on many subjects and an outline of what she wanted to learn.
Harry eventually went to bed and saw Crookshanks chilling with Goose. "How's the castle Goose?"
'It has proved moderately amusing,' she conveyed back.
Seemed that the pets of the students were pretty much attended by the house elves for food and care. Also there were secret paths and walkways usable by cats that lead to the rooms with litter boxes, rooms with herbs cats could chew on which were healthy, and rooms magically lit and heated where cats could sunbathe even at midnight.
Harry shook his head that being spoiled rotten, for Goose anyways, simply amounted to moderately amusing.
Once all set in his bed, Harry paused again and went over the advances he made in runic theory and practice until his brain gave out and he had to unpause and go to sleep.
Four hours later Harry got up and went straight for the Room of Requirements and asked for a room of books.
The room that appeared certainly had a number of books but the books were mostly old textbooks and seemingly unreturned library books. Some of the books had writing that plainly asked, 'if lost, return to' ect. After some thinking Harry figured the only books the room could produce that Harry could put into his inventory were actual books that others had lost. Harry had long since confirmed he couldn't place conjured items in his inventory so even if this room conjured a copy of every book in the library, it wouldn't be useful for Harry.
Of course the number of books lost on Hogwarts ground since whenever the last time someone collected them was still far from a small number. There were at least twenty times as many books as Potter Manor's library and many of the textbooks had personal notes written on the pages which added to Harry's database. Harry finished collecting them all just before breakfast and headed back down to meet his dorm-mates before they went to the Great Hall.
Today's classes were Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Transfiguration again, and Charms again.
DADA was as boring as it was unnerving. Harry finally got an answer to who had been aiming the killing intent he usually only felt from monsters at him on the first day. Professor Quirrel spoke with a fake stutter and although seemed to ignore him, also seemed to hate his very existence. The turban which blocked Harry's energy sense seemed all the more suspicious as such a property should not be on something accidentally. The overwhelming smell of garlic in the room was thankfully not an issue as Harry could adjust his sense of smell in his Settings.
History of Magic was odd. The fact that the class may have in fact bored its own Professor to death didn't seem to phase many as the ghost seemed to have been teaching for several hundred years. Harry wondered how he graded papers. Moreover the Professor's short term memory seemed lacking as he didn't get a single name correct when calling people out.
Transfiguration included the first attempt at magic for many students save those who practiced on their own. Professor McGonagall gave a lecture on many of the principals behind transfiguration for the first part of the class and had everyone try to turn a matchstick into a needle for the second part of class.
Hermione and Neville got it on their first try but Harry only got his matchstick to become slightly silver which got a confused stare out of both Gryffindors. McGonagall awarded Hermione and Neville 10 house points and Harry 5 points. No one else in class got anything out of the needle.
Charms class included another lecture with a promise that magic would start for the next class.
Once the trio found themselves back in the empty class, the interrogation began.
Hermione accused, "Harry, why didn't you change the matchstick into a needle? You're the one who showed us yesterday!"
Harry shook his head and said, "Hermione, the quality of the class won't increase if I suddenly show I've mastered the content. I told you before, there is no accelerated program for those who finish early. House points look nice on paper but they have no real use."
Neville said, "That shows why you don't care, but not why you're holding back. You said showing you know the stuff won't make the class better, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend to do worse."
Harry answered back, "You're right Neville but you're overlooking something."
Hermione jumped to it and asked, "What's that?"
Harry shrugged, "I'm Harry Potter and people have wanted me dead before. Showing my skill could make things worse for me and if there is no incentive to show my skill, I'd rather others think me weak. We already have a teacher actively sabotaging us after all so-"
"What?!" Hermione nearly shrieked in outrage.
Harry continued, "A natural stutter only occurs at the beginning of a sentence. Quirrel stutters as much as he can, 100% fake. He doesn't want anyone in his class to progress which means anyone who wants to learn how to defend themselves against the dark arts will need to practice on their own."
Hermione looked horrified that a teacher would be willing to sabotage a student for any reason.
Neville said, "I think he's right Hermione. I used to have a stutter and have only gotten over it recently. But I would only stutter when I first tried to say something, not the whole time."
Luckily the first year content of DADA wouldn't be difficult to master quickly. It included a few weak curses such as the Boogie Curse which gave a bad case of the sniffles and some jinxes which pushed the target away or made it harder to move. The non spell content included information about some of the more common dangerous creatures and how to treat a werewolf bite or scratch along with some magical first aid.
Questions on why the teacher was sabotaging the classes were held back for now and they picked up where they left off on practicing magic and questions on magic theory after finishing their homework.
The next day was more of the same except they had their first potion class. Lily had told Harry that Professor Severus Snape had been a friend of her until he basically had to choose between her and the dark arts and he made his choice and even became a Death Eater. The man had looked like he'd seen a ghost when Harry showed up which raised some odd questions.
According to his father, the man had also been a known Legilimencer for Voldemort. James had Harry learn Occlumency of course but it seemed redundant. Some part of Harry's gamer power protected his mind from outside influence and even tended to squash strong negative emotions. If that power hadn't stifled his fear, he never would have faced a monster again after his first time dying in the tutorial due to fear of the pain he felt both from the death and the revival.
The crooked nose Professor entered the classroom with billowing robes and hair that had a sheen of grease. He looked over everyone and paused for a moment at Harry who hadn't bothered to meet the man's eyes, instead looking around the classroom.
After giving a short introduction to the subject he went for the roll call and stopped once he reached Harry. "Harry Potter, our newest celebrity, back from the dead."
Harry still didn't meet his eyes, simply looking next to him. Legilimency really did need you to meet someone directly in the eyes which seemed to irritate the Professor. He called out, "Look me in the eyes when I'm speaking to you Potter."
