《New Dawn- A Harry Potter Transmigration Fanfic》


 Transmigrating into Harry Potter and dealing with the Dursleys

    He woke up with a jolt and felt the pain course through his body. Something was wrong. He instantly knew it. He squinted his eyes through the pain searing through his back and his right hand and found himself in an unknown place. In a small room he had never seen before.


    Where was he?


    As his thoughts registered the fact that he was in a strange place, he realized that the room was not only small but way too small. And so was his bed. He looked at his hands and almost yelled in shock.


    His hands were small. Not only his hands, but his legs, his arms, his everything was small. And he came to the stoic realization that he was not his own body but in the body of someone else.


    A body that was badly wounded at that. But before he could even go into shock, he felt a burning sensation rise at the back of his head and soon his whole head was burning as new memories were planted in his brain and he clutched in head in pain and fell back on his pillow.


    After a few minutes of going through excruciating pain, he finally finished seeing all the memories of the boy whose body he was currently occupying. The boy whose name was Harry Potter. As in ''The Harry Potter'' from the books written by J.K Rowling.


    Not just some bloke named Harry Potter but the real, genuine one.


    As he registered this information, he brain went into an overdrive as went through many emotions at once before shutting down altogether and he lost consciousness.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    When he woke up the next time, he felt strangely calm and the first thing he did was look for a mirror. The memories told him that he had no mirror in his small room (read cupboard) under the stairs but that there was a plate under his bed in which he could see his reflection.


    He took out the plate and his heart almost skipped a beat when he saw a younger version of Harry Potter looking back at him and he had to pinch himself to make sure that this was all real and not just a figment of his imagination or some kind of dream.


    It took him some more time to calm down and make peace with the situation. And soon after the initial shock wore off, he felt enthusiastic. He was a wizard. Fuck yes! He could do so many things now that he was never able to do in his past life.


    Wait! Past life?


    He concentrated and tried his best to remember his past life''s identity but it was all in vain. He had the memories from his past life and his personality as well but his identity was lost to him.


    What was his name? Why couldn''t he remember it?


    Did he had a family in his last life?


    Try as he might, no answer came to his mind.


    He just knew that he was a person living in a modern world and the year was 2019 when he was suddenly dropped in this fictional world in the year¡­ 1987. According to the original Harry''s memories


    Well, that made his sad and happy at the same time. Sad because his original identity was lost to him. Happy because now he won''t have any burdens from his past life. Thank god.


    Now where was he? Oh yes. Wizard. That''s great. He could do so many things as a wizard that the characters in J.K Rowling''s book never did or thought to do. If he could ignore the bipolar magical community that loved him one moment and hated him the other and the Dark Wizard that would inevitably try to kill him in the near future, then his life was going to be awesome.


    But then he realized that he was only seven years old and that he would have to wait four more years before he could start learning magic.


    Fuck that. He would start on his own and learn wandless magic until he was ready to go to Hogwarts. But before that¡­


    He winced at the pain coursing through his arm. The handiwork of one Vernon Dursley who had hit him because he had better grades than Dudley.


    That fucking fat bastard would pay for what he did to the past recipient of this body.


    So in the dark room under the stairs, the new and changed Harry Potter schemed to bring the demise of his muggle relatives.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Abused children develop a fear and scepticism toward higher authorities. So much in fact that they never tell anyone that they have been abused.


    That was probably the reason why Harry Potter and so many abused children never receive any help.


    The new Harry Potter was anything but an abused child. He was in fact a proactive mature adult who knew how to get what he wanted in his life.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    So the next day, he went to one of his teacher who seemed the most sympathetic among the staff and told her everything. The fact that he had created even more injuries on his body before going to her was never noticed by his teacher or the headmaster or the cops.


    That evening, Child Protection Authorities arrived in his home along with the cops and arrested Vernon Dursley for violence, abuse and neglect of his seven year old nephew and after a long trial. He was thrown in Prison for 15 years.


    Petunia Dursley was let off with a warning that if she didn''t want to follow in her husband''s footsteps then she would treat her nephew like how she treats her son. She nodded in fear and watched with tears as the cops took her husband away.


    She was devastated but she had to take care of her little Duddikens who was bawling his eyes out in his room. And she also have to take care of her sister''s spawn who was the reason behind her husband''s imprisonment.


    But as much as she wanted to shout at her nephew, slap his face and wrung his ears, she couldn''t do anything for the fear of following after her husband''s footsteps. If she was gone as well then who will take care of her baby boy.


    So she gritted her teeth and quietly went to her her Duddikens in order to clam him down.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry punched Dudley in the stomach and dropped him on the ground along with his two cronies, put a foot on his throat and reveled at the fear he could see in the fat boy''s eyes.


    Chubby little Duddikens had thought that he and his friends could bully him and take revenge for his father.


    By the time they realized that the new and changed Harry Potter knew martial arts, it was already too late. And this new Harry was neither interested nor willing to play ''Harry Hunting'' with them.


    After putting the boy to the ground, it became relatively easy to threaten him and after that day, they never bullied him again.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Learning magic was a slow going for the new Harry. After a month of practice, the best he could manage was push and pull small objects like pencil and eraser.


    He had no idea what the reason for his abysmally slow progress was. Maybe his magical core was small and immature. Maybe his intent was just not that strong. Or maybe wizards were never very powerful without their wands.


    Whatever the reason might have been, Harry refused to accept them and continued to focus on his wandless magic. If he could achieve simple telekinesis within a month then surely he would be able to do more if given enough time.


    And he certainly had more time given how he was just 7 years old and had 4 more years before he could join Hogwarts.


    So he took out a water bottle, kept it in his bed and willed it to come.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Three months into this new life and Dudley was now a shell of his former self, forever cowed by his younger cousin who beat him into submission over the past few months.


    Petunia had tried to protect Dudley and showed dominance over her little nephew but he was not the same person who had been sleeping under the stairs some three months ago.


    She may not be able to prove it but she knew it deep in her heart that the boy may look the same but there was someone else occupying his body now.


    A monster who put her husband in prison and someone who Dudley feared greatly. She would not admit it but even she was quite afraid of the new Harry.


    She did not want to leave her Dudley alone with the freak in case she was sent to the prison like her husband so she never physically abused him like she used to in the past but the verbal abuse continued. Within limit of course. She may feel contempt for the boy but she didn''t want him to lash out at her either.


    That verbal abuse came to an abrupt end when one day her nephew brought back a poisonous snake from somewhere and started walking around in the house with it wrapped around his shoulders at every single moment.


    But it was not the snake that frightened her the most. Oh it did frightened her and filled her with worry but what frightened her even more was the fact that her nephew or whoever was possessing his body could talk with the snake.


    She had no idea how such a thing was possible but the freak was able to speak with the snake. And the language, the hisses, they filled her and Dudley with great dread. So much so that when her nephew warned her not to harm the snake in his absence, she simply nodded and meant it.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    7 year olds, Harry realized, were a nuisance. That was why when the next semester started, he asked to be advanced another class.


    Considering how he got full marks in all of the subjects last year, his teachers were inclined to agree and without any preparations, he passed the exam and was promoted to the next class.


    Where he found that 8 years old were not much better than 7 years old after all. So he asked to be advanced once again.


    His teachers were reluctant this time but a five minute talk with the boy convinced them that he was even smarter than they had initially assumed.


    He gave the exam and was advanced to another class.


    Where he found himself in the company of 9 year old kids and realized that no, he was not going to connect with them either.


    By now, he was starting to get a reputation as the ''genius child'' in the school. Someone who didn''t show his knowledge because he was being suppressed by his devilish uncle.


    When he asked to be advanced once again, his teachers didn''t raise many questions and soon he was among the company of 10 year old children.


    He was not very impressed with them either.


    So he jumped classes upon classes until he sat with 13 year old kids and realized that if he went up any more classes, then he might raise one hell of a shit storm.


    There were already pictures of him being circulated in the newspapers as the ''wonder kid''. The names these foolish people come up with.


    He found that 13 year old kids were a bit tolerable but he was never really able to connect with them because of the age difference. They thought he was too young. He thought they were too young. So both party treated each other like a child and both party were enraged at the other''s behaviour. So after a few interactions, he stopped trying at all.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Over the months, Harry became more proficient with his wandless magic to the point that he was easily able to push and pull a bag filled with books.


    He was strangely reminded of the character Pain from Naruto series and wondered if he would become as strong as that character when he grew up and when his magical core matures.


    Most likely not, but a boy could always hope.


    His telekinesis had grown to the level where he could now make a stack of card fly in the air according to his wish. Something that he usually did to impress the beautiful girls from his class.


    Yet he was not satisfied with only this much improvement. Now that he had a taste of magic, he wanted more. Not just simple telekinesis but the more complex tricks that could be done with magic.


    And once he started thinking in that direction, he realized that he had been performing one such complex magic for some time now.

 Learning wandless magic and Mind Arts

    Despite sitting in a class with peers that were several years older than him, Harry found the subject utterly boring and uninteresting. So instead of focusing on the class, he sat on a back seat and played with Telekinesis under the table.


    At first the teachers had reprimanded him for not focusing on the class and only left him alone when he gave the correct answer to every question that they asked. After some time, they stopped bothering him and as more time passed, they simply started to ignore him.


    At first he had thought that they simply thought him to be rude and not worth their time but when even his fellow students started to ignore his presence as if he was not even there, he knew that this was not normal. That there was something magical at work.


    After some experiments, he found that his ''will'' to be left alone and to be ignored by irritating teachers and childish teenagers had merged with his magic and taken form in creating a shroud of magical aura around himself that hid his presence from the others.


    No, he was not invisible by any means but the shroud of magical aura made him seems so utterly boring in the eyes of others that no one even looked his way anymore.


    Of course, the shroud had it''s limits and could be broken if someone was trying to find him or if he did something that attracted attention from others. But otherwise, it was mostly impenetrable and a great boon for him.


    Once he realized that he was left alone, he started to use more of his magic in the school with reckless abandon and tried to find new ways to use his magic.


    The fact that he was ignored by most of his classmates still made him feel lonely but with some practice, he was able to remove the shroud from himself and talk with some of the studious girls and boys in his class who were more mature than their counterparts.


    And during one such moment, when he was conversing with one of the studious girls in the class, he brought the attention of one of bullies to himself who had a childish crush on the girl he was talking to.


    Such a pity.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry was not surprised when he was suddenly pulled away with rough hands and then pushed in an empty storehouse meant for keeping broken chairs and tables.


    He was even less surprised when he found that the perpetrator of this event was the bully with the crush who had cornered him here in order to threaten him to stay away from ''his'' girl.


    But the bully was indeed surprised if not shocked when the 7 year old boy, who was half his age and size knocked him to the floor with a single wave of his hands.


    And he was downright terrified when found that he could not open his mouth in order to shout and speak and he almost pissed his pants when all the doors and windows of the storehouse were sealed shut with a single gesture from the little boy whom he had wanted to teach a lesson just a little while ago.


    Another gesture from the boy and the ropes kept at the corner of the room seemed to come alive and wrapped around him tightly, making sure that he would not move, or try to run away from the storehouse.


    Or struggle.


    "It''s surprising for you, I assume." Harry said as he took out a piece of cloth and filled the older boy''s mouth with it in order to make sure that he would not shout or scream for help.


    "If someone had showed me telekinesis in my past life then I would have been surprised as well." Harry said nonchalantly and reveled in the terror he could see in the eyes of the 13 year old teenager who looked very much his age right now.


    "But it''s not just telekinesis. No. There so much more to magic than simply moving things from one place to another."


    "There''s transfiguration, charms, runes, divination, potions, spells and so much more. Pity I can''t learn most of them right now." Harry said as moved around in the room before he stopped and looked at the boy bound by the ropes "Do you know what I ''can'' learn right now?"


    The boy shook in fear and Harry grinned at that as he went closer to his face and whispered "The mind arts."


    And before the boy could even understand his words, Harry said "Legilimens" and entered his mind.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    After half an hour of intense practice, Harry had learned the basics of Legilimency and Obliviation spell. Unfortunately, by the time he became remotely competent with the Obliviation spell, the older boy had already suffered a little bit of brain damage and would likely never be as smart as he once was.


    Well, at least Harry had learned his lesson that Obliviation spell should be used subtly and in very delicate manner with as little magic power as possible. Otherwise the subject might suffer¡­ consequences.


    The first attempt had gone off the rails the moment he pushed all his magical power with the intent on wiping out the memories he''d read with Legilimency.


    From that point onward, he had simply stopped caring about the boy''s mind condition and did as he wanted in his mind.


    But he would do better the next time, he was sure of it.


    If a bumbling fool like Gildroy Lockhart could become a master in using this spell, then surely someone like him could definitely become good in it as well.


    But for now, he needed to do something to cover up his mistake.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    After all, normal children didn''t lose their IQ by 20 points in a single day.


    So after shrouding both of them with his magical aura, he dragged the boy to the top of the school. Which was a hard task in and of itself even after using telekinesis.


    ''But it was necessary.'' He told himself.


    He did not want any unnatural events occurring around him as such things draw suspicions from unwanted people.


    A perfectly fine teenage boy turning into a fool during lunch break was suspicious.


    A perfectly fine teenage boy falling from a set of stairs, hitting his head on the way down and then turning into a fool was not.


    So with that in mind, Harry pushed the boy off the stairs and made sure that he landed on his head when he reached the bottom of the stairs so that he would at least have a head wound to show for it..


    The boy fell to the ground with a ''thud'' and the unnatural angle of his hand and the bit of blood covering his head scared the dozen of girls who were sitting nearby and simply enjoying their meal. That one event would probably give them nightmares for the rest of the week.


    The boy''s parents were called to the school and his mother almost lost her footing once she saw the wounds on her child. People from the hospital came and took the boy to the hospital for operation.


    The police came and asked some questions in order to know if the boy really fell off the stairs or if someone knowingly pushed him down but found nothing concrete.


    Harry watched all of his with apathetic eyes that would have seem strangely suspicious to anyone who observed him but alas, the heavy injury of a fellow classmate was more attention worthy than the reclusive ''wonder boy'' who never really talked with others.


    Nothing particularly changed in the school despite the injuries suffered by the boy and the rest of the classes continued on like nothing ever happened.


    And he realized that as long he was not caught by the ministry, he could get away with a lot of things and he found the thought strangely enthralling.


    And things changed drastically from that point.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    At the next summer break, Harry decided that instead of remaining inside his house and practicing magic on his own, it was time to¡­ expand.


    Harry found that if he focused extensively on it, then he could make the shroud covering his body much more thicker and effective.


    He also found that with such a thick shroud, he could effectively go inside a shop, take whatever he wanted and leave without any customer or shopkeeper taking note of him.


    He was pretty sure that if he could somehow make the shroud even thicker, then he would be well equipped to rob a bank without anyone knowing about it.


    But he knew that even though humans might miss his presence, the CCTV cameras would not.


    So instead of robbing a bank, he settled himself with picking pockets for now.


    He also came to realize that his shroud that acts as a lesser version of notice-me-not-charm and the power of telekinesis made his job of stealing things much more easier than it would have been for any normal pickpocket.


    By the end of the summer, Harry had enough money to live on his own for years without any problems. He also realized that he learned more about magic when he was using it for something practical.


    So for all intents and purposes, he had no need to go back to school anymore. Neither was he interested in going back to Privet Drive and living with his ''family''. But Harry knew that Dumbledore had setup some kind of Blood Wards at Privete Drive that might be disrupted if he leaves the house for a long amount of time so he made sure to return back there every month or so.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry looked at the galleons in hand with a smile before putting it back in his purse. It took him some time to find the entrance to Diagon Alley since he did not know the exact location of Leaky Cauldron but given enough time, he was able to find it with ease.


    And the first place he went to after coming to the magical world was the Gringotts bank.


    He did not touch his own vault as that might alert Dumbledore who was his magical guardian but exchanged the money he''d collected (stolen) over the past few months that he kept in a bottomless purse.


    Now he had more than enough galleon to buy the things that he needed for his plans.


    A trip to the various books shops in order to buy books related to wandless magic, magical theory, etc. There were not many books related to such subjects. In fact, there were very, very few books even remotely related to those subjects and he was not sure about the quality of those books either but beggars can''t be choosers.


    Then he bought books that taught him the basic household charms among other things that he might be able to learn at his level.


    After that, he went to the potions shop where he was finally able to buy something that he desperately needed. Aging Potion.


    Unfortunately the old bastard only sold him five bottles but once again, beggars can''t be choosers.


    With one last look at Olivander''s shop, he turned and left Diagon Alley. He knew that Olivander would not sell him a wand right now so there was not point in even asking about it.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry looked at the slightly confused man with vacant eyes in front of himself with a satisfied smile.


    It took him six months and countless people to finally learn how to use the Obliviation spell properly.


    He was still no master at it but with enough focus, he was now capable of removing the memories of the last few hours from the brain of any muggle.


    He had learned his lesson from the debacle in the school and made sure not to damage their brains when performing the spell on them.


    Still, rumors about people simply ''forgetting'' about important things in their life were starting to circulate in the streets. Thankfully, he had already mastered that spell and this was the last person he needed to experiment on.


    Harry went back into the shadows and watched quietly as his victim''s eyes finally gained some life after a few minutes after which he looked around with a confused gaze and upon not finding what he was searching, he simply got up, shrugged to himself and left.


    Well, with the Obliviation spell in his belt, things would be far more easier for him now.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry looked at his new flat with some pride. It was not technically ''his'' as he had not really bought it but since the real estate broker who was tasked with selling this flat had conveniently forgotten that this flat even exists and he had removed it''s evidence from her house, he doubt anyone else would buy it anytime soon, if ever. So Harry could essentially live in it with no problem.


    He entered the door and upon noticing the dust covering every inch of his new home, concentrated on the dust and pictured all the dust vanishing in his mind before using all his will, intent and magic to make it happen and snapped his fingers.


    He smiled at the now clean room before he remembered that he would have to go to each and every room and repeat the same process and groaned at that thought. But there was also a grim satisfaction in his heart. A few months ago the only magic he knew was the basic telekinesis but now he could do so much more.


    He wondered how powerful and efficient his spells would become once he got a wand.


    Unlike other wizards, he had no interest in being overly reliant on a wand and he planned to learn all of his spells and charms wandlessly before he moved on to the wand but he knew that his magic would become more efficient with a wand so he was still excited at the prospect of having one in the future.


    However, he also knew that once he got his wand and went to Hogwarts, he would come under the radar of the Ministry and be registered as an underage wizard whose actions would then be monitored via the trace.


    And truthfully, he was not very happy with the prospect of going to Hogwarts either as he did not had a good impression of the sheep living in that castle who would worship Harry Potter at one moment and then shun him at the other. Nor was he very comfortable with being famous. But without the resources in Hogwarts, it would be harder for him to become the great wizard that he planned to become. Plus there so many things in Hogwarts that he''d always wanted to see and do. So despite his dislike for the people living in there, he would still go to that school.

 Selena the Horned Serpent

    Harry looked at the pile of money in front of him and smiled wryly.


    His first bank robbery had gone as well as he could expect.


    No, it was not a daylight robbery like what''s shown in many movies but a night time robbery.


    Of course, there was just much danger of being caught at night than there was during the day but things become far more simpler when the robber is a wizard.


    An amateur wizard but a wizard nonetheless.


    The plan was simple.


    Capture the manager of the bank and read all his memory about the bank and where all the money is kept along with the number of guards, their shift times, the password of the vaults and things like that.


    Drink Aging potion before starting in order to look like an adult under the mask and not a kid. Especially because longer legs allowed him to run faster.


    Go to the Surveillance room and Sabotage the security cameras and take out the recording device so his use of magic would not be taped.


    Knock the guards unconscious and then run to the vault.


    Use Alohamora to open the locks and then dump the cash quikly in the limitless purse with the help of telekinesis.


    Use the shroud and get out of the bank.


    The plan was as simple as he could make and safe enough for him to go with it.The actual robbery went far differently then he had assumed and he had to change his plans numerous times in order to get out of there safely but his magic worked perfectly and he was finally able to get out of the bank from the front door along with the guards while the police surrounded the bank.


    He had a feeling that those policemen were probably still surrounding that bank and asking him to come out and surrender to them, even though he had already come back to his home.


    He realized that there must be more than 200,000 pounds lying on his bed right now. Along with the 40,000 pounds he''d stolen over the past few months, he had over 240,000 pounds on himself.


    That''s about 300,000 dollars. And converting that to galleons would net him about 60,000 galleons.


    That''s more than enough for him to buy just about anything the wizarding world could offer. Even a firebolt doesn''t cost more than 1000 galleons.


    He wondered how much the shares of Daily Prophet cost. If he should bother buying it or not. But then he realized that if the Daily Prophet caused too much problems for him, then he could simply burn down their building.


    With a feral grin he jumped on the bed and fell asleep on top of the pile of money, sleeping soundly after a hard day.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    As much as the robbery was for the sake of money, it was also for the sake of learning practical ways to learn magic.


    Harry realized that he learned better usage of magic if he had some practical goal to work toward.


    If he followed the example of the book and was told to transfigure match into needle, he might be able to do it but it would not be that interesting for him.


    However, if someone challenged him to transfigure sand into a miniature medieval stone castle, then even though the project was hard, he would give it his all to complete it.


    That was how Harry progressed.


    During his stay in his new home, he completed multiple projects that increased his knowledge in magic by leaps and bounds. Be it transfiguration, charms or something else. Even his wandless magic has reached to the point where he could complete second or even third year tasks without much difficulty.


    But the biggest driving force behind his eagerness to learn magic would always be the fact that his soul came from another world where magic was not present.


    And there was also the fact that he would have to fight Voldemort at some point or another in his life, so yeah. He wanted to learn as much about magic as he could.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry looked at the various snakes kept in cages and felt a pang of hurt in his heart.


    He could talk to these snakes which meant that they were sentient.


    But how could anyone treat a sentient being like this. What right does humans have to treat other species like this.


    To keep them in cages and feed them the minimum amount necessary for their survival.


    As he moved among them they whispered to one another. Most had no idea that he could understand them so they talked freely among themselves as if he was not even there.


    And he did not like what he was hearing.


    They were afraid of him. Afraid that he was a potions master and that he was only going to buy them so that he could dissect them for potion materials.


    How could the wizards do this to them. Did they not know that magical snakes are just as sentient as a human.


    He wondered how those same wizards would feel if some day some other species rose up to the top of the food chain and started dissecting them for potions material instead.


    He took a deep breath and turned to look at the shopkeeper once again.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "You said that they are magical creatures?" he asked with a bit of skepticism.


    "Indeed they are child." The shopkeeper said with a patronizing smile that irked Harry to the bones. Actually, he hated whenever someone treated like a child.


    He would have consumed an aging potion before coming here but he had finished his supply last week and planned to buy more of them this time.


    "What do they do. What makes them magical?" he asked and the shopkeeper quickly moved to show him individual snakes in their own private cages.


    "This here. Greyskin Cobra. One of the deadliest of it''s kind. It''s venom is corrosive and some even compare it''s venom to that of a basilisk. One drop of it''s venom is deadly enough to kill an adult troll." He said as the grey colored cobra shrunk back in his glass cage with a hiss and Harry wondered where the young cobra had learned all those profanities.


    "This here. Silverneck Python. It grows up to 35 feet in length and can live up to 100 years. It also has magical immunity which means that most spells will just bounce off of it''s skin harmfully." He said and then moved on to the next one.


    "This one here. The most of special of them all. And the most expensive one. A Horned Serpant. It was a bitch and a half to get this one." The shopkeeper said proudly and took out a small one feet long black colored snake with small horns growing on the crown of it''s head.


    Harry wondered if the snake was venom less or just too young at this point to release venom.


    One thing he could tell was that the horned serpent was much more intelligent than the other snakes he''d seen so far.


    His conjecture was proven true when the snake lowered his/her head to him and in greeting and hissed "Greetings Speaker" and Harry knew that he would not leave the shop without the Horned Serpent.


    The Horned snake had after all known that he could speak with them without him even speaking a single word so far.


    But there was something else he had to do before he could leave the shop.


    "I''ll buy them all." He said and the shopkeeper''s smile faltered for a bit and his eyes narrowed in an instant as he asked "All of them?"


    "Yes. I''ll buy all of them."


    It took some time for Harry to prove that no, he was not trying to prank the shopkeeper and yes, he had enough galleons to buy all the damn snakes but at last, he was able to buy all the snakes in the shop.


    He dumped all of them in his trunk along with a warning to not eat each other before he took them along with him.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Most of the snakes he bought from the shop wanted to be free so Harry took them to a dense forest and freed them.


    There were a few who wanted to live with him as well but he knew that feeding so many snakes would be a chore so he asked them to leave as well.


    By the end of this, only one of the snakes remained with him.


    The Horned Serpent whom Harry named as Selena.


    And the little snake would spend most of the rest of her life wrapped around Harry''s shoulders.


    She would also be one of the few people that Harry would ever consider a friend.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "So¡­ you can sense other people through their magic?" He asked in confusion as he talked with his new friend in Parseltongue.


    "Yes. I can sense all manner of magical beings. Be it wizards, witches, goblins, elves, centaurs, unicorns or even squibs."


    "What about muggles?" he asked.


    "Muggles are¡­ harder to sense because they hold very little magic in their bodies but yes, if I concentrate hard enough, then I can sense muggles as well."


    "Hmm¡­ I didn''t knew that muggles had some magic as well."


    "And they don''t." Selena firmly denied. "But the earth is saturated with magic. There might be places like Hogwarts were there is more ambient magic in the air but there is magic everywhere. Even in the deserts and the Seas. So overtime, so of the magic seep inside their body. It doesn''t make them magical but it gives them a very small chance to produce a magical baby."


    "Huh¡­ I didn''t know that. I wondered if this is how the first magical beings were born." Harry mused to himself before he turned to his new friend and asked her another question.


    "What else can you do?" he asked.


    "How come you get to ask all the questions. It''s not fair." She complained and Harry was suddenly reminded that she might have been a mythical creature but she was still very young.


    "Very well then. Ask what is in your mind."


    "Tell me what you can do. Can you move your stick and make me fly?" she asked with a childish enthusiasm and Harry chuckled.


    "I can do it without the stick." He said and made her fly a few rounds around his small house while she made a sound that sounded strangely like ''Weeeee''.


    "Tell me what else can you do?" the little tyke asked after she wrapped herself around his shoulders and Harry sighed at her enthusiasm and hoped that she won''t always be this enthusiastic.


    He was mostly a stoic and boring man and her enthusiasm was already starting to tire him. But he was also happy to finally get a friend (little sibling) who would not have any hidden agenda for him.


    "I can do a little bit of Telekinesis. A little bit of¡­"


    "What''s telekinesis?" she interrupted and he explained it to her patiently. Hmm¡­ who knew that he could be so patient when explaining things to young people. Perhaps he might have it in him to become a good father after all.


    "Aside from that, I am fairly good at mind arts. I can also use a lot of household charms and I also developed a passive ability to remain undetected by others."


    He then went ahead to show her some of the household charms he''d recently learned like warming food, painting wall, cleaning dishes among other things.


    "You can use your magic without a stick. I don''t think I''ve ever seen any human use magic without a stick." The little snake said "Is that why you''ve so much magic in you than the kids of your age."


    "Huh? What do you mean?" Harry asked.


    "You''ve more magic in your body than any other humans of your height I''ve ever seen. Perhaps twice as much or maybe even thrice. Is that why you can use magic without a stick?" she asked curiously while Harry tried to digest this news.


    "I have more magic than my peers?" he asked and she nodded. "Do you know why that is?"


    "Not really. I''ve seen a few humans of your height but all of them had about the same amount of magic in them. You''re the first one who had so much more magic than the others. Your magic also have a different taste to it which was why I was able to tell that you are a speaker."


    "Huh¡­" Harry replied in a non committed manner while he wondered why he had more magic in his body than his peers. Was it because he used his magic so regularly.


    Was this was Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort were so much more powerful than others. Could the answer be so simple. That they just used more magic than most other people.


    "There''s also something else." The little snake said and flickered her tongue near his scar. "There''s a disgusting piece of magic attached to your head. It''s not your magic but it''s attached to you for some reason. Do you know what it is?" she asked and he nodded his head.


    "I know but I believe it''s my time to ask the questions." He said with a smile and she huffed.


    "Very well then. Ask away."


    "What other things you can do aside from sensing other magical signatures?" he asked.


    "Well¡­ I can shapeshift a bit and become invisible at will." She replied shyly and Harry''s head jerked around to meet her''s.


    "If you can turn invisible then how did they capture you?" he asked curiously.


    "I was very little back when they killed my mother and captured me and my brothers and sisters." She explained sadly and Harry felt anger rise in his heart before he damped it down and caressed his little friend in order to soothe her. In hindsight, it was a stupid question to ask.


    There was no question why her mother was hunted in the first place. By now some potion master had probably already turned her horns into potion material and her skin into leather belt or something like that.


    Humans were really cunts once you moved past their civil appearances.


    "I''m sorry." He said and meant it. He would not have liked it if someone killed his mother for some potion material either.


    No, he would not have liked that a single bit.


    "It''s alright." She murmured and Harry had the suspicion that she was feeling a little sleepy. Well, she was still a child so that would explain her sleepiness.


    "Go to sleep then little princess. I''ll protect you from bad people from now on." He said gently as she fell asleep in his shoulders.

 Going to Diagon Alley and buying stuff

    Harry never used any magic in front of Petunia since Dumbledore was a master Legilimens and could pluck the thoughts right out of her head if he ever met her.


    He wanted his true power to remain hidden because Dumbledore might connect his stunning growth with the scar in his head and might consider him possessed by Voldemort.


    Maybe he was just being too paranoid about it but there''s nothing wrong with having an ace up your sleeve. And considering how difficult his life was going to be in the upcoming future, he believed that he should have as much advantage as possible.


    So he made sure that he never showed his talent to Petunia when he returned home.


    At first she asked where he went. After getting a vague answer every time she asked him that question, she stopped asking him.


    Then she started asking why he even cared to return. It was a fair question. He didn''t like her and Dudley and they didn''t like him so there was really nothing holding him back from leaving.


    Except for the blood wards which would warn Dumbledore about his activities if he left his house for too long.


    Such a headache.


    Regardless, he continued to practice his magical powers, giving himself small projects to complete on a timely basis so that he would not become stagnant.


    After all, magic was in and of itself a truly wonderful thing. But however wonderful a thing might be, humans have the tendency of taking things for granted.


    So he made sure that such a thing didn''t happen to him by giving himself new and exciting projects to complete from time to time.


    Like robbing a bank, securing a home, make the whole house work on magic, among many, many other things.


    So he kept practicing like that and time passed and before he realized it, he was about to become 11 years old.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    The letter from Hogwarts did not came as a surprise to him as he had already been expecting it for some time.


    Nor did it surprised him when Hagrid came knocking on the Dursley''s house a week later.


    But from the looks of it, Hagrid was surprised to see a snake dangling around his neck. And he was downright shocked if not horrified when Harry started talking with the snake in parseltongue as well.


    He was sure that he had probably destroyed all chances of making friends with Hagrid considering his Anti-Slytherin disposition. But he considered it important that people knew this one fact about him as soon as possible since he planned to bring Selena along with him to the school.


    The little girl had become a close friend and confidant of his over the past three years and had grown to the length of four feet by now.


    He knew that he was unlikely to make any new friends at Hogwarts because of his highly antisocial tendencies so it was imperative that he brought her along with him.


    Moreover, he did not wanted to be seen as a puppet of the the leader of the light. He did not wanted to be seen as a strictly light wizard, period. And being a parseltongue would go a long way in achieving that goal of his.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    It was a humorous to see the half giant be so wary of him considering how close he and the original Harry were. But regardless of his own personal feelings of him, the half giant did took him to Leaky Cauldron where people gave him a wide berth simply for the fact that he had a snake hanging around his neck.


    No one asked Hagrid who he was and Hagrid might not be a bright person but he was not stupid enough to go about telling other people about his identity.


    Not when he turned out to be so much different than anyone could have thought.


    Releasing a little bit of his shroud made him utterly disinteresting to other people so they didn''t even bothered to glance his way and even when someone did glance at him by some mistake, the band aid he wore on his head did a good job of hiding his identity as they made their way through Diagon Alley.


    His first stop, predictably, Gringotts.


    He had been to the bank many times before in order to exchange the money that he stole from other people into Galleons but this was the first time that went into his trust vault.


    And wasn''t that a disappointment,


    He could only take out 1000 galleons from his vault in a year. It was not much compared to his total wealth which was more than 100,000 galleons by now but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth. He quickly put the 1000 galleons in his bottomless purse before they left for the next vault where Hagrid took out the Philosopher''s Stone.


    Then they went to various other shops where they bought his books, accessories, cauldrons, clothes, etc.


    He did meet Draco Malfoy in ''Madam Malkin''s Robes for all Occassions'' shop and could tell that the little tyke was interested in Selena but he was not the mood to indulge the pompous brat and gave him a glare before ignoring his presence.


    The blonde brat was not really happy about that kind of treatment but one or two hisses from Selena intimidated him enough to keep him away for the time being.


    The last visit was of course to Olivander''s wand shop where he promptly told the old man to bring out the brother wand of the wand that he''d given to Voldemort.


    He was a bit apprehensive about the holly wand and not entirely sure if it''ll work for him or not considering how he was not really Harry Potter but in the end, the wand gave off sparks as soon as it landed on his had and he felt the connection form between himself and the wand, as if two pieces of puzzle being connected and realized that he may not be the original Harry Potter but the wand will still work for him.


    That was a rather big discovery for him considering how people always said that wand chooses the wizard and all that. Now he knew that the wand probably chose the wizard based on his magical signature.


    Or that was his hypothesis at least. If he ever got interested in Wand Lore then this little bit of information might prove to be important.


    As he came out of the shop and they got ready to go home, Hagrid hesitantly took something out for him.


    His birthday gift.


    Hedwig.


    He knew that Hedwig would become a good friend and a source of great comfort for original Harry but for him, that place has already been occupied by Selena.


    He simply could not leave her for someone else. Not even for dear Hedwig who gave her life for Harry.


    Such a pity.


    He rejected his offer and for once, Hagrid almost looked relieved. Harry wondered if the half giant thought that he was going to feed the little owl to Selena.


    Jesus, just because he was a Parseltongue didn''t make him a monster.


    But he wouldn''t put it past Hagrid to have such thoughts. Snakes and Parselmouths have really bad reputation after all.


    "You should know that snakes are not allowed in the castle Harry." Hagrid said as we reached near our house and he stopped to give him a stare.


    "Tell the headmaster to make an exception for me. Like he makes for so many other students. Selena is a my best friend. And if she''s not allowed in Hogwarts then I''ve no reason to join Hogwarts either. Tell that to your Headmaster and your prestigious school still doesn''t allow entry to my friend, then I''ll just find another school." He said.


    "Look Harry. Don''t be so stubborn." Hagrid said. "Your parents wouldn''t want you to¡­"


    "Don''t¡­ bring my parents into it." He said calmly but with a hint of coldness in his voice. "Don''t ever think that you can use my parents names to manipulate me into doing your bidding. Because one, they might have given birth to me but I don''t owe them anything. And two, if they were alive then I think that they would have loved me and supported my decision no matter what."


    "The offer is clear Hagrid. Either you allow me to bring Selena to school with me or I''ll find some other school that''ll allow me to do so." With that, Harry went inside the house leaving a confused and baffled Hagrid behind.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Two days later a letter came via an owl from Headmaster Dumbledore telling him that Selena was now allowed to go to the school along with him.


    She became ecstatic when she heard this news and was quite excited to go to Hogwarts. Perhaps even more excited than Harry himself.


    The spoiled little snake.

 Hogwarts Express and Parselmouth

    Ever since Harry bought a wand from Olivander, he felt a slight change in the magic around him. He could not exactly pin point what this change was about but could guess that it was the trace being put on him by the ministry.


    Now that he was being traced, he could not use his magic. At least in the muggle area where they would be able to tell that it was him using the magic.


    Maybe he was wrong and it was simply them tracing the magic he used with his wand but he was not sure about that. Plus, he was a cautious person by nature.


    For that reason, he drunk an aging potion, took the knight bus and went back to Diagon Alley where he took a room in one of the less known taverns in that street.


    He knew for a fact that the trace wouldn''t be able to catch him using any magic if he stays around other older wizards and witches.


    That was why the pureblood and halfbloods had such an advantage over others.


    But the downfall was that most of those kids took magic for granted and never took learning it seriously in the first place since they saw it as a part of their life and not something miraculous. Such a waste.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    He looked at the dozen of pillars in between platform 9 and 10.


    "Selena. Can you tell me which pillar holds the strongest magical signature?" He asked asked in Parseltongue and the invisible snake sitting on his shoulders flickered her tongue in the air a times before replying.


    "The third one. It should be the gateway that you talked about."


    Harry nodded his head and moved toward the pillar along with his trunk which had a charm attached to it to make it light weight.