Harry let out a sigh at the man's lack of subtlety and reached into his robes to grab some eyeglasses. When he put them on everyone noticed they had been completely smashed with so many cracks they were impossible to see through. Harry faced in the Professor's direction with his eyes hidden behind the glasses and said, "Apologies Professor."
Snickering could be heard from the Gryffindor side of the room which irritated Snape further. He called out, "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Hermione's hand shot up as she had read the full text book Magical Drafts and Potions and had it mostly memorized. Harry mutely looked at the Professor without answering as it was obvious the man didn't care if Harry answered or not.
The man's sneer deepened and continued, "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Harry was starting to get a little irritated. The man didn't seem to get a hint. Unless someone was either told to learn it before, the only way to already know the answer was to memorize the text 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi. Hermione did of course and Harry had six different versions in his inventory, but the fact was, the man was looking for a fight.
Harry decided not to play nice. "Did you need me to teach the class for you Professor? I don't mind of course if you have more important things to do than your job."
Five different students nearly snorted while three couldn't contain themselves and burst out into full blown laughter. Hermione was partly scandalized and partly holding back her own laughter. Neville had to cover his mouth while the still unnamed redhead who sat next to him was letting out peels of laughter. Harry figured he could learn the redhead's name if he paid attention to the role call but he wasn't nearly invested enough to do so.
"Your arrogance is worse than your father's," he sneered.
Harry quipped back, "Am I also headstrong like my mother? Guess you didn't know her very well. I've been told I have her eyes, what do you think?" Of course since the glasses were impossible to see through the Potions professor could not in fact give an opinion on them.
"Fifty points from Gryffindor for talking back!" the man roared.
Harry shrugged, "If you prefer talking to yourself, I won't say another word to you in this classroom." He made a motion to zip his lips and looked completely unfazed at the point loss.
The professor regained control of his emotions and glared at Harry through his broken glasses which kinda defeated the purpose of glaring. After another moment he returned to roll call which Harry didn't pay attention to. What he did pay attention to was the timing of the man's emotions. Half of which seemed artificial. Although there was real anger at the mention of Lily, the rest of Snape's attitude was pretty much fake.
The Professor paired the students up and had everyone make a boil cure potion.
What he didn't do was allow them to work in silence. At least once a minute he would loudly call out someone for doing something he declared incorrect while sometimes he would praise a specific bleach blond student he called Malfoy on the Slytherin side of the class. Harry often felt the man's glare shift his way and Harry purposefully made a mistake every once in a while that would not lower the quality of his potion but would give the Professor something to loudly point out. Whether Harry gave a perfect potion or a half done one wouldn't affect Harry's future and although this man didn't have killing intent towards Harry, he wasn't someone Harry would allow to know his actual skill set for now.
After criticizing Harry for the unteenth time, the class finished and Harry put a sample of his and Neville's potion in a test tube. Harry then noticed Snape was going around vanishing the content of all the cauldrons and Harry quickly scooped another sample into a second test tube and hid it before Snape reached them and vanished their cauldron.
Harry whispered something to Neville and gave him the second test tube and lined up to submit his own. When Snape took Harry's, he 'accidentally' dropped it and claimed they would have to receive a zero for the day. Neville walked up to the professor and said, "That's ok Professor Snape. Harry said his mum told him how clumsy you were so we prepared a second sample for you."
Several others choked back a laugh and Snape gave another fake glare at Harry and took the second vial without dropping it this time.
After History of Magic, Herbology, DADA, and dinner, the group returned to the empty classroom they used for practice and Hermione started to vent. Now that she wasn't seeing teachers through rose colored glasses, she could recognize bad teaching for what it was.
After letting her finish, Harry said, "Although it looks like we'll have to teach ourselves Potions as well, don't take it out on Snape. The man was like Quirrel but instead of pretending to be incompetent, he was pretending to hate all the non slytherins and me especially."
Neville hesitantly asked, "Are you sure he was pretending?"
"Yes," Harry answered with certainty before elaborating, "Real anger builds up while fake anger starts at the max and cools down. He wanted to get a reaction out of me and he wanted everyone to see him acting like that towards me. That's why he deducted an unreasonable amount of points but didn't give me detention."
Hermione asked, "But why?"
Harry turned to her and said, "He probably has his reasons and if we tried, we might be able to guess them. But does it really matter?"
Hermione thought back to all the criticisms Snape made towards Harry and knew that all the mistakes Harry made to earn them were intentional. To Harry it didn't matter and what was ironic was that Harry's offer to teach the class was something he likely could have gone through with if Snape tried to 'call his bluff.'
Harry made a list of the potions they would be going over this year and since the Room of Requirements couldn't conjure ingredients to practice with, Harry would go over the theory and properties of each ingredient and explain why it worked the way it did with the pair. In this way they could at least mostly get why specific ingredients needed specific preparation for specific uses.
They separated afterwards and Harry returned once more to the Room of Requirements, something he decided to just call the RoR. After meditation and physical exhaustion, Harry headed for the common room and found the nameless redhead waiting for a chess match which Harry gave.
During the match, Fred and George showed up and asked if what their brother had told them about Snape's lesson was true.
"Did the little firstie really offer to teach his class?"
"Did you really ask him if he had something better to do than his job?"
Harry gave the details while moving some more pieces around and getting a hang on chess. If nothing else, the nameless redhead wasn't bad and Harry had no intention of beating him on purpose until he could steal a few strategies off him.
All the first years had Astrology at midnight in the Observatory so Harry had no excuse not to play three more rounds with the redhead before excusing himself.
Astronomy held nothing outside Harry's expectations and once the class was finished everyone returned to their dorms and went to bed. Although a little shaky, Harry had begun his routine for Hogwarts and could only hope he would survive what was to come.
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