    That trunk was one of the most expensive things Harry had bought in Diagon Alley. It was even more expensive than all of books he''d bought so far from Flourish and Blotts and that was saying something considering how expansive the books are in the magical world.


    He personally thought that the trunk was well worth it''s price considering how it held far more space than the house that he overtook three years ago.


    As per his habit of arriving early, he had come to the station quite a bit early than other people. Which was one of the reason he did not see or meet the infamous Weasley family.


    Not that he wanted to meet them anyway.


    From what he saw in the Harry Potter movie, he knew that they were a good family who fought alongside Dumbledore and the original Harry against the Dark lord and the Death Eaters.


    The original Harry might have liked them, if simply for the fact that no one had ever shown him much kindness before he came to Hogwarts. But the new Harry doubted that he would ever be that close with that family.


    The train station was much more empty than he had seen in the movie but that was perhaps because he came so early than other people.


    The train looked majestic to him despite the fact that he had seen far more technologically advanced trains in his past life. There was just something¡­ magical about the Hogwarts express that was hard to put into words.


    Maybe it had to do with the fact that the train had been ferrying Hogwarts students for the past few centuries and their magic had unintentionally seeped into it overtime, changing it in a way that only those who are sensitive to magic can feel.


    He gave one last appreciative glance to the train before the climbed on board.


    He looked at the first empty compartment and had to smother the urge to go and sit in it and moved to the back of the train.


    He knew for a fact that the early compartments were reserved for the older years and the Prefects. It was one of the unspoken rules followed in Hogwarts.


    He also knew that if he sat on a compartment and someone told him to get up and sit somewhere else, then that would only lead to a fight considering his stubborn and take-no-shit-from-others attitude and he would rather not waste his time fighting others when he could spend it doing something productive instead.


    So he took his trunk and started moving to the back of the train and the few students who were walking around gave him a wide berth because of Selena.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    And if not because of Selena then because of his use of Parseltongue. After all, even if you remove all the superstitions about the snake language, it was still a scary thing to hear.


    Harry could tell that by the time he reached the school, everyone and their great grandparents would know that there was a Parselmouth among the first years who carried a snake around with him.


    Which was something that Harry had planned to do.


    After walking past a few compartments, he came across one where he saw two girls and one boy who looked to be about his age were sitting across each other.


    From his memory, he could guess that they were Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot along with someone he didn''t knew and didn''t care about.


    He opened the door of the compartment and had to hide a smirk as they froze after looking at Selena. Wizards and Witches.


    "Is anyone sitting here?" he asked calmly and Hannah shook her head frantically before she realized what that meant. Susan gave a glare to the other girl but before they could say anything, he entered the compartment and took the empty seat.


    The seat was much more comfortable than any couch back in the Dursleys.


    Magic.


    A few moments of silence passed before the boy cleared his throat and said.


    "Hi¡­ I''m Ernie Macmillan." He said in a voice which would have sounded calm if it had not cracked in the middle.


    Harry gave him an unimpressed look and waited for a moment in order to unnerve the boy before he said "Are you¡­"


    An unnerving silence once again descended in the compartment before Susan Bones said "You know. It''s rude to not give your name when someone introduces themselves to you."


    Harry turned his head and gazed at her alongside Senela and waited for a moment before she started squirming under his gaze before saying "Then it''s a good thing because I''m a rude person by nature." in a tone that made it clear that it was the end of the discussion.


    He leaned back on his comfortable seat closed his eyes as Selena hissed in his ears. "Why are you scaring those kids?" in a humorous tone and he smirked back at her.


    "To create a reputation for myself." He hissed back in parseltongue and didn''t have to look to know that his three classmates had gone pale.


    Wizards and witches and their superstitions.


    And as enthralling as it was to watch others go pale at a few words spoken in Parseltongue, he had a feeling that this was going to get old pretty fast.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    From the silence in the compartment and the low whispers in which his three classmates talked with each other, Harry had a feeling that this trip was turning out to be far more tense for them then they had initially expected.


    The silence and the whispers stretched on until the door of the compartment opened and one Hermione Granger pushed her head inside the compartment with a young and shy Neville Longbottom trailing behind her.


    Hmm¡­ that didn''t happen in the movie. In the movie, she came alone when she entered Harry and Ron''s compartment. Has the timeline somehow changed because of him.


    It was entirely possible that there are rumors about a Parselmouth roaming the train and Neville might not want to go on a search all alone.


    Or was it possible that the things in real life would be a bit different than in the movies?


    "Excuse me." Little cute Hermione said "Has anyone seen a toad. Neville''s lost his somewhere on the train."


    His three classmates shook their heads before she turned to look at him and her eyes widened as she saw Selena for the first time.


    "You¡­ you have a snake around your neck." She said in a composed voice which shook a little and Harry could already see Neville turning pale behind her as he caught sight of the snake as well.


    No doubt the story about the scary Parselmouth had already spread through out the train.


    Harry gazed at her for a moment before he said "Thanks for telling me" in a calm manner which must have infuriated her.


    "You should know that snakes are not allowed in Hogwarts. I read it in Hogwarts: A History." She said in a haughty tone and Harry could see the four other watching this conversation grow a bit nervous at this.


    "Albus made an exception for me" he said calmly and Hermione''s eyes widened once again.


    "You mean Headmaster Dumbledore. You know it''s rude to take his name without using proper subtitles right?" she said haughtily and Harry could understand why she made no friends until the troll incident.


    He had a feeling that she was trying to look more confident in order to make new friends but she was a shy little girl so she didn''t really know how to look confident which was why she was coming off as a little arrogant.


    He stood up to his full height and looked at Hermione in the eyes as Selena hissed from beside him in order to intimidate her. Good Selena. Always ready to scare other children.


    He had a feeling that if he was Voldemort then Selena would undoubtedly be his Bella.


    He walked forward and Hermione stepped back until she was pushed on the wall of the compartment before he said "Then it''s a good thing that I''m a rude person." And then turned to look at Neville who looked like he was ready to fight for the girl who had been helping him despite being scared of the boy who he knew was a Parselmouth.


    Harry could respect this boy. Even if just a little bit. Neville was a sacredly little cat but at least he had the guts to stand up to him while the other three simply cowered in fear.


    "Your name is Neville I presume?" He asked and the boy nodded meekly.


    "What is the name of this toad that you lost."


    "Tre¡­ trevor" he gulped Harry dove into his mind to search for Trevor''s image without the boy knowing about it.


    When he got the image for the toad, he took out his wand from the Wand Holster attached to his right forearm and put the image of the toad in his mind and put all his will and intent on finding and bringing the toad to him and hissed "Accio Trevor" in Parseltongue and gave a wave from his wand.


    Nothing happened for a moment and his audience looked at his worryingly as he had no doubt that they were wondering if he had put some curse Neville or not.


    And then a small object sailed from the other end of the train before landing on Harry''s left palm.


    He saw his audience''s eyes widen and smirked inwardly before passing the toad to the boy.


    "Thank you." Neville squeaked as he held his lost pet once again and Selena hissed from his side.


    "Mind your toad around Selena." Harry said in a quiet voice which still rang in the apartment as he went back and sat on his seat before closing his eyes.


    Hopefully the peace would last a bit longer this time.

 Meeting Hermione and Draco

    In the past month when he lived in Leaky Cauldron, he had practiced innumerable spells with his wand and came to a realize a few things.


    Spells chanted in Parseltongue are two or even three times more powerful than spells chanted in Latin. Just like how spells chanted in Latin are more powerful than spells chanted in English or some other language.


    He has still not been able to figure out why that was but he was glad that he at least knew the strongest language out there.


    Well, not technically the strongest language. It was rumored that Merlin could talk with Dragons and if there was a Dragon language, then Harry had no doubt that that particular language would be even more powerful than Parseltongue. But so far, Parseltongue was the strongest language that he could find that was spoken by humans.


    There was also the various discoveries he made about his wand in the last month.


    The main one being the one which taught him the importance of a wand.


    In simple and short terms, wand was a tool that the wizards created in order to amplify their magic as well as act as a focus so that they would be able to perform delicate spells much more easily.


    And even though he had a bad opinion about wizards and thought that they were overly reliant on those sticks, he was not blind enough to not see it''s benefits.


    So he kept his pride down and started using his wand to perform spells when necessary.


    Still, he was not going to let his only power amplifier become a crutch for himself and had tried to put several charms on it to make it indestructible so that he would not lose it in the heat of a battle.


    Unfortunately, for some reason, most of his attempts to use magic on his wand failed and in the few times that he succeeded, he realized that his wand''s power had diluted a bit so he had to remove those charms as well.


    So essentially, his strongest weapon right now was also his most venerable one which was why he had bought his standard handgun along with him on his way.


    Just in case.


    Electronics didn''t work in Hogwarts and other highly saturated magical areas which meant that even if someone tried to blow that place up with rockets, they would fail. But handguns didn''t rely on any form of electricity so he was sure that he would face no problem in using a handgun at Hogwarts.


    His musings were cut off when he felt another person sit in front of himself. He opened one eye and was surprised to find that instead of leaving like how she did in the movie, Hermione choose to sit in front of him and was looking at him intently right now.


    "What was that spell you just used to summon Neville''s toad?" she asked and he held back a sigh.


    Of course, Hermione Fucking Granger would want to know about the spell. Especially one this is not taught until the third year in their curriculum.


    "It''s a summoning spell. Known as Accio spell. You''ll learn about it at Hogwarts in the future." He said in a dismissive tone, hoping she would leave him and closed his eyes.


    She was one of those girls that would become rather beautiful in the future but right now, she was too annoying. Not to mention young.


    "Can you¡­ can you teach me as well?" she asked hopefully and he opened his eyes once more in irritation, intent on telling the girl to sod off when he saw her nervous gaze as she bit her lip as she looked at him demurely.


    Hah¡­. Of course. This was not the confident and older Hermione he saw in the later movies but just a little kid who had been bullied for being too smart most of her life and had no friends except her books.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Still, he had a reputation to maintain. The reputation of a person who you don''t fuck with. And you don''t get to create that kind of reputation by giving in to every little girl that gives you puppy eyes.


    "You''ll have teachers in Hogwarts who''ll teach you those spells." He said dismissively even though he highly doubted his own words. Those so called teachers might have a good heart but they never really taught Harry and his friends anything truly important during their time at Hogwarts.


    To this day, he felt disbelief that Harry Potter was able to beat Voldemort considering how much more powerful Voldemort was than Harry himself.


    The force of plot armour was strong in him.


    You don''t become the worst Dark Lord of the century and then get beaten by a 16-17 year old boy who had not even completed his Hogwarts education nor been taught any dueling tactics by anyone.


    Hell, Flitwick was an International Dueling champion and Voldemort would have destroyed him in a minute.


    Even when Minerva, Kingsley and Slughorn banded together, they were barely able to hold him back in the battle of Hogwarts.


    There was no way Harry Potter, a 17 years old emotional teenager was able to fight back The Voldemort on so many occasions without Plot Armor.


    He really really doubted that he had the Plot Armour given to the original Harry by J.K Rowling or the protection of the prophesy considering how he was not essentially Harry Potter but someone else who had taken over his body.


    So when he faced Voldemort in the future, it would be imperative for him to be strong enough to hold his own against the no nose bastard.


    "That language you spoke in¡­" Hermione said slowly "I''ve never seen anyone use that language. Was that even a language because all I heard was hisses when you chanted the spell."


    Harry opened his eyes and realized that the other three classmates-to-be sitting beside him had gone tense.


    He once again held the urge to scoff at wizards and their superstitions.


    "It''s a language called Parseltongue and can only be spoken by very few people who are gifted with it from birth (Nope. Not gonna admit that he got it from the scar). Normal wizards and witches cannot speak this language and those who can are called Parselmouth." He said and looked at her to confirm if that was the end of her questions but of course it wasn''t. She was Hermione Granger after all.


    For the next half and hour, she continued to ask him various questions and he continued to answer her. By the end of her questions, even the other three classmates looked relieved and comfortable.


    Yes he had a reputation to maintain but a little help every now and then to other kids would definitely keep Dumbledore off his back.


    What''s the saying.


    Helping a kid a day helps keep Dumbledore away.


    And things went well, until one foolish Draco Malfoy strutted into the room along with his two goons like he was the father of Merlin.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Hermione looked at the Harry Potter in fear, then at the boy who had just introduced himself as Draco Malfoy and was now serving as a carpet for Harry.


    She didn''t even know what happened.


    One moment, the door opened and Draco along with two other mean looking boys walked in and said something derogatory about her and the others sitting in the compartment and the next second, the two big boys following him were sent flying and Draco himself snapped in attention like the soldiers and fell on the floor like a stiff board.


    After that Harry closed the door and said a few words in that scary parseltongue language and no one has come to their compartment since then.


    And to think that they were having a civil conversation just a few moments ago too.


    Of course, Harry had seemed very intimidating and scary at the first glance and his parseltongue ability was terrifying in and of itself but when she asked him questions to satisfy her curiosity, he had answered with patience that few kids of their age held.


    And when he did not show any annoyance like how most other children did when she asked them something, she started getting excited and continued to satisfy her curiosity from this well of knowledge, forgetting why she felt so threatened by him on the first place.


    And now as he sat nonchalantly with a peaceful expression on his face, an open book on his hand and a foot on Draco Malfoy''s petrified form, she wondered what she should do.


    Should she tell him that it''s against the rules to bind another student like this and then use him like a carpet?


    Should she go and ask others for help?


    But then again, Draco had called her a mudblood (whatever that meant) with disdain while Harry had patiently answered all her questions for the past hour and helped Neville with his toad.


    And aside from this one single action of his, he did not seemed like a bad guys. Perhaps¡­ he could be her friend. Her first friend aside from the books that she loved so much.


    She glanced at her three other companions and realized from their expression, that they were too terrified to do something themselves.


    Well, she was not feeling very brave either, but still, it''s just not right to break rules and treat your fellow students like this.


    She looked at the blonde boy who seemed to be frozen in time and wondered if she should tell Harry to let the boy go. To tell him that it''s against the rules to treat others like this. Would he even listen. Would he resent her for that. He probably would.


    So, in order to not be resented by the person would might become her first friend, she reluctantly chose to not mention Draco''s predicament and the rest of the train ride went by with them simply talking with each other about random things.

 Ravenclaw

    Hogwarts was far more majestic than he had seen in his memories. But then again, in his memories, he saw it in a simple movie but right now he was watching it in person. And seeing something in real life was always better than seeing it in a screen.


    Sitting in a boat in a serene lake and watching the large castle in the moonlight showed it in a regal light was one heck of an experience.


    Perhaps the tradition of bringing the first years from the boats was not as stupid as he had earlier thought.


    He looked at Hermione who was looking at the castle with awe struck eyes and wondered why she was so different than the one from the movie.


    In the movie, she was shown as a know-it-all who couldn''t stop talking and wanted to flaunt her knowledge to anyone that would listen. Something that only managed to alienate her from her fellow classmates.


    But in the train, she only asked him questions upon questions. It was a bit bothersome to be sure but he found that he liked sharing his knowledge if someone truly wanted to learn from him.


    Is this how teachers felt toward their best students.


    If so then it was not a bad feeling at all. Who knows, perhaps he might even become a teacher in the future.


    He chuckled at the thought and brought the attention of Hermione and the two other boys in the boat whom he didn''t know upon himself. He put the two of them in the category of cannon fodder and promptly ignored them and went back to look at Hermione and wondered why she was acting so differently from the movie.


    Vernon, Petunia, Dudley, Hagrid, Olivander and Draco. Every one of these people followed the script from the movie and acted not much differently then he had thought. Well, except for Hagrid who seemed a bit wary of him because of the snake wrapped around his neck but that seemed only natural.


    And then it struck him.


    From the moment he used the advanced ''Accio Spell'' and punished Draco for insulting Hermione and bothering him, she saw him as an kinda-authority figure.


    Plus, he was far more knowledgeable about magic then her so it was only fair that she would listen to him and try to impress him instead of filling his ears with the facts written in hundreds of books.


    Or maybe reality was just that different from a movie.


    Whatever the reason, he could probably make use of this situation. Turn the naive little girl into his trusted minion.


    Or lover.


    After all, she might have an insufferable personality but at the end of the day, she was the most brilliant witch of their generation and he was not going to forget that fact anytime soon.


    He heard Hagrid''s voice once again and realized that they had already reached the end of the lake and saw the 11 year olds disembarking from the boats.


    "Come on Harry. We need to go." Hermione gushed and for once, Harry allowed her to take him with her.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    His classmates chose to maintain a good distance from him simply for the fact that he had Selena with him.


    Well he could not blame them. Selena was not a friendly snake and Parselmouths had a bit of a reputation in the wizarding world. And even the muggleborns who had never heard about the legends feared him because of Parseltongue. It was terrifying to hear after all.


    Even Hermione flinched every once in a while when he talked with Selena despite her vehemence to stand alongside with him instead of maintaining distance from him based on pure superstitions.


    He could already hear Ron talking behind his back about him as the next dark lord and he had to actively suppress his anger in order to not throttle the gingerhead. At the same time, he wondered how Ron would feel when he realized that he was the Harry Potter. Their reactions would surely be fun to watch.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Minerva came back once again and looked him with her lips pursed and he wondered what the old woman was thinking.


    Was she worried about that he was a Parselmouth? Did she believed him to be a dark-lord-in-making as well? Surely a well educated witch would not believe in such a thing. But then again, who can tell.


    He felt the need to use legillimency on her and read her mind but then thought better of it.


    He didn''t knew if she had occulumency shields or not. She probably didn''t but he was not about to risk it.


    After all, reading minds was a great advantage. And he would not lose such an advantage on a mere whim.


    "Silence." She said in a stern manner and all the murmurs died down at once. She sure does like to intimidate a bunch of 11 year olds.


    "I will now escort you to the great hall where the sorting hat will be placed on your head, it''ll tell you about your proper House." She said "I will call your names in alphabetical order." Her eyes lingered once more on him or was it Selena before she turned around and opened the door to the great hall.


    "Harry!" Selena exclaimed as soon as the door to the great hall were opened.


    "What is it Selena?" he asked.


    "The magic in here is very dense master. The most dense I''ve ever seen in my life." She said excitedly. "There''s so much magic in here that I can''t even see the end of the great hall properly."


    "Is that so. Well, that would make sense, in a way. The great hall has been used to host hundreds of powerful wizards and witches for hundreds of years so it''s only natural that it would become saturated with magic." He said "What do you see Selena?"


    "I already told you. The magic in this place is quite dense and the magic of the man sitting at the middle of the podium is greater than any I''ve ever seen." She said.


    "That''s to be expected. He''s Albus Dumbledore. The most powerful wizard in living memory. Remember his magical signature. I want you to know if he ever comes close to me."


    "Any reason why him in particular?" she asked and he nodded his head.


    "From what I know of him, he can be a bit manipulative so I need to be wary of him."


    "Very well then. I''ll tell you if he ever comes close to you." She hissed.


    "Thank you." He said and looked back at his fellow classmates only to realize that all of them had once again created some distance from him.


    Not only that, but the whole great hall was silent. He could see different expression in everyone''s faces. Expression like fear, shock and revulsion being the most prominent.


    They had heard him talking in Parseltongue.


    ''Sheeps'' he snorted at their antics.


    He ignored them and went back to feeling the ambient magic in the great hall. He had no natural talent in sensing magic like Selena but he was still able to feel the heavy presence of magic in the atmosphere pressing gently on top of him like a warm blanket.


    He gave a smile and wondered when he would be able to explore the castle and get the things that he wanted.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Gryffindor!" the hat shouted and Harry instantly realized his mistake.


    He had forgotten to tell Hermione to join Ravenclaw and because of some stupid reason, she had once again joined Gryffindor.


    He always thought that it was a stupid decision to send her to Gryffindor considering how she was the number one bookworm in the whole castle but then again, the hat sorted Crabbe, Goyle and Draco into Slytherin so he never really had a high opinion of the artifact in the first place.


    After all, Draco had no cunning bone in his body and his highest ambition for now would only be to impress his father.


    And he didn''t even want to think about Crabbe and Goyle. That would just be wasting brain cells.


    With such thoughts, he watched in silence as the sorting continued.


    Every now and then, some people would point toward him with a bit of fear in his eyes but the cosmetic charm he applied on top of his scar made sure that no one was able to see his scar so no one really knew who he was.


    He had thought that he would enjoy the looks in their faces once they knew that he is Harry Potter but now, he doubted that he would enjoy their expression at all. After all, there was only so much attention and drama a man could endure and he was already reaching his limit.


    "Harry Potter" Minerva said and the hall, which had started murmuring by now went silent once again before it came back full force as he walked forward to the sorting hat.


    He hid a disgusted glare at the whispering sheep and wore the hat on his head before putting down all his occulumency shields in the dark places and only left behind the memories where he enjoyed learning and reading.


    After some thinking a few days ago, he had realized that the sorting hat would not be capable of reading his mind if he puts his occlumency over his mind.


    After all, the four founders might have been excellent wizards and witches in their own rights but he doubted that they would be able to create an artifact that would be able to read all the memories of a person no matter how strong his occlumency shields were.


    If such a thing was possible, then no one would be able to hide the information in their mind from them.


    And as it turned out, he was right and even though his occlumency shields were barely paper thin, they did their job of hiding his dark memories perfectly.


    And after a short conversation with the hat, he was finally sorted into Ravenclaw.


    Which was exactly what he wanted.


    But as the Ravenclaws smiled and cheered at their latest addition and motioned him to sit together with him, he went to the last seat in the table and sat quietly while ignoring the rest of his housemates.


    He had to create a reputation for himself after all.


    Reputation of an anti social guy.


    After all, it would only hinder him if someone became too curious about his life.

 Benefits of learning Occlumency

    "What are you reading?" Padma Patil asked as she chewed on a chicken leg and Harry wondered if she knew how much it pissed him off when someone disturbed him when he was reading something.


    Regardless, he calmed his emotions and gave her a blank look for a few moments in order to unnerve her before he showed her the cover of the book.


    "The Simplicity of Wards?" she said and looked at him in the eyes and he suddenly realized how close she was to him and unconsciously shrank back and watched with some grim satisfaction as her face turned red as well.


    "Why are you reading such a high level book? And I don''t think it''s in the course either, is it?" she asked curiously and Harry wondered if he should tell her to ''fuck off'' and be done with it. But he wanted the reputation of a anti social guy not a rude asshole so he answered in as uninteresting terms as he could.


    "Hmm..." he said noncommittally.


    She gazed at her for a moment longer but when no reply came she blushed once again and Harry smiled in his heart before he went back to studying the book once again.


    "Why are you reading it?" she asked and he sighed before closing the book for good this time. He really doubted that he would be able to read it with her constantly pasturing him about it.


    "Because I want to increase my knowledge in setting up wards." He replied and looked past her in order to see why she was not bothering someone else.


    Turned out that the boy sitting beside Padma was a quidditch enthusiast who was talking rather excitedly with a girl from Asian descent who could be none other than Cho Chang. So she really had no choice but to talk with him or remain silent.


    Seemed like she didn''t want to remain silent on her first day of the school.


    "Aren''t wards the kind of things that keep thieves out of your house?" she asked curiously.


    "Among other things." He replied and upon her inquiring gaze, went on to explain the basics of ward and how they could be erected.


    Of course, this was third book he was reading on wards and he had already learned and set up basic muggle repelling wards around his house back in London among other things to keep someone from entering his house while he was away at Hogwarts.


    Setting up such simple ward was nothing impressive in his opinion but he was rather excited about the higher level wards that he would be able to set up in the future.


    The Fidalius charm might have been named a charm but it also fell in the category of wards and it was not even among the top five wards from what he''d read.


    He spent the next few minutes talking with her about Wards in hopes that she would quickly get bored by all the information and lose her interest but after ten whole minutes, he realized why she was a Ravenclaw.


    Truthfully, he could have used his shroud to cover himself and make himself seem boring so that she would lose interest but Dumbledore and Quirrlemort were both sitting at the head table and probably eying him every now and then so it would be rather unwise to use his shroud right now.


    It seems that sitting in the great hall might prove to be rather time consuming.


    Harry gazed at the head table in order to pass time and saw the different professors sitting in the long table.


    It always fascinated him how there were so few teachers in Hogwarts considering how it was said to be the greatest wizarding school in Britain or even in the whole Europe. And even among those teachers, some were rather useless like Binns, Snape, Quirrel and Trelawny. All of whom will be teaching him pretty soon.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    He wondered why he had not gone to Bauxbaton Academy instead.


    Oh yes, the different artifacts in here and the room of requirements. Plus, if he left Hogwarts then the future will change by a huge margin making his future knowledge practically useless.


    Not that he planned to rely on it either. But knowing something will be better than knowing nothing. And he knew quite a few things about Hogwarts.


    In fact, the simple presence of The Room of Requirement was more than enough to triumph over all the downsides of attending Hogwarts.


    As his gaze continued to rove over the head table he saw Dumbledore looking back at him as well and as their gazes connected Harry felt something touch over his occulumency shields and averted his gaze as naturally as he could and felt the touch disperse.


    So it was true that Dumbledore read the mind of students.


    Then it was a good thing that he learned Occlumency before coming here.


    He then continued to look over the rest of the professors in the table and had to once again avert his eyes when Snape tried to use legillimency on him.


    Truly, learning Occulumency was the best thing he''d done in his time back at home even though his shields were only paper thin.


    At that moment, he felt a searing pain pass through his scar and he immediately knew the cause of this as he saw the turban of Professor Quirrel turned toward him and quickly averted his gaze in order to look at Padma and felt the pain lessen by a bit.


    "Are you alright?" she asked with concern as she noticed the grimace on his face but he quickly donned on the stoic mask and shook his head.


    "I''m alright." He said and wondered why he could not have sat with someone who was willing to give him his privacy.


    "I think you are the only person in the whole school who reads a book on the first day of¡­" she was suddenly cut off as another boy sitting in front of them bent forward toward them and said "Are you a parselmouth?"


    His words permeated through the table and Harry found himself under the scrutiny of many gazes and sighed inwardly. Hopefully this is just a one day thing and once the kind of person he was, they would stop bothering him.


    "Yes." He said and gave the boy a cold stare which accomplished the job of shutting him mouth before he could ask anything else.


    The others continued to look at him for a moment longer but he took out a book and started ignoring them and when no one else asked him any more questions, their curiosity dropped and they went about doing their own thing and Harry found peace in his book once again until the end of the feast where Dumbledore announced that forbidden forest was forbidden and that anyone who goes to the third floor will meet a quick end and blah blah blah.


    Harry could feel Dumbledore''s eyes on him at the end of the feast but he completely ignored the old man and went with the Prefect who took them to the Ravenclaw tower.


    He had personally never seen the Ravenclaw tower in the movie so this was something new for him and he was rather delighted by their arrangements.


    Aside from the portrait that only allows them entry only when you give the answer to it''s riddle, he liked the rest of the house quite well.


    He was never really good with riddles.


    The tower was an ancient structure so he was not overly bothered or surprised by it''s old but majestic decorations.


    The ravenclaw common room was a large wide circular room with large windows that allowed ample sunlight for students to read their books. It was connected with the stairs that led to the girls and boys rooms along with the Personal Library that this house was so famous for.


    Harry could see some older students sitting and studying in the common room already and smirked at their typical Ravenclaw behavior.


    He was glad that he was selected in Ravenclaw. If he went to Gryffindor then people would bother him unnecessarily and expect him to be some kind of hero which was something that he deeply despised. If he went to Hufflepuf, he would have been swarmed by wellwishers who would want to help him at every turn. And if he went to Slytherin, he would be surrounded by enemies so he was not even willing to entertain that idea.


    It was not that the Ravenclaws wouldn''t bother him as Padma already proved that such was not the case but once the novelty worn off, they would not disturb him anymore which would allow him to go about with his plans as he wished.


    The Prefect¡­ someone whose name he didn''t care to remember told them about the basic common and unspoken rules of the house before taking them to their respective rooms.


    Unlike Gryffindor where all the students of the same class were tossed in the same room, Ravenclaw only allowed two students to live in a room. The older students could even apply for single rooms and if their marks are up to Professor Flitwick''s satisfaction.


    Not that it mattered to him as he never planned on spending too much time in the Ravenclaw tower anyway.

 Transfiguration Class

    He stared at the cat and the cat unflinchingly stared back at him.


    Animagus transformation had always fascinated him.


    How could a human change into an animal of another species and still retain his sense. How could Rita Skeeter, who was able to turn into a beetle still retain her basic brain functions after her brain was decreased by a hundred times.


    There were so many questions in his mind about animagus transformation. The whole subject seemed like a giant impossibility to him but then again, so was magic. So was transfiguration and if he could accept a matchstick changing into a needle then surely he could accept a human changing into another animal.


    Right?


    He felt the urge to pat the tabby in cat for a moment and wondered how Professor Minerva would felt if he really did that in front of the whole class and smirked at that thought. But then he thought better of it and left for his own desk at the end of the room from where he would be able to notice everyone else while he himself remained unnoticed.


    Soon enough the class was full and he could see Ron and Semus running inside the class, late and the shock permeated through the class as the cat changed into their Professor and took 2 points each from them for being late.


    Then the class started and Harry was bored out of his mind as Minerva spent the first hour of their class teaching them the simple basic rules of Transfiguration and the crucial mistake that all the novices made.


    The second hour was spent with Minerva teaching them how to transform a Matchstick into a needle and Harry found himself being bored out of his mind once again.


    Seriously, such transfigurations were too simple for him and he had to held back a snort as Minerva went about teaching them the necessary wand movements and proper spells.


    Magic had always been more about intent and will for him. He would not deny that flicking and swishing the wand in a particular manner did allowed his magic to flow in a particular manner which helped with spells, charms and transfigurations but the main thing would always be the intent and will of a wizard.


    Watching Minerva go about teaching the kids made him feel like she was doing this all in the wrong order.


    He looked at the Matchstick in front of himself and without even picking up his wand, he visualized it changing a little by little in his mind. First the matchstick changed from wood to metal, then it became sleeker and sleeker until it resembled a very thin cylindrical metal stick after which he visualized it''s tip changing into a point and it''s end having a hole large enough for a thread to go through and then he used all his will and intent on the matchstick and watched in fascination as the matchstick changed into a needle flawlessly.


    Till this day, magic fascinated him. How he could use his will on some thing and change it as he wanted according to his will. He doubted that magic will ever stop fascinating him.


    ''That, he realized, was what made him so different from the other kids.'' He thought as he watched his classmate going about flicking their wands and murmuring the spells that they didn''t knew the meaning of.


    From his vantage point, he could easily see the difference between the muggleborns and the purebloods by the fascination in their eyes and the excitement in their body language.


    "Compisitus Verto" his deskmate said forcefully and flicked at the matchstick once again and just like before, nothing happened.


    He held the urge to scoff at the girl who was constantly making a fool of herself.


    Her wand movement was mostly correct and her spell who not off the mark either but still, nothing changed.


    He could clearly see why her matchstick transformation was not being successful. She put no will behind her spell.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "You have to want the change to happen. Put more will behind it." He supplied helpfully and the blonde girl gave him a glare as if he had said something stupid before she scoffed and went back to flicking her wand at the needle, not even looking at his perfect transformation even once.


    ''Well, so much for helping others.'' He thought and added the lesson in his mind. Don''t help other people unless they ask for your help. Otherwise you would only end up looking and feeling stupid.


    "Compisitus Verto" his classmates continued to chant and then Minerva suddenly went to Hermione who was practically jumping on her seat for partially transforming her matchstick to a needle.


    He could see that the end point of her matchstick had turned into the tip of the needle and the rest of it''s body had taken a silvery color.


    Harry sighed as Hermione practically beamed under Minerva''s attention as the rest of the class gave her the stink eye. Even her deskmate Parvati Patel didn''t look all that happy at her success.


    No wonder she was given the nickname like ''teacher''s pet'' and ''know it all'' so early at the start of the term.


    He couldn''t help but feel pity for the girl before he realized something.


    She was the only one in the whole class (except him of course) who was able to transfigure her matchstick, even if the transfiguration was incomplete.


    He had thought her to be a simple bookworm but now that he thought about it, wasn''t she the one who usually completed all the transfiguration and charms before anyone else in the movies.


    Also, she was able to complete a Polyjuice potion which was a NEWTs level potion at her second year and gained an ''O'' in 11 subjects in her OWLs.


    Who else could achieve such a thing with hard work.


    How was it that no one ever noticed such a gem before him. Were the teachers all blind that they let her be bullied by people like Ron Wesley.


    How the hell did he missed her potential.


    Was he so influenced by the movies which focused primarily on Harry Potter that her sheer genius and accomplishments were lost to him.


    He wondered how high she will reach if he taught her the true way to use magic. Would she be willing to learn. Would she even be interested in learning. If yes then would she want to learn from him, someone who frightened her in the train by attacking another student and then treating him like a footstool.


    Well, he could only hope. If she did want to learn from him then he would gain an excellent student, not that he was much of a teacher.


    He may know more about magic then his fellow witches and wizards but in the bigger picture, he was nothing but a novice himself.


    He looked at the needle in front of himself and changed it into a silver butterfly which then changed color and started looking like a real butterfly.


    Just that this butterfly was lifeless.


    He had not learned how to transfigure an inanimate object into an animate object so far.


    Of course, if he followed the proper spells and wand movements then he might be able to do it but he refused to do it that way.


    He did not want to use magic that he didn''t even understand.


    He wanted to learn how the spells worked before he did them. He wanted to learn how the object became animate when they were transfigured. How they gained life when just a few moments ago, they were nothing but a dead object.


    How could a person who knows nothing about magic create life. Could a bird that had been transfigured from a cup even be called living. If yes, then where did the life came from. If no, then how was it able to act like a normal bird.


    Could a transfigured bird eat a worm. Did it had all the necessary organs required to digest it''s food. Could a transfigured snake inject venom into it''s prey, could a transfigured basilisk kill it''s prey or petrify it with it''s gaze, could a transfigured Phoenix use flaming apparition like a real Phoenix. Has anyone ever even tried such a thing?


    If you transfigure water into petrol then would it burn like the real thing? When you transform a person into a ferret then would the ferret weigh as much as the person? If not, then where does all the mass go?


    When you change wood into metal, does the wood really change into metal on a molecular level or does it happen in some other way. Can you burn a wood if it''s been transfigured from a metal? If yes then can you power a nuclear power plan by uranium that been transfigured from mere dirt?


    So many things to learn. So much knowledge to explore in the magical world.


    But one thing that he did knew was that the more he worked on his magic, the more he would become better at it.


    And that fact also applied to transfiguration.


    The more your transfigure something, the better you become at it.


    When you transfigure a matchstick into a needle for the first time, it takes all your power and concentration to complete the transfiguration. The next time it''s easier to do and then next time after that is even easier. And by the hundredth time, you can do it without even thinking about it.


    So if he can change a needle into a butterfly and then continue to do it again and again, then when he start pouring life into his transfigurations, it''ll be easier for him.


    He changed the butterfly back to it''s original shape and found that it had once again reverted to a matchstick.


    He then once again transfigured it into a butterfly and indeed, it was easier this time then the first time. And then he changed it back into a match stick and repeated the process again and again.


    Until by a bit of curiosity, he willed the butterfly to be live.


    And then suddenly the butterfly flapped it''s wings and flew.

 Taking the Marauders map

    As quickly as he could, he willed it and the butterfly which had just taken off from his desk turned into dust while he looked around if anyone else had seen this as his emotions fell in turmoil.


    He was happy, no, immensely happy because he had been able to successfully create a new life (at least that''s what it looked like). But he was also wary that someone might have seen it and would learn the full extent of his capabilities which was something that he would never do willingly.


    He looked at Minerva who was reprimanding Draco about something and the rest of the class was giggling at him and felt a weight lift off his chest.


    Thankfully, no one had seen his¡­ miracle. For what else would you call it when a person could turn a matchstick into a butterfly and then give life to it.


    But while he felt thankful that no one had seen it and learnt how truly talented he was, he was also a bit sad that everyone had missed this miracle. His miracle.


    And then he saw the movement and turned to look at his desk mate and grimaced at her gob smacked expression.


    She had seen him do it.


    "How?" she managed to ask before he flicked his wand and silenced her mouth and with his will, he put his Shroud of Concealment around the both of them so that Minerva would not notice what he was about to do next.


    She had only a moment to look panicked before he pointed his wand at her and said "Obliviate" and erased the last minute of her memory from her mind.


    As much as he was loath to rely on it, the wand was truly a convenient tool. If he had the wand with him from the start them maybe those homeless people whom he''d experimented on would not have turned into the drooling mess. Well maybe a few of them might still have lost all their memories but he guess that more than half of them would have held their sanity.


    With his new wand, the precision of his memory charm had truly reached a whole new level.


    He couldn''t wait to remove the trace from the wand and go back home so that he could use it on more test subjects.


    He kept his wand back on his table and kept it on his own desk and watched discreetly as she gained a glazed look in her eyes for a moment before she regained her bearings and went back to her work without ever knowing that she had been obliviated by anyone.


    And he was once again reminded of how scary magic can be.


    A wizard can literally break into the home of a unsuspecting muggle family, rape the woman and then Obliviate her before leaving and she would continue to live her life as if nothing ever happened.


    He shivered for a moment when he realized that quite a few wizards all over the world would have done the exact same thing at some point during their lives.


    Some of them multiple times.


    Magic was a dangerous tool. And he would learn how to wield it better than anyone else.


    If only to keep himself safe the machinations of other people.


    He gave one last glance to Hermione who was still gushing under Minerva''s praise and went back to transfiguring a butterfly from a nail taken from the desk.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    BOY WHO LIVED ON THE PATH OF BECOMING A DARK LORD?


    Harry looked at the headline in prophet and could already start feeling the gazes on his back.


    Beneath the ominous headline was a whole article explaining how he was a Parselmouth and brought a snake along with him at Hogwarts along with speculations that he had been training under some dark wizards before he came to the school.


    He held the urge to scoff at the looks he was being given but as more and more owls delivered the newspaper, more and more speculated gazes fell on him. More pointed fingers, more whispered words behind his back.


    Ironic how he went from their saviour to a possible future dark lord in such a short amount of time.


    He looked at the name of the writer and realized that it was not Rita Skeeter. And wasn''t that a surprise.


    He had thought that she was the only one employed by the Daily Prophet who made money by vilifying other people.


    But apparently she not the only one in that industry. Just the best one.


    He had no doubt that if she was the one had written this article then it would have been even worse then it was now.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    He glanced from peripheral vision and watched as Padma who was sitting beside him squirmed in her seat and felt the irritation turn into anger.


    Sheep. All of them.


    He stood up from his seat and rolled his eyes as some of the students sitting beside him visibly flinched at his sudden action.


    Then he turned around and left.


    The Prophet had ruined his reputation, but he had already expected something like that to happen as he knew about how the rag worked from the movies but the instant negative reaction of the students in the hall still baffled him and he would never admit it to anyone but it hurt him a bit that even Padma, who had tried talking with him three times since the last day had squirmed with discomfort for just sitting beside him.


    Apparently there was big difference in knowing something and experiencing it first hand.


    But, oh well, now that he had a reputation, at least the students will stay away from him and allow him to start his plans with ease.


    He walked through the corridors under his Shroud of Concielement and followed a pair of unsuspecting Hufflepuff girls back to their dorm rooms.


    Once he found their dorms, it was easy for him to find the entrance to the kitchen where he asked the elves to serve him something so that he could eat his lunch in peace.


    After that, he had ''Defense against the Dark Arts'' class after which he could truly put his plans into motion.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Defense against the Dark Arts was boring class in more ways than one.


    For one, Professor Quirrel had only taught them theory for a whole hour and for another, anything productive that he might have said came out as a jumbled mess because of his stuttering.


    Just like his previous class, he chose the last corner seat to sit in so that he would not be disturbed by either the students or the teacher before he used put on a low level Shroud of Concealment on himself and took out the book on Warding that he had been reading recently.


    Even his own desk mate, some bloke from Hufflepuff did not look at him even once during the whole class so he knew that his shroud was doing it''s job spectacularly but despite that, he felt several intrusions of legilimency probes during his time in the class and a prickle of pain in his scar every now and then.


    He had not looked at Quirrel''s eyes even once, so how had he use legilimency on him.


    But then again, he had not looked at Voldemort in the eyes at the feast either so it was sufficient to think that Voldemort could use legilimency without making eye to eye contact.


    Or maybe it was not legilimency at all and some other form of attack instead.


    Maybe wraiths simply had access to some different form of mind arts.


    Thankfully, he Occlumency shields held themselves together against all the attacks and he was spared the splitting headache that the original Harry Potter often complained about in the movies whenever he sat in the Defense against the Dark Arts class.


    At the end of the class, he had gone through two chapters in his Warding book and the other young witches and wizards in the class looked thoroughly bored and had learned absolutely nothing at all.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "It''s not easy to find you two you know." Harry said as he entered the abandoned the empty classroom where the two pranksters were brewing some kind of potion for god knows what.


    Both of them turned abruptly at his presence but before they could say another word, he cast two quick spell at them in which put them into full body bind at once.


    Before both of them could fall on the cauldron they were brewing on, he flicked his wand and sent them toward the two chairs at the corner of the otherwise empty classroom.


    Even in their partially petrified state, he could see the fear in their eyes as he bound them with ropes and took their wands for himself.


    He felt no need to check for a spare wand on their bodies because he knew that the Weasleys were a poor family who were not even able to buy a new wand for Ron so buying a spare wand was a luxury that they would hardly be able to affford.


    Then he removed the Petrifying spell from their bodies and watched in silence as their faces contorted with anger and a bit of fear.


    "Harry Potter" one of them said.


    "The Boy who lived." The another one continued.


    "The savior of the wizarding world." The first one said with a mocking voice.


    "The vanquisher of The Dark Lord."


    "A Parselmouth"


    "And a future dark lord."


    "What is the meaning of this?"


    "Why are you doing this to us?"


    "It''s not like we''ve ever¡­"


    Before they could continue their antics any longer, he swished his wand and both of their mouths shut together at once.


    "You have something that is created by my father, my god father and his friends." He said in a soft voice which reverberated in the empty classroom. Hmm¡­ interesting effect. Maybe he could use some kind of spell on his voice to always get this scary edge.


    Both of them shook their heads frantically at his words and he said "I''m talking about the Marauder Map you fools."


    At his words the both of them looked at each other and went into some kind of silence conversation.


    He let them converse among themselves but when they said nothing for almost a minute, he lost his patience and flicked his wand once again before imagining the Marauder Map in his mind.


    "Accio Marauder''s Map." He said and send forth his will and magic through the wand and in a few seconds, a roll of parchment flew out of one of the robes kept at the corner of the room which he caught in his hands easily.


    He wondered why he had not done this at the start. If he had then he would not have to converse with the annoying twins.


    Oh well. Live and learn.


    He unfurled the parchment and just like he had predicted, it was empty.


    "I solemnly swear that I''m up to no good." He said and tapped the parchment and watched in fascination as lines started to form int he parchment and soon enough, a large portion of the area he was standing on became visible in the parchment along with the footsteps and names of the people in the corridors and rooms.


    With a smile he rolled up the parchment and looked at the twins who were eyeing him with apprehension and pointed the wand at them.


    If he was better at the memory charm, he would have been able to erase the very existence of the Marauders'' map from their memory. But since he was not that good, he had to contend with simply erasing their memory of meeting him in the room.


    At some point in the future, they would realize that the map is missing from their robes but hopefully they''ll just think that they dropped it somewhere or something like that and not suspect that someone stole their map and obliviated them.


    With a jaunty tune, he unfurled the map to make sure that no one was following him and went to the seventh floor where the painting of Barnabus the Barmy teaching Belle dancing to the trolls was hung on the wall.


    And smiled.

 Rowena Ravenclaws Diadem

    Despite seeing the location of the diadem in the movie, it still took him two whole hours to find the Diadem in the Room of Hidden Things.


    And those two hours only made him realize how large the Room of Hidden Things actually was.


    And not only was it large but it was also filled with thousands of things that were filled with magic of one kind or another.


    Even Selena, who was exceptional at sensing magical auras was of no help because of the thousands of different kind of magical auras in the room that stung her magical senses so much that she could do nothing to help him in his search.


    Regardless, when he found the diadem, he made sure to not touch it under any condition.


    The original Harry Potter truly hated Voldemort for killing his parents and thus would never fall under the influence of the dark lord but he had no such defense so he had to be extra careful around the Horcruxes.


    He levitated the Horcrux from a distance before dropping it inside the bottomless purse that he usually used for carrying money.


    He had needed a container to hold the horcrux so he had emptied the bottomless purse in order to keep the horcrux inside of it.


    But even now, he could see the dark magic inside the horcrux fighting against the magic of the bottomless purse and it won''t be too long before the whole purse would be contaminated by it''s evil aura and lose all of the magical charms placed on it.


    And he was not even surprised by that as he already knew that a Horcrux corrupted anything it touched.


    The purse was worth 40 galleons but if he could use it to keep the horcrux in check for sometime then losing the purse would be worth it.


    Plus, it was not like 40 galleons meant all that much to him.


    He checked the Marauders'' map once again in order to make sure that the whole corridor was empty before leaving the room after which he started started walking outside the room once again.


    Just that this time, instead of asking for the Room of All Things, he wished to find a way to destroy a horcrux without damaging the vassal it was placed into.


    After all, the Diadem was the most valuable possession of Rowena Ravenclaw who was one of the greatest witch who ever lived. He knew that he was capable of destroying the daidem if it came down it. But he was not willing to lose such a precious artifact without actually trying to save it.


    So he had to find a way to remove the soul from the diadem without destroying it.


    And sure enough, Hogwarts answered his call and he entered the room once again to find a heavy tome lying on the center of the room on a pedestal.


    It seemed that he might be able to use the Diadem after all.


    He picked up the book with a smiled and started reading through it in order to find a way to gain the remarkable artifact known as Rowena''s Diadem.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Minerva finished checking the last parchment submitted to her by the first years and sighed in relief at the job being finished.


    Checking assignments and giving appropriate marks had never been her favourite way to spend the day but it was a necessity that came along with being the Transfiguration teacher in Hogwarts.


    As she made the list that contained the names of the first year students, she smiled to herself as she saw the full marks that her little cub Hermione Granger had received.


    From what she''s seen so far, Hermione was a remarkable witch and had a bright future in front of her.


    Then looked at another name in the list and frowned a bit.


    Harry Potter, son of Lily and James Potter who had been one of her favourite students before their untimely death was turning out to be a disappointment more than anything else.


    In classes, he never bothered to answer any questions she asked to the students and didn''t show any interest in her subject either.


    In fact, she couldn''t even remember that he was in the class until the end of the period at which point he simply got up from his seat and quietly left the class.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    It was almost as if he vanished from her class while she was teaching the rest of the students.


    She scoffed at the thought and looked at the assignment handed to her by Harry and frowned at the messy job that he''d done.


    Instead of the foot long essay she told them to write, he only wrote half a foot long essay and in a very bad handwriting on top of that.


    It was almost as if he couldn''t even be bothered to write an essay.


    As if he considered himself above such things.


    The only saving grace was that the information written in the parchment was totally accurate and explained everything that she had taught in the class perfectly.


    So she knew that he at least understood what she taught even if he didn''t show any interest in it.


    She sighed and rubbed her eyes once again and put the parchment back along with the others.


    In the next class, she would definitely pay attention to him and check his performance personally.


    Plus, Albus had also shown some interest in the boy so it was likely that he would ask her about Harry in the next weekly staff meeting.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry read a thick book at the back of the class while a jovial Flitwick taught the others about the history of Lumos charm.


    The Room of Requirement did not allow the students to take anything from the room. He knew because he had tried to take that one book regarding Horcruxes outside the room but every time he did so, the book simply vanished into thin air as soon as he stepped outside.


    Even hiding the book inside a limitless bag didn''t help.


    So people might think that you cannot take anything from inside the room but he found a loophole in the whole system.


    Just because he cannot take the book outside the room didn''t mean that he could not copy the text inside the book into another book.


    Neither did it placed any restriction on things that you copied from the original ones.


    The book he was now reading was the result of a simple Gemino charm performed on the original book. It was by no means permanent and would dissolve into thin air before the end of the day. But he had no qualms with that since he would go back to the room of requirement before the end of the day anyway and if he wanted the book then could simply make another copy of it once again.


    His knew face looked a bit haggard as he had been studying continuously since last night but his Shroud of Concealment made sure that others didn''t pay much attention to him.


    He ignored Flitwick''s rambling in the background and focused on completing the book as soon as possible and understand what he needed to do to remove the soul of Voldemort not only from the Diadem but also from his scar and the other horcruxes as well.


    After all, if he could save the Diadem, then why shouldn''t he do the same with Salazar''s locket and Hegla''s cup.


    A bump in his shoulder broke his concentration and he turned and looked at a very young Blaise Zabini who was pointing at the front of the class.


    "¡­Potter. Mr Potter." He turned to find Professor Flitwick looking disapprovingly at him for having ignored him in the class.


    "Yes sir." He said and pushed the book in his bag.


    "Mr Potter. Did you understand how to perform the Lumos charm properly." The diminutive professor asked from atop his pile of books and Harry gave a bitter smile as the whole class focused their attention of him.


    It seemed like Professor Flitwick was paying extra attention to him in the class otherwise he would not have broken through Harry''s Shroud so easily.


    "I believe I do Professor." He said with a confident nod.


    "Wonderful." Flitwick said with a childlike glee and Harry had to smile at the professor''s antics. There was just something so innocent about this man that Harry couldn''t help but respect him for it. "Then would you please show it to the rest of the class?" Flitwick asked.


    "Yes Professor." He said and pulled out his wand from the holster and pointed it in the air and hissed "Lumos" in Parseltongue and a bright white light filled the whole room, removing any darkness from it altogether.


    Then he stopped supplying more magic to the wand and the light slowly faded away from the room, leaving behind stunned children who rubbed their eyes in order to get a clearer vision of the room.


    "Ohh¡­ Wonderful Mr Potter. Absolutely wonderful." Professor Flitwick said cheerfully even while he was rubbing his eyes from being blinded by the spell. "That was an amazing application of the Lumos charm, if not a bit overpowered. Five points to Ravenclaw for such a good demonstration. You may sit down now Mr Potter." He said while practically jumping on his books from excitement.


    Harry sat back down on his seat and watched with some amusement as the rest of the class gave him a wary look at his liberal use of Parseltongue before going back to their work.


    "I''ve never seen such a strong Lumos spell." Blaise commented from beside him at Harry''s questioning gaze, he continued.


    "All I heard was a terrifying hiss followed by a blinding light. Did you really spoke the spell in Parseltongue?" he asked conspiratorially and Harry wondered if he should tell the truth to a Slytherin who might use this knowledge against him some day.


    But then again, even if the truth comes out that saying the incantation Parseltongue gives better results, it''s not like anyone else could do anything about it considering how Parseltongue was an ability that couldn''t be copied.


    "Yes." He replied "Incantations said in Parseltongue produce better result that incantations said in Latin." Blaise nodded his head at that and went back to jabbing his wand and trying to perform the spell, unsuccessfully.


    Harry of course didn''t inform the Slytherin that he could easily perform such overwhelming spell with the Latin incantation or even the English word just as easily.


    In fact, he could easily get the same results without even using a wand but he wanted to be seen as a genius, not a monster.


    The reason for his spectacular result was the fact that out of all the students in the class, he was the only one to understand the importance of using your will and intent behind a spell.


    Harry looked around the room and found Hermione looking at him curiously but as soon as their gazes met, her face turned red and she went back to practicing the charm. As it so happened, she was once again the only one in the room beside him who was successfully able to cast the charm by the end of their first period.


    Harry shook his head and observed the rest of the students discreetly. Now that everyone had gone back to their own task, he used his Shroud of Concealment once again and went back to reading the book on souls and Possessions.


    It was quite an interesting book after all.

 The simplicity of removing a soul from an artifact

    Harry put the book back inside his bag and left the room after all the other students had left.


    He had no motivation to chat and mingle with the other kids so he always strove to leave either before everyone else or after everyone else had already left and since he since sat in the last seat and the door was near the front seat, he went out after everyone else had already left.


    As he walked out of the room, he realized that it was lunch time and everyone else had already left for the great hall. He would have done the same but he didn''t felt like going to a place where he would once again come under the scrutiny of so many people.


    The episode with the Prophet declaring him a Dark-lord-in-the-making for his liberal use of Parseltongue was still fresh in his mind. So, while the rest of his classmates went to the great hall to the right, he instead took the left and with the intention of going to the Hogwarts kitchen instead.


    But as he started walking down the halls, Selena raised her head and swiped the air a few times with her tongue before hissing at him.


    "Harry. There''s four magical signature up ahead at the next corner hiding behind the wall." She said and gazed at the next intersection warily.


    Harry stopped walking abruptly and took out his wand and Marauder''s map at once.


    "Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Theodore Nott." He murmured with disdain at the four names in the map before he put it back in his bag, used the Shroud of Concealment to it''s full effect and sneaked behind the four Slytherins who were waiting to ambush him at the intersection.


    "¡­need to pay the halfblood filth for being so presumptuous." Draco said with disgust and Crabbe and Goyle nodded their heads like the perfect minions while Theodore frowned at them.


    "Are you sure about this Draco?" Theodore asked with concern which only made Draco even angry. He didn''t liked to be questioned in front of his subordinates.


    "Yes I''m sure. And it''s not like we''re going to kill him or something. Just stun him, take all of his clothes and stick him to a wall." Draco said with a grin and Harry raised an eyebrow at that. Seems like he didn''t scare the blonde ponce as much as he intended to.


    Or maybe Draco was just a retarded child who didn''t understood the concept of not playing with fire.


    "Yes yes. I''ve already heard the plan a thousand times before but what I don''t understand is why are you so hell bent on humiliating him. It''s not like he''s ever done anything to you. In fact, I''ve not even seen him talk with anyone so far." Theodore said. It seemed like the story of Draco''s first meeting with Harry didn''t get out for some reason. What a surprise.


    Draco went beet red at his words and Harry could tell that he was reliving the memory of lying still under his feet for hours on end.


    In truth, he had expected the headmaster and Snape to call him to the office right after they arrived at hogwarts but then he realized that Draco would never go about telling other kids that he was bested by a halfblood in such a humiliating manner.


    Hermione was never one to gossip nor did she had any friends to do it with and the three Hufflepuffs probably didn''t want to get under Draco''s radar so they chose to remain silent as well.


    Hmm¡­ That would explain it.


    He smirked as he saw the four of them whispering to each other and waiting for ''him'' to arrive so that they could ambush him with their superior numbers.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ''Oh well, I guess I''ll forgive Theodore this time since he didn''t seem all that interested in harming me.'' With that thought, he raised his wand and fired off four stunners in quick successions and before they could fall to the ground, he pushed them to the wall and used a sticking charm to stick them to the wall.


    To was not hard to remove their clothes from Crabbe''s and Goyle''s bodies, which left them with only their underwear. Of added effect he filled their underwear with pink teddybears on a white background.


    He left Theodore alone but then he moved to Draco and a mischievous glint shone in his eyes.


    That day students of Hogwarts would find Draco Malfoy stuck to a wall while wearing a cute white girly dress with ''Priness of Slytherin'' written above his head. A name that would stick to him for years to come.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Where were you last night?" Terry Boot asked as Harry entered the room to pick up some books and clothes for later.


    "None of your business." Harry said and started packing his bag. He never truly planned to share the room with Terry but since the other boy stayed here every night, he might become a problem if he went to the teachers and told them about his absence from the room every night.


    "It is my business. You''re my roommate and you were not here last night. Tell me where you were or I''ll tell Professor Flitwick about your absence."


    Harry stopped what he was doing at one and turned to stare at the 11 year old boy with an odd look.


    Did the boy really just blackmailed him.


    How did someone as stupid as him entered Ravenclaw house.


    He grinned a bit and let out some of his power and willed it to pressure the boy from all sides for a few seconds until the boy literally crumbled under the pressure and fell to the ground while looking at him fearfully.


    "You do that and I''ll become your enemy. And you don''t want an enemy sleeping in the same room as you, do you? Keep your mouth shut and we''ll both get along just fine. Do you understand, room mate?"


    The boy whimpered in fear and nodded his head so with the barest of nods, Harry removed the pressure from him.


    A foolish boy but just a boy nonetheless. No need to be too hard on him.


    And he still needed to read the book regarding soul and possession and the faster he did it, the better it''ll be for him.


    He did felt like a dick for terrorizing his fellow roommate considering how the boy was only 11 years old. But he also knew that if he didn''t nip this problem in the bud then it would only come back to bite him in the ass in the future.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Creating Horcrux was one of the most obscure form of dark arts. So obscure in fact that only a few people in the whole Britain knew about it. All the books and tomes that contained knowledge regarding Horcrux had been removed from the world by people who were afraid of his art and considering how this knowledge could give people like Voldemort a form of immortality, they would not be considered wrong in taking such precautions.


    So when you ask someone to remove the soul from an object, usually people would think that it would be a really hard thing to do. And only that someone who has mastery over Soul arts would be able to perform such a task.


    The truth couldn''t be more different than that.


    A ritual circle created from human blood and a very simple potion created from ingredients found in the Potion master''s room and another object to house the soul after it had been banished from it''s original place.


    These were all the ingredients required for the ritual.


    The procedure was quite simple as well.


    Make the object that''s housing the soul so uncomfortable that the soul would want to transfer away from the object.


    In essence, it was no different than annoying a child so much that he would rather get up and sit in the next bench away from you then remain in the same bench.


    The potion was dripped on top of the diadem and it''s healing effects worsened the condition of the soul inside it.


    The runic circle helped the soul go from the diadem another object that Harry had selected randomly from the Room of Requirements. A silver mirror in this case.


    And by the time the whole potion had been dripped down on top of the diadem, the soul transferred from it to the silver mirror, leaving the diadem in pristine condition just like how it was before it was possessed.


    Harry pocketed the newly cleansed Diadem and kept the Silver mirror inside the Room of All Things so that he could destroy it in the future.


    He knew that he was a far more powerful than any of his classmates but he also knew that he was not strong enough to control the Fiendfyre otherwise he would have already destroyed the Silver mirror.


    He had seen the consequences of casting Fiendfyre without being able to control it in the movies so he knew the dangers of performing that spell. The Silver mirror will have to wait until he becomes powerful enough to cast Fiendfyre or until he gained some Basilisk venom for himself.


    Well, at least he had finally gotten his hands of Lady Rowena Ravenclaw''s precious Diadem.


    That ought to call for a celebration.


    Not that he had any friends to celebrate with. But still.


    Things were looking good.

 Once in a Century Genius

    "Mr Potter. Our new celebrity." Snape drawled and Harry held the urge to bang his head on the table and groan.


    Could this things become anymore cliched?


    Why had he thought that coming to the potions class would be anything but a waste of his precious time.


    Oh, because it will keep Albus off his back.


    He''s not even afraid of the old man. Wary, yes? But afraid, no.


    Still, the rest of the staff might not notice the irregularities regarding him but Snape, who was a double agent for both Voldemort and Dumbledore, would definitely notice his actions and then report them to Dumbledore at soon as possible.


    So it was within his best interest to act like a normal kid in front of Snape.


    Now only if the bloke would not go out of his way to bother him.


    The only reason he was tolerating Snape was because he knew from the movies that no matter how badly Snape treated him, he always looked after him as well.


    "Tell me¡­ What would I get if I added powdered root of Asphedel to an infusion of wormwood?"


    Dear god! Even the questions he asked are the same ones.


    Does he keeps a list of questions that he usually ask to kid he doesn''t like.


    "Don''t know." He replied nonchalantly and saw the Hufflepuff girl sitting beside him squirm in discomfort. What was her name again? Who cares. If he didn''t already knew her then she was most likely a cannon fodder either way.


    "Don''t know, Sir." Snape said with his unusually soft voice that somehow still managed to echo in the dark room.


    Harry wondered if there was some kind of spell that produced that sound effect or if it was completely natural.


    "Don''t know sir." He managed to say after controlling his budding irritation.


    He could disrespect the man and then get into a childish argument with him but was there really a point to it all?


    Just act like you''re talking with a person whose mother died last night and everything will be just fine.


    "Good. Let''s try again." Snape said "Where, Mr Potter would you look at, if I asked you to find me a Bezoar."


    "I don''t know Sir." He said despite knowing the answer all too well. Just like he knew the answer of the first question.


    "And what is the difference between the Monkswood and Wolfsbane?"


    The only solace was the fact that at least there was no Hermione Granger in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff house. It would be terribly irritating if someone raised his or her hand to answer the questions for him while he was trying to hold back.


    He was even more thankful that there was no Malfoy in the class either. Because he was quite irritated already and if he would have to see that Blone Ponce smirk at him even once, he would sent the kid to the infirmary. After the class of course.


    "I don''t know sir." He said and wondered how long it will take for the class to end.


    "Pity." Snape said, a tad bit more irritated by his nonchalant attitude than the one he saw in the movie. "Clearly, fame isn''t everything. Is it Mr Potter."


    He kept his head down and hoped that the bat would leave him alone after this. It was getting rather tiring to act like a scared little boy and he was never any good in acting either.


    There was only so much he would take before he decided to blew up.


    Thankfully, that was all Snape said before he went back to the podium and wrote the instructions on the blackboard and told the kids to follow those instructions and create the potion.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Harry had the distinct feeling that Snape should have told the kids a bit more about the ingredients and potions.


    About taking necessary precautions to the most common mistakes that new students usually made, but who was he to complain.


    Since creating potion was not something that alerted the trace, he had learned how it do it back in his home so he knew that he won''t face any problem in the class.


    He just needed to tolerate the man for four hours in a week and everything will be just fine.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Professor Flitwick?"


    "Ah¡­ Mr Potter. Come in come in. Please take a seat." Flitwick practically jumped with joy at seeing the son of his once favourite student coming up to him.


    He had always lamented over the fact that Lily was a Gryffindor despite being a brilliant student.


    The fact that Harry, her son joined his house brought him great satisfaction.


    The fact that Harry was able to perform brilliant charms work, as shown by the lumos spell in the last class made him feel even more excited for the future of the young boy.


    He had already planned to set up a meeting with young Harry in the future considering how the boy was a first year in his house and he made it his job to know each and every student of his house on a personal level.


    But the fact that Harry came to his room himself was even better and made him wonder why the boy would seek him out so early in the term.


    "Mr Potter" he said jovially once the boy comfortably sat down on the chair "What can I do for you?"


    The boy waited a moment before answering "I read about a charm in one of the extra books I bought before coming to Hogwarts. It had a charm on it that I was very interested about."


    "Oh! And what charm would it be Mr Potter?" Flitwick asked he found himself sitting on the edge of his with anticipation.


    "The Gemino Charm." Harry said and Flitwick felt his eyebrow shot up in surprise.


    "That is a Fourth year charm Mr Potter. I could understand why you would have difficulty in performing the¡­"


    "You misunderstood me Professor." Harry interrupted him and Flitwick was almost reminded of all the times when Lily did the same thing. She might have been a brilliant student but patience was never her strong suite. Especially when she was excited about learning something new.


    "How?" he asked getting even more interested in the conversation between the student and teacher.


    "I already know how to successfully perform the Gemino Charm Professor."


    "Really?" Flitwick asked in surprise and wondered how the boy was able to do it. The fact that he was able to perform a fourth year spell in his first year would make him nothing short of a prodigy. And despite all her talent, even Lily was never so good at understanding and performing such complicated charms at such a young age.


    Of course, that was if Mr Potter was not lying to him.


    But he wanted to give young Harry the benefit of doubt, just like how he would do for any other student.


    "Forgive me but can I see you performing the charm Mr Potter?" he asked and gestured at an empty cup sitting on his desk.


    Anyone else in his position, even Minerva might have called the boy a liar for saying that he was capable of performing a 4th year charm in his 1st year. But Flitwick was nothing if not indulgent with his claws.


    "Definitely Professor." Mr Potter said and within the next moment there were two identical cups sitting in front of himself and Flitwick was left wondering if he gotten too old and if his eyes were still performing as well as they should.


    No, he was not that old, yet. And no, his eyes were working perfectly well but what he saw in front of himself was something that he was finding hard to believe.


    Mr Potter had performed the charm perfectly. But not only that, he had performed the charm without the proper wand movement and without the proper incantation and with the ease of a master. As if he had done such thing a thousand time before.


    Now Flitwick himself could get away with things like this but he was a true master of his profession. Harry was not. And yet, the boy that done it.


    The boy, who had not even joined the magical world for a month and he was performing complicated spells like he''d been doing it for a life time.


    That was¡­ shocking, for the lack of a better word.


    This discovery needed some discussion with the other staff members and possibly the Headmaster. If only because he wanted to brag a bit about the once in a century prodigy in his house.


    "fessor... Professor?" Flitwick jolted from his thoughts and realized that Mr Potter was looking at him with some concern. "Is everything alright Professor?"


    "Yes yes. The charm was performed wonderfully Mr Potter."


    "Thank you Sir. But I needed your help with something else."


    "Oh Pray tell what it was Mr Potter?" he asked, getting excited once again.


    "As you can see, the charm was performed perfectly but as of now, the cup is still a simple magical construct that would disperse in thin air after a given amount of time."


    At Flitwick''s nod, Harry continued "I want to learn a way to make these constructs permanent."


    By now Flitwick was so surprised that he didn''t thought that he could be any more surprised. But Mr Potter had proven him wrong once again.


    "I can teach you how to make your constructs permanent. Or at least they''ll remain permanent until someone destroys a part of the construct at which point they''ll disperse into thin air. But that is a 7th year course material Mr Potter. Are you sure you want to learn it?" Flitwick asked seriously because he knew that such a project would take a lot of time. Perhaps even a whole month before Harry was able to successfully perform the charm and even then it was not even a guaranteed thing if he would be able to succeed or not.


    "I''m sure Professor." Mr Potter replied and managed to learn to make his magical constructs permanent by the end of the day.


    And Flitwick realized that he had not felt so exhilarated in many many years.


    For he had a genius in his hand the likes of which had never been seen before in Hogwarts as far as he could tell.

 Library in the Room of Requirement

    ''I want to see all the books in Hogwarts.''


    ''I want to see all the books in Hogwarts.''


    ''I want to see all the books in Hogwarts.''


    A grinding noise permeated through the hallway and he opened his eyes to see the wall slowly change into a large door in front of his eyes.


    He opened the map to make sure that there was no one around before entering the room.


    And the first thought that came his mind as he entered the room and saw the large amount of books kept in large bookshelves in a room that was four times larger than the Hogwarts library was ''Oh my God.''


    The second thought the came to his mind was ''Copying so many books will take a lot of time.''


    The third thought being ''I''m gonna need a bigger trunk to carry so many books.''


    He was allowed to take as many things from the Room of Hidden things as he could take with him but the same could not be said for the Room of Requirement.


    A pity.


    Still, he would take as many books from the Room of Hidden things that he could find before he would move onto copying the books in the Room of Requirement.


    As for time, he planned to do something about that as well.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    He looked at the chaotic realm in front of him known as the Room and Hidden Things and sighed once again.


    He was not sure if his ''Master Plan'' would bear any fruit or not. After all, he had no idea how long it had been since the time turners were invented.


    They could have only been invented for ten years as far he knew but he was confident that such was not the case. In fact, he was pretty sure that time turners were in production for the past few centuries.


    Still, how many people carried a time turner with them in the past few centuries. And how many of them were irresponsible enough to lose their time turners.


    Well, he was going to find out soon enough.


    He looked at the room with some trepidation (because if he was unlucky then a whole bunch of things were going to fall on top of his head) and raised his wand in the air and said "Accio Time Turner"


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Seven people. That''s how many people were irresponsible enough to lose their time turners in the past few centuries.


    Well, not all of them irresponsible considering how four of those time turners were broken in some form and merely been discarded because they had stopped being useful.


    He had hoped there had been more irresponsible people in Hogwarts in the past but he could make do with what he had.


    Three time turners.


    If he remembered correctly then a time turner could take a person as far a five hours in the past and be safely used once a day.


    Which meant that if he made full use of the time turners then he could have 39 hours in a day. Time, which he could spend learning from the wealth of books he found in the room of requirement.


    As for the four damaged time turners, he could study them to learn how time turners were created.


    Learn what kind of charms and ruins were used to create a time turner and what not.


    If he could create a time turner of his own, then he would never have to worry about facing time shortage in the future.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Such a thing was very important for him considering how he had Voldemort after his life.


    Still, until he could create a time turner for himself, he planned to use these three time turners to get as much time as he could.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "So¡­ What kind of person is he?" Anthony asked Terry as they sat in their great hall and Terry didn''t even have to bother to look up to know that the whole table was now paying attention to him and he groaned in frustration.


    "I don''t know." He said half heartedly because he knew that it was the truth and that no one would believe such a truth.


    "What do you mean that you don''t know?" Micheal Corner asked from his left side.


    "Exactly what I mean. I don''t know anything about him." Terry said with some frustration laced in his voice and knew that they won''t leave him alone until he gave them something juicy to talk about. Unfortunately, he knew nothing about Harry Potter. In fact, he had not seen that guy since that one time when he threatened him to keep quiet about his absence from their room.


    "But he''s your roommate." Micheal said in a tone that implied that since Harry Potter was his roommate, he should know everything about him.


    "I know." He said with a sigh "He just, never talks with me. He only comes to the room to sleep and then leaves quite early in the morning." He lied. Harry had not come to the room in order to sleep even once. But he was afraid of telling that truth to others for two very simple reason.


    1. Harry had threatened him.


    2. If the teachers knew that Harry didn''t sleep in his room at night, then they would force him to sleep in the room. And frankly, Terry didn''t want to sleep in the same room with someone who terrified him so much.


    "But he''s your roommate." Micheal Corner enunciated "Surely you two must have spend some time talking with each other."


    "In case you''ve not noticed before. Harry is not a very talkative guy." Terry said with some tiredness. When he had first heard that Harry Potter will be his roommate, he was quite excited. But that excitement soon turned into disappointment which then turned into anger until the celebrity boy threatened him. Now, he was simply tired of all the questions that people constantly asked him about the savior of the Magical Britain and he wished that they would stop.


    "But still¡­" Micheal said but was interrupted as Su Li raised her hand in order to stop him.


    "Terry is right you know." Su Li said "I''ve sat with him thrice so far in our classes and I have never heard him say anything. Even once. In fact, he was so quiet that I even forgot that someone was sitting beside me until the end of the class."


    Lisa Turpin, who was sitting beside Su Li chuckled at that "Yeah. I had the honor of sitting beside him in both the ''History of magic'' classes and forgot that he was sitting beside me in both the classes. In fact, I didn''t realize that someone was sitting beside me in my second class until he gave his attendance to Professor Binns."


    The chatter dropped down as soon as she said that and the whole atmosphere turned somber at once as they suddenly realized that such a thing was not natural by any means and started giving contemplative looks to each other.


    "You know guys. I don''t think I remember seeing him in any of the classes I''ve attended so far." Anthony said with a quiet voice. "I mean we all know that he attends every single one of his class but I don''t think I''ve ever seen anyone talk with him in any of our classes. In fact, I don''t remember seeing him at all in any of the class."


    "Except for the Charms class in which he performed the Lumos spell and blinded everyone for a few seconds." Padma said with a chuckle but stopped just as soon when she saw that no one was laughing along with her.


    "And no one here remember what he did after he performed the charm." Lisa Turpin said. "It''s almost as if¡­"


    "Almost as if he uses his magic to hide himself from others." Padma finished and the table went silent once again.


    "You mean like a invisibility cloak." Terry asked with a bit of fear in his voice at the prospect that his supposedly deranged roommate could come and go from the room without him knowing.


    "No." Padma rejected instantly "He doesn''t use an invisibility cloak but probably use some kind of magic that makes him unnoticeable to others or something like that."


    "That would certainly explain why I didn''t notice him in any of our class." Micheal Corner said. "Do you think he is sitting somewhere in the table right now?"


    At his words everyone turned and looked around the table in order to find anything suspicious that might give away the position of the Harry Potter but couldn''t find anything.


    "I don''t think he''s here." Padma said bringing their attention back to the topic "In fact, I don''t think I''ve seen him sitting in the table since the Feast at the Sorting ceremony."


    "Me neither." Su Li said "But then where does he eat his food."


    "I heard some Hufflepuffs talking about a kitchen near their dorms." Lisa Turpin said "Do you think he eats his food there?"


    "Probably" Anthony said. "But I still don''t see why he just can''t eat in our table. It''s not like we''ll bother him or¡­" then he stopped thinking about what he was going to say. Of course they would have bothered the boy if he was there along with them. After all, it was not everyday that you met the Savior of Magical Britain.


    A fact which had not changed despite the fact that the supposed Savior was attending classes with them.


    "Yeah." Padma chuckled at his expression. "I don''t think we would have simply allowed him to eat in peace if he was sitting here along with us."


    At her words, the rest of the group chuckled uneasily as well.


    They looked at each other with some apprehension before shaking their heads and going back to their food and day to day chats. The topic of Harry Potter thrown at the back of their minds but not forgotten.


    Never Forgotten.

 Consoling Hermione and Weapon Testing

    "Why are you crying?" he asked as he sat beside Hermione who had been sobbing quietly at the end corner of the library. It was a sad picture really. Something that he would have easily missed if he had not looking for a book in this particular section of the library.


    Reading in the Room of Requirement was good and all but at the end of the day, he was a human as well and became lonely if he spent too much time by himself. So he usually went to read in the library from time to time.


    That''s what he usually did when he was back in the muggle world and he planned to continue this trend here in Hogwarts as well.


    Plus, right now a future version of him was studying in that Room so he did not have any choice in that matter either as meeting that version of him could create a paradox in time and that was not something he wanted to do. Time turners needed to be used with care.


    Hemione squeaked a little when she heard his voice and jerked up suddenly to see him sitting beside her.


    Oh yes, he had forgot to lower the intensity of his Shroud of Concealment so he must have gone unnoticed if he had not talked with her.


    The fact that she had not noticed him even when he was sitting a few inches away from her just went to show how advanced his ''Shroud of Concealment'' actually was.


    He removed his Shroud of Concealment and watched with a bit of sadness and a bit of annoyance as Hermione paled a little at the sight of his face.


    Really, he was not that bad of a person. And he had only made Draco his footstool in the train to teach the ponce a little lesson. That''s no reason to be scared of him.


    He wondered if any of her fellow Gryffindor (cough! Ron Wesley! Cough!) had told her bad things about Parselmouths or something like that.


    "It¡­ It''s nothing." she said with a stutter and wiped her tears with her sleeves before gathering her books and getting up to leave before he caught her wrists and sat her down on the chair before covering both of them with his shroud so that no one would notice his actions and think him as some kind of molester.


    "Sit down." He said with a slight frown and pulled her down to her chair facing him like he would do with a child that was being unruly. "I''m not a very talkative person but when I ask you something I expect to be answered." He said with a stare and then asked in a kind voice "Now tell me. What''s wrong. Why were you crying?"


    She fidgeted under his gaze for a moment before looking down at her shoes and bit her lips in an adorable way before she replied "It''s nothing."


    He raised an eyebrow at her words "So it''s your hobby to cry in the library?" he asked with a smirk which became even more pronounced at the glare she sent his way.


    "You look cute when you''re angry." He said and her eyes widened at once and her whole face turned scarlet before she looked at her feet once again, biting her lips in that adorable way, all signs of previous anger long gone and forgotten.


    He sighed a bit before he pulled his chair closer to her and sat in front of her so that they their faces would only be inches apart and took both her cheeks in his hands and wiped her tears with his thumbs.


    "It''s not nothing Hermione. Now tell me why you''re crying?" he asked kindly, ignoring the urge to kneed her soft cheeks. Gods she was cute.


    That little bit of kindness was all it took before she came apart and started crying. He gave her a hug and it didn''t take very long before she started telling him the whole story all the while sobbing in his arms.


    He wondered if he would have shown her the same amount of kindness if he had not known that she would grow up to become so beautiful in the future.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    He most likely would. Because her intelligence and drive to work hard was more attractive to him than a pretty face. Although he would admit that her pretty face gave her extra credits in his book.


    Her sob story was not that different than he had imagined.


    She had come to this magical world thinking that she would show her intelligence and show what an accomplished witch she was and make new friends in the school.


    But it so happened that none of the teachers aside from Minerva and Flitwick seemed remotely interested in her ability to cram knowledge in her brain and her house mates were not very pleased with her trying to show them up in the classes either.


    Harry had to admit that she did seemed a bit irritating in the classes but that was no excuse for her house mates to treat her so badly and crush her dreams and hopes like that.


    The fickle nature of these students was one of the reason why he usually stayed away from the kids even though he felt lonely from time to time. But he knew very well that someone as talented as Hermione was not easy to find and that he was very lucky to realize her true potential so early in his life.


    And he didn''t planned to let her go now that he''d found her.


    By the end of her crying/talking session, Hermione had gained her first friend in the school and Harry had gained his first¡­ well he didn''t knew how he saw Hermione. A friend? A minion? A student? All of them?


    Well, he didn''t knew her relationship with him but he knew that she was someone important to him.


    Someone who was worth being cherished.


    Someone who was worth being groomed.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    Harry looked at the Handgun lying on the table in front of him and then turned to look at the opened book lying beside the table to read the charm written on it once more before applying it on the Handgun.


    Then he took out a notepad and started reading the list written on it.


    "Charm to handle the Recoil. Done."


    "Charm to handle the Noise. Done."


    "Charm to duplicate the bullets to shoot more than one bullet at once. Under Progress."


    "Charm to duplicate the bullets in order to get an indefinite supply of bullets until the magic runs out. Not started yet."


    "Charm to increase the weight of the bullet once it leaves the chamber? Not started yet."


    "Do you think I did it right this time Selena?" he asked as he transfigured a large piece of wood into a hand which would hold the gun during the tests in case something went wrong and the gun went Boom before he went and stood at a distance from that hand.


    "How am I supposed to know such a thing stupid?" Selena snapped at him. She had not been in a very good mood ever since he hugged and soothed Hermione back in the library.


    Turned out that snakes can have a mean jealous streak and can hold their grudges when you don''t give them proper attention.


    "Oh well. Just wish me luck in that case."


    "Eat a weak old dead rotten rat." She hissed and he had to stop himself from picturing the image before he put his focus on the task and used his wand to apply the charm on the transfigured hand that would allow it to shoot the gun at the transfigured human dummy in front of the gun.


    He waited with anticipation as the hand pulled the trigger and¡­


    BOOOM!!!


    He felt his ear drums ring at the unexpectedly loud noise as the chamber of the hand gun blew apart along with the transfigured hand.


    He thanked the gods once again that he was a cautious person and always took his safety in mind when performing dangerous experiments.


    Once the smoke and dust settled down, he went forward and started repairing the handgun once again.


    It fascinated him how he could know absolutely nothing about an object and still repair it to it''s original state with a simple gesture.


    He had tried to shoot the gun when the applied the silencing and the recoil handling charm and it had worked perfectly that time so he knew for a fact that the blast must have happened because of the recently applied Gemino charm.


    He noted the reason behind the explosion on his notepad before he went ahead and tried to find the solution to the problem.


    He knew for a fact that Voldemort had sixty years on him and even if he used his time turners continuously on a daily basis till the end of his fifth year, he would be no match for the dark lord in a magical battle.


    But who said that he had to fight fairly when he could simply add enhanced muggle weapons under his belt.


    It would not make him as powerful as Voldemort, not by far. In fact, a simple degenerating shield could easily turn his bullets into fine dust before they ever reached the dark lord but it would definitely give him an advantage against unsuspecting opponents.


    So after he found out the problem behind the explosion (which happened because the bullets duplicated themselves when they were still within the chamber), he went about applying the charms all over again, in a different way this time of course.


    He didn''t expect to come up with the perfect weapon within a day.


    But sooner or later, he would create weapons that would force the wizarding world to bow down to him.


    Not that he had any ambition to see them bow down to him or such but it might prove to be a bit entertaining.

 The things I do for power

    After the Horcrux cleaning ritual, it did not take Harry very long to realize that Rowena Rawenclaw''s Diadem was a treasure on it''s own.


    Just like how the legends had told, the diadem did not make you wiser, but then again, it was never intended to do such a thing in the first place.


    Instead, it was supposed to increase your brain functions to the level where you get a memory compared to that of an eidetic memory.


    You still need to read everything properly and not just skim through the pages if you want to learn something but once you did, you would never forget it.


    After using it a few times, he did realized that using it for long times brought immense headache so he had to use it in spurts of time with a gap of a few hours in between but the headache was totally worth it in his opinion.


    With the time turners, he had a lot of time in his hands. Time that he spent in either the library, the room of requirement of some other empty room adding charms on the handgun to make it an even deadlier weapon.


    After all, he would have to fight a troll in the near future and and that was a fact that he had not forgotten even now.


    And as smart and powerful as he was, even he was not stupid enough to think that his hexes and curses would have much effect on a mountain troll whose skin is said to be so highly resistant that even most adult wizards and witches are not able capable of killing it.


    Not that he would ever try to charge on a mountain troll from the front like that anyway. There was a reason he was not in the Gryffindor house.


    So it would be best for him if he completed his handgun project as soon as possible.


    And he would only work if he had a lot of knowledge about charms and it''s theory. A  problem that he was able to solve with his time turners and the diadem.


    He still didn''t understand how someone could be so foolish as to discard such a treasure and make it into a horcrux instead of truly using it


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Was Voldemort really that blind that he didn''t see the usefulness of the diadem. Or was there some other reason behind him not using the diadem.


    Is it possible that he hated the four founders for some reason or another. Is that why he took their treasures and instead of putting them to good use, he defiled them by turning them into a horcrux instead.


    Or maybe after making the first horcrux, he started turning into an idiot so as to treat the founder''s artifacts as trash.


    Well as they say, one man''s trash is another man''s treasure.


    And the Diadem was a treasure if he ever saw one in his life.


    He was sure that he would put the diadem to good use in the coming future.


    With that thought, he put the diadem on his head and started reading ''Advanced Charms Theory'' in the quietness of the Room of Requirement.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "You know, you really should pay more attention in the class." Hermione said in her bossy attitude and Harry wondered once again how long he''ll be able to tolerate her I-know-better-than-you attitude because by now it was seriously starting to grate on his nerves.


    But then again, he had chosen to sit with her in all their class together so he had to suffer the consequences as well.


    Maybe once he saves the girl from the mountain troll she''ll change her attitude and be more subservient to him.


    Most likely not. Since her bossy attitude remained in the movies even when Ron and Harry saved her. But then again, it was part their fault that she was in danger in the first place plus they were never really as smart or as studious as her so her bossy attitude was kinda explainable to them.


    But still, he had hearing her go on and on about the importance of all their classes for some time and that was seriously starting to grate on his nerves by now.


    "And tell me." He said and turned to face her for the first time in their classes with a grim face "Why should I be paying so much attention to Binns instead of reading something much more important."


    "But¡­ there''s nothing more important than the course work and if you don''t get good marks then you won''t get a good job in the future. Plus, Binns is a teacher so it''s obvious that we should listen to him." Hermione said in a single breath and Harry held the urge to pinch his nose and held his irritation.


    "First of all Hermione, Binns is not a very good teacher."


    "But¡­"


    "No but. And for once in your life listen to me. No truly¡­ listen. If you take a poll of all the students and ask them if Binns is a good teacher or not, then how many students do you think will say that Binns was a good teacher."


    "But¡­ he''s a teacher."


    "Yes. He''s a teacher. Not a god. Just because he''s an authority figure does not make his perfect Hermione."


    "But¡­ he¡­" for the first time since the school started, Harry had the privilege to look at her being confused and he wondered if even her parents had ever seen her looking like that.


    "Hermione. Sit down for a moment and think about it. If Professor Binns was not a teacher and simply a upper class student who was tutoring you for the end year exams, then would you truly want to learn from him. Don''t think of him as an authority figure and tell me if you''d still want to learn from him."


    That got Hermione thinking and he wondered if her teacher worship will decrease a little because of this or if he was just wasting his time once again.


    She would most likely not changer her perception in a single day but he was sure that it would be worth it in the long run.


    At least he hoped so.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    There are times in life when you have to do something especially stupid and hope that you won''t die as a result of your stupidity.


    And as Harry stood in front of the sink in the haunted girls'' bathroom at midnight, he realized that this was one such moment for him. And he might succeed in his venture or he might fail.


    He won''t know until he tried.


    With that in mind, he carried his trunk, which was filled with four cows kept in stasis and jumped inside the dirty slide with the hope that the basilisk with be more inclined to talk with him after having it''s fill.


    The things he does for power.

 How to deal with Pests

    Harry looked at the Basilisk venom he had managed to procure and took a deep breath. Talking with the Besalla (yes, that''s the name that Salazar gave her) had been an¡­ experience.


    Thankfully being 1000 years old had given her enough patience to listen to him without first trying to eat him and the cows he gave her went a long way toward putting him in her good books.


    Add to the fact that he was one of the few people who were ever able to talk with her and he faced no problems in making the Besalla his friend. And after that, taking some of her venom was an easy and simple thing.


    Harry looked at the silver mirror had was oozing a dark aura and had been completely tainted by the Broken soul of Voldemort and removed the cork from the vial before dropping a few drops of venom on top of the silver mirror which instantly reacted with the new surface and melted right through the mirror.


    A shrill filled with terror came from the mirror and echoed throughout the entire room as it started melting under the basilisk venom and it wasn''t long before a ghostly figure rose from the melted remains of the silver mirror and dispersed into thin air.


    "Is it done?" Selena asked with a bit of tremor in her voice as she showed her face from under his clothes where she had hidden while he was dealing with the horcrux.


    Since she could see and feel auras far more clearly than him, the dark magic inside the horcrux affected her far worse than it did him so he made sure to keep her safe from it.


    "Yes Selena. It''s done. Now just 6 more to go along with the original essence of Voldemort and then I would be free from the prophesy, if it ever applied to me in the first place." With that thought, he collected the melted remains of silver mirror and put them inside a wooden box before throwing it along with the other broken and damaged furniture in the Room of Hidden Things before he left the room.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Seriously Harry. Why don''t you ever read the course book? If you did then you would be able to answer some of the questions that our Professors ask." He heard her voice and raised up head in time to see her sit in front of him with a huff before she threw down a bunch of large books in front of her.


    Then he went back to reading the book on Human Transfiguration that was published some 400 years ago. A pity that the subject was currently illegal to perform according to the Ministry.


    He found the book lying in The Room of Hidden things and felt rather interested in the subject which was why he was reading the ot right now.


    Of course, he had charmed the cover to look like an Advanced Transfiguration book just like how he charmed the Diadem to remain invisible to anyone else.


    Just because he was unafraid of the ministry didn''t meant that he would needlessly antagonize them.


    Milenda Servathel, the author of the book had written about all the things that could go wrong when performing human transfiguration and had warned to never make the transfigurations permanent no matter what in case something goes wrong.


    He had learned more about transfiguration after reading this one book than he had after reading all the other course books provided by Hogwarts in that subject. Which just goes to show how far the level of Hogwarts has fallen.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Or maybe the Headmasters in Hogwarts just wanted to keep the children safe.


    He felt that he should not be judging the ministry and the Hogwarts staff without the appropriate facts. Maybe Human transfiguration was just a very dangerous subject and was discontinued and then restricted in order to keep the kids safe but he had a feeling that there was more to it than that.


    He went through pages and pages of text in rapid succession, remembering and understanding everything about human transfiguration before he heard someone coming toward him and kept the book down in order to greet the unwelcome guests.


    "Potter." Malfoy drawled with no small amount of venom in his words and Harry felt the urge to roll his eyes and the childish delinquent in front of him.


    "So this is where you have been hiding all this time. Along with your flithy mudblood pet." He said and the three goons behind him laughed like it the funniest joke in the world while Harry looked at him with disinterest.


    "You''re being a bother Draco." He said and sat down on his seat. "Leave, before I make you wear another princess dress."


    Draco''s face contorted at once as those words left Harry''s mouth and he took a step forward toward him. "So you admit that it was you. It really was you wasn''t it. You think you were so clever with that little trick of yours. Wait until I tell my¡­"


    "What do you want Draco?" Hermione asked as she gave an annoyed look to the four Slytherins.


    "Nothing with you, you filthy mudblood." He said and turned to Harry who had now closed his eyes in annoyance and was pinching his nose in irritation.


    "You know Draco" Harry said and stood up from his seat to face the ponce "You''re like an annoying pest that is bent on making a nuisance out of itself. Do you know what we with pests like those?" he asked quietly and Draco must have seen something in his eyes for he suddenly took a step back and looked more scared than anything else.


    "Pott¡­" before Draco could say anything else Harry changed the back of his hand into iron and backhanded Draco who threw up blood and a few teeth before falling to the ground, unconscious.


    Draco''s fall had brought attention to their table and now everybody was looking at the unconscious Malfoy scion with no small amount of shock.


    His three goons, Crabbe, Goyle and someone else looked at the scene with some confusion, not being able to understand what happened before they came back to their senses and moved toward him but they fell to the ground as three silent stunners hit them before they could even take their first step.


    "Harry. What have you done?" Hermione almost shrieked at the scene and Harry grimaced at her high pitched tone but he didn''t have to answer her as he heard footsteps coming toward him soon enough.


    Four students who had watched this scene belonged to Slytherin and had decided to intervene on behalf of Malfoy.


    "Potter. What have you done?" A tall guy, whom Harry remembered from the movie as Markus Flint came forward with a snarl and Harry quickly realized that there was no way this situation was going to be solved with Diplomacy now. But then again, he was never really that good at Diplomacy either.


    "You will not get away with this Potter." Another boy said and took out his wand along with the other and that was when Harry decided that he would rather deal with the consequences then be hexed by these morons and lashed out with a powerful banishing charm that struck the four Slytherins who flew back a few meters and collided with a bookshelf, taking the books and the shelf with them to the ground and creating enough noise to wake up the dead.


    "Oh my god Harry. What have you done?" Hermione asked fearfully from behind him and he sighed once again at the destruction in front of him.


    There was no way Madam Pince was going to allow him entry to the Library after this. Which meant that he would have to use his Shroud of Concealment whenever he came here.


    Such a bother.


    "Sit down." He said to Hermione with an authoritative voice which had the instant effect of calming her as she sat down on her chair and looked at him to tell her what to do.


    "You''ve done nothing wrong and you were not involved in this confrontation either." He said and saw Madam Pince coming toward him with a few older students. "Go back to your studies and let me handle this." He said and kept the ''Human Transfiguration'' book inside his limitless purse and turned to face Madam Pince with a bored expression.


    This was going to be a long day.

 False confessions and hugs

    "He blatantly attacked my students in broad daylight. We can''t let him get away with this otherwise it will set up a bad precedent and everyone will start attacking each other in order to solve their little problems." Snape said in a voice louder than Harry had ever heard before and he wondered if Snape really wanted to punish him or if he was trying to protect him someway even now.


    In a way, he had to maintain his charade in front of other people so that when Voldemort returns, he would not doubt Snape''s loyalty. But at the same time, Harry knew that Snape never really liked him very much because he looked similar to James Potter so he could never be sure about all this.


    "Now now Severus. There''s no need to be so hostile about the incident." Dumbledore said with a calm expression while Harry observed the room with a bored expression and wondered if he could take out the Gryffindor sword from the Sorting hat as well. Probably not.


    He was never the foolish brave kind of guy like the original Harry.


    "Hostile? He attacked eight students of my house and sent them to infirmary."


    "With only minor injuries to Mr Draco Malfoy with the rest of the students being merely stunned. There is no need to escalate this simple child brawl Severus." Dumbledore said with a kind smile in a tone that clearly indicated that he knew better than anyone else.


    Had he not seen the movies, had he not known the kind of manipulator that Albus Dumbledore was.


    Then there was the fact that he had been setting up the original Harry Potter to die all this while as well. If he had not already known all this, then he would have probably fallen for his grandfatherly attitude as well. But as it was, he knew that Albus might be a good person but his plans for Harry were anything but good.


    "Still Headmaster, you can''t let him go away scot free like this." Severus pleaded and at last Albus turned his focus on Harry who was now looking at the proceedings with a bored expression.


    "Harry my boy." Albus said with a gentle and caring smile "Can you tell me what happened in the library."


    "Sure Headmaster." He said with a calm expression while making sure to not look Albus in the eye. Doing so would be a stupid mistake considering how Albus Dumbledore was amongst the few master Legilimens in Magical Britain.


    "But before I do, I am curious if you support the idea of purebloods being superior to muggleborns and halfbloods." He asked curiously to which Dumbledore gave another grandfatherly smile.


    "No my boy. Why would you think so?"


    "Because I''ve often heard Draco calling other students in my class names such a filthy mudblood, blood traitors and dirty halfblood and I''ve never seen any teacher punish him for that. In fact, I don''t think I''ve ever seen him any teacher reprimand him for that either so I was wondering if you or the Staff of Hogwarts condone such prejudice and discrimination."


    Dumbledore''s smile fell at once and suddenly it looked like he had aged a few decades of so.


    "No Harry. I''ve not heard any such reports regarding Mr Draco Malfoy''s behaviour." He said in a sad voice "But I''ll be sure to tell my staff to curb such behaviour in the future."


    At Harry''s nod, he continued "Now, can you tell me what happened at the library Harry."


    "It was not much of a story but if you insist."


    After that, he went ahead and started explaining that he hit Draco because he was calling Hermione a filthy halfblood. How he simply stunned Crabbe, Goyle and the third Slytherin because they were coming to attack him and the fact that he banished the four older Slytherins because they ganged up on him and he felt threatened by them.


    By the end of the explanation, Dumbledore merely looked sad and let him go without any house point deduction or detention.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Before leaving, Harry felt the urge to ask for the Invisibility Cloak, which was an heirloom that belonged to House Potter but refrained from doing so.


    His Shroud of Concealment worked pretty much like an Invisibility Cloak, even better in some cases and he didn''t want to make Albus suspicious about him by knowing about things that could not have possibly known so with a last look at the Headmaster''s office, he left.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Oh Harry." And with that, he found himself being hugged by Hermione who was sitting in the courtyard near the Greenhouses.


    Harry hesitated for a moment before he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back as well.


    He liked this feeling. No one has ever hugged him as far as he could remember.


    He had no such recollections from his previous life and Aunt Petunia or Uncle Dursley would never hug the ''Freak'' in their house.


    He liked this feeling a lot.


    He hugged her back and put his head on her shoulder and took in the fragrance coming from her hair.


    "You smell very good." He murmured in her ears softly and felt her stiffen under his arms before she dropped her arms from around him and stepped back, her face flushed red.


    He felt a bit sad at losing the hug but composed himself quickly before she could see this moment of weakness.


    "You know that was the first hug I''ve ever received in my life as far as I could remember." He said softly and her eyes widened at those words.


    "What? What do you mean by that?" She asked with a concerned look in her eyes.


    He thought for a moment before he took her soft hands and led her to one of the abandoned classroom.


    "What are we doing here Harry?" she asked in confusion and he gave her a look which said that he would explain everything now before he sat her on a empty chair and stood in front of her.


    "You already know that my parents died when I was a baby, right?" He said and at her nod he continued.


    "What most people don''t know is that after my parents death I was sent to live with my muggle relatives from my mother''s side." At her nod he continued "And what almost no one knows about is that my relatives¡­ they were not very good people."


    She looked like she was about to say something. Probably chastise him about talking bad about his relatives but he held up his hands and silenced her.


    "Listen to the whole story before you judge me and say something that you''ll regret." He said with a bit of steel in his words and she gave a sheepish look before nodding at him to continue.


    "Most muggle parents are a bit concerned when they see accidental magic. Some of the are those who take it in stride and go along with it, considering it a gift from the heavens. Some on the other hand, take it the wrong way and decide to hate the child and blame all that is wrong in their life at the child."


    "My muggle relatives were on that end of the scale." He explained and her eyes widened a bit at that news and he continued.


    "Until I was 5 years old, I used to think that my name was a Freak." He said, remembering the memories he had received from the original Harry when he inherited this body. "It wasn''t until I was sent to school that I realized that my name was actually Harry Potter and my ''guardians'' called me freak because a lot of accidental magic happened around me as a child." He explained.


    "My aunt¡­ she didn''t take it very well because she had some deep hatred toward the magical world so she taught me how to make food, tend to the garden and clean the house at a very young age. And by very young age, I mean very young age."


    "But my uncle, he was, worse." At this point his breath hitched for some reason and he suddenly realized that he had never really planned to tell his story to anyone.


    In fact, this was not his story either. He had only inherited the memories from this body when his soul entered it. It didn''t meant that he had actually gone through those moments.


    But still, he felt a bit sad and forlorn whenever he thought about the things that the original Harry went through.


    He wondered why that was because he was normally not an emotional person.


    Hermione nodded at him to continue and with her supportive gesture, he continued "My uncle, he is spending 15 year time in jail for child abuse and domestic violence."


    He then thought about telling her about what the original Harry Potter had suffered but then his thoughts went elsewhere and he stood up and removed his robes from his body.


    "Harry. What are you doing?" Hermione asked in a scandalized manner and looked away before he removed his shirt, her face flashing pink once again and he smiled sadly at that.


    "Look at me Hermione." He said softly and she slowly turned her head to look at his naked chest and her face turned beet red at that before her eyes fell on the scars that he''d received from his uncle at which point all colour drained from her face at once.


    "Harry. Oh my god." She said as a immensely sad look crossed her face and she took a step forward to look at his scars and she raised a hand to touch his scars but he stopped her and wore his shirt once again.


    "People in the wizarding world believe that I lived in some kind of large castle with a loving family, going on adventure from time to time, slaying ghouls and hags in my wake." He said with a chuckle and watched with sadness as tears formed into Hermione''s eyes "The truth is not so grand. Is it?" he asked and she jumped up and hugged him tightly once again.


    He smiled a bit and wrapped his arms around her waist as well before lifting her off the ground and inhaling her fragrance.


    "That was the second hug I''ve ever received in my life." He said softly with a sad smile and realized that this event had already changed something within him and that their relationship would never be the same after today.

 Rumors in Hogwarts

    "Did you hear what happened in the library today?" Lavender Brown.


    "No. What happened?" Parvati asked as she kept the book down in order to listen to Lavender who was usually the biggest source of juicy news and rumors going around in Hogwarts.


    "Well hear this," Lavender said and waited until all the girls in the common were paying attention to her before she continued "Harry Potter was attacked by Draco Malfoy and a dozen other Slytherins today in the library."


    A collective gasps went through the common room and Lavender once again basked in their undivided attention for a moment.


    "What happened then?" Parvati asked.


    "Why would Draco attack the Harry Potter?" Kellah asked from behind Parvati.


    Ron Wesley snorted at that. "He''s a evil prat that''s why. Just like all the other snakes. I bet they wanted the glory of beating the great Harry Potter." He spat with some derision and the girls rolled their eyes at his stupid hatred of all things Slytherin and his unreasonable scorn for the Boy-who-lived simply because he was not sorted into Gryffindor.


    "So what happened to the phantom-boy-who-lived?" Fay Dunbar asked.


    "Phantom-boy-who-lived?" Parvati asked with confusion.


    Fay shrugged at her inquiry "I dunno but that''s what his housemates are calling him. Apparently none of them had been able to even talk with him so far or seen him in the common room."


    "Really?" Semus Finnegan asked from the other side of the room.


    "That''s what those Claws are saying." Fay said while Parvati looked at Lavender with irritation "We''re getting out of topic. Tell us what happened to Harry Potter then. And why did the Slytherins attacked him in the first place."


    At that point, a sly look crossed Lavender''s face and she smiled at the girl "You know the time when the second years found Draco Malfoy stuck on the wall with a Princess dress."


    "Who doesn''t know about that?" Fay said with a smile with the rest of the students laughed at that.


    "Yes well, rumors say that it was Harry Potter who did that to Malfoy and his goons." Lavender said in a conspiratorial tone.


    "Oh! That would explain why Draco Malfoy would try to attack Harry Potter then. But you''ve still not told us what happened when those Slytherins attacked him."


    "Leave it to the Slimy gits to gang up on a single person." Ron snorted from the other side of the common room and the girls rolled their eyes once again.


    "Did they hurt him too bad?" Parvati asked.


    "What are you talking about?" Semus asked "He''s Harry Potter. Not some normal guy. I bet he beat the crap out of those Slimy snakes."


    "Seriously Semus." Parvati said with a huff "He may be the boy-who-lived but at the end of the day, he''s just a boy like all of us. Or don''t tell me that you actually believe those children books written about him."


    "Well that''s where the story actually become interesting." Lavender said with a barely concealed smile as she became the center of attention once again.


    "Tell us, what happened." Fay asked with excitement.


    "Well, Draco Malfoy and his goons along with Markus Flint, the Slytherin Quidditch caption and their whole team attacked Harry Potter" she said and paused for suspense before continuing "And were all beaten black and blue by him and then sent to the Infirmary."


    "No way." Parvati asked with huge eyes while the rest of the common room broke into commotion at once.


    "How did he do it?" Semus asked once the commotion had subsided.


    "I don''t know what exactly happened but I''ve heard that a whole bunch of books shelves were destroyed in their fight and that Draco Malfoy was struck so hard that he apparently lost a few teeth and lost his consciousness immediately."


    "Good for him." Ron shouted and the whole common room cheered once again simply for the fact that Slytherins, there universal enemies, suffered defeat and for the fact that no one in the Gryffindor house really liked Draco Malfoy.


    "What happened afterwards?" Parvati asked with anticipation. "Was Harry Potter injured in the fight as well?"


    "And that''s an even bigger surprise." Lavender said with a sly smile "He didn''t even received a single scratch throughout the whole fight. Though I heard that Madam Pince came and took him to Headmaster after that. And no one has seen him ever since then."


    With that the whole common room devolved into conversations once again as the first years wondered what would happen to the elusive Harry Potter once he met the Headmaster and Lavender Brown preened under the attention of anyone who wanted to hear the whole story once again.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Severus my boy, would you like some lemon drops?" Headmaster Albus Dumbledore asked and Severus held the urge the scowl. Well¡­ scowl harder in his case.


    He always hated it when Dumbledore called him a boy but it wasn''t like he was in a position to argue with the Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump of Magical Britain. So he just held his tongue and ignored those words with a shake of his head to denote that ''no, he would not be eating any Lemon Drops. Ever.''


    "Alas. So few of us truly appreciate a good sweet after a long and tiring day." The old monster said in a grandfatherly tone. Yes, he knew that Albus was a monster on his own. A true Powerhouse. The dark lord and his cronies might call Albus a senile old fool and a blood traitor all they liked but even they were not stupid enough to attack Hogwarts under his supervision.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    He walked up and sat the room beside Irma Pince who he could tolerate better than most since she was a Slytherin and since she usually had nothing much to say in these meetings.


    He looked around at the other teachers in the room and his gaze fell on Quirinus Quirrel who looked at the him as well and then did the best imitation of a frightened mouse under the gaze of a cat. Why Headmaster Dumbledore ever hired that stuttering fool was beyond his comprehension but he could tell that there was something wrong about Quirrel. Something dark which made him a bit wary of the stuttering man.


    He had no proof of course. Just a simple feeling that there was something wrong. But in his profession of a double agent he had learnt to listen to his intuition above all else. Something which had served his well over the years.


    "Now that Severus is here as well." Dumbledore said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "We can start the weekly staff meeting." He said with that grandfatherly smile that put everyone at ease. Severus wondered how long it took the headmaster to master that smile to the point that it looked so genuine. Because of course, Dumbledore might look kind, innocent and grandfatherly on the outside but no on truly remains those things after going through two wars.


    He knew because he had participated in one of those wars himself.


    War always had a habit of changing people and bringing the worst out of them. And even someone as powerful as Headmaster Dumbledore was not impervious to those changes.


    Which was why there was now a Cerberus in the third floor in a school full of students.


    He watched patiently as the teachers went about giving their usual reports to Dumbledore about their subjects and the exceptional students.


    The Twin Wesleys were mentioned a few times and he wondered if he scowled harder at that. He never really liked bullies and that''s what those two were. Bullies. They might hide it under the disguise of being a prankster but he knew what they truly were. He knew about it all from his own experiences.


    How everyone else only saw James Potter, Sirius Black and their two friends as simple pranksters who only performed pranks for a good laugh or two. And how they made his life a living hell in his time in Hogwarts.


    How they took everything from him. Including his precious Lily¡­


    No. Don''t go there. Those memories are too painful.


    Thankfully, he was once again brought out of his thoughts and this time by none other than Madam Pince.


    That''s unusual.


    But after hearing about what she was complaining about, it didn''t take long for him to join her camp.


    Her camp, which had a rather simple motto.


    Ban the Potter Brat from ever taking a step inside the Library and give him the harshest of punishments so that he may learn from his mistakes.


    He knew of course, that Dumbledore would not punish his golden boy but he knew... He knew the truth behind the mask of the golden boy.


    The boy was just like his father.


    He had already heard about the rumors that said that the Potter Brat had already once attacked his godson, Draco Malfoy and left him stuck on a wall with some Girly dress.


    He himself could remember such a thing happening to him in his school years. The embarrassment. The helplessness. The anger.


    He fought the hardest for the Potter brat to gain a harsh punishment. Even expelling him from the school won''t be good enough in his eyes.


    Of course, Minerva and Flitwick quickly sided against him in order to support the golden boy and claimed that he simply hated the boy because of his father.


    Those blind people.


    How could they not see that if they let him get away with it then he would just do it all over again.


    But in the end Headmaster once again supported the bullies and sided with his golden brat and gave him the simple punishment of Banning him from the Library for a month.


    Severus scowled at that but he knew when to accept a defeat. He would just have be more strict with that brat in his own class.


    "Thank you for your time." Albus said with a flourish and stood up from his chair, the rest of the staff standing up along with him "It does good for my old heart to know how wonderfully the children are performing in their classes."


    "Now I know that you all have better things to do then keep company to an old man like me. Thanks for your time." He said with a grandfatherly smile and the rest of the staff saw for what it was, a subtle and nice way of telling them to get the fuck out of his office. And they did.


    Once the staff had left, only he, Flitwick, Minerva and Sprout remained. It was an informal private meeting between the headmaster and the four head of houses of sort that always took place after the staff meeting. One where the four staff members who interacted with the students on a personal level could bring more news to the headmaster about students of interests.


    Students like Harry Potter.


    Minerva had nothing to say about the boy as she had almost no recollection of the boy ever being in her class. Not that Harry Potter had not attended her classes. That he did. But the boy always sat in the last seat at the corner and stayed silent throughout the class, which was the reason why she was able to miss his presence.


    Permona had similarly nothing new to say about the Potter brat though she went to great length talking about Neville Longbottom of all people. Severus barely held a snort as the plump woman described how much of a prodigy Neville was in Herbology.


    Since the boy was just as equally prodigious in blowing up cauldrons.


    Then his turn came and just like always, he held his thoughts to his own self telling them that there were no exceptional students in his class, which was true in a way.


    Even if there were, he would never sell out his snakes and bring them to the light. Few cunning people ever liked to maneuver in the light. No, that stage was better left off for the foolish lions.


    And last but not the least, it was time for the Head of House Ravenclaw to lay down his cards and what the diminutive man next said shocked everyone present in the office by no small amount.


    A 1st year student capable of performing charms that a 6th year students would find difficult to perform.


    If Severus had not known the Flitwick for almost 20 years of life, then he would have directly accused the man of being a liar and a braggart but he knew the man too well and knew that he would not concoct such a half baked lie. Moreover, he had no reason nor motivation to lie to the headmaster for no apparent reason.


    Severus was not at all shocked when Headmaster Albus Dumbledore admitted that even he was not as good in his favorite subject, transfiguration, when he was a student in Hogwarts.


    Of course he was not.


    What kind of monster was capable of performing a 6th year charm in his 1st year.


    Then Flitwick shocked them once again by telling them that this prodigious boy was none other than the great Harry Potter.


    Snape once again held his tongue at that to cry out at the unfairness of it all.


    It seemed like Potter men always had all the luck in the world.


    Regardless, this was big news and after that revelation about the Potter brat, the room held a solemn air as everyone thought about the implication behind such a news.


    If it was true, which he believed to be the case, then they possibly had a once in a century, no scratch that, once in a millennium genius in their hands who had the habit of being a recluse and had made no friends so far.


    After some more small talk, which no one was particularly interested in, the headmaster told them to keep a news a secret, even from the other staff members and allowed them to leave to their respective rooms.


    As he left to his own office in the dungeons, Severus thought about the implications of having such a genius on their hands and how the Dark Lord would react to it once he came to know about the boy''s talents.


    And as much as Severus disliked the boy, he knew that he would do his best to hide the boy''s talent from the dark lord as well.


    For as long as he could.


    For Lily.

 Hug Machine

    Over the last month, Harry had spent considerable amount of time on the Handgun Project which finally bore success in the form of a sleek and deadly handgun filled with charms. Charms that would turn it into the deadliest gun in the world.


    But he was still not fully satisfied. He had charmed the handgun numerous times but most of those charms were only temporary. And even those that were permanent would only last as long as his magic did after which they''ll fade in thin air, leaving behind a normal handgun which would be mostly useless against things like Trolls, Basilisk, Acromantula, Dementors, Giants, etc.


    For his magic to last, he needed to carve runes into the handgun and he would admit before anyone else that he was totally ignorant about runes.


    But just like with Transfiguration and Charms, the Room of Hidden things was filled with books and tomes regarding the Ancient Runes and the necessary tools that were needed to carve them on a surface. And he would have gladly used them if not for the fact that Runes is a highly dangerous subject and can lead to very large explosions if any of the runes were carved on the wrong way.


    So in a sense, it was far more dangerous than even Human Transfiguration.


    And yet they still teach Ancient Runes but not Human Transfiguration.


    Hypocrites.


    But still, the danger was real this time and he not stupid so instead of plowing through on his own like he did with other subjects, he instead chose to stop and decided to ask Bathsheda Babbling, the Ancient Runes teacher in Hogwarts.


    Though on second thought, what kind of parent names their child Bathsheda Babbling.


    Well, there are worse names in the world. Her parents could have named her Bobby. And wouldn''t that be a name. Bobby Babbling.


    Or his parent could have named him Pitter.


    Pitter Potter. Pitter Potter.


    He tore himself out of his musings and thought about the other task in front of himself right now. The task of creating a Trunk large enough to carry a library that would be 5 times larger than the Hogwarts library.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Upon searching, he found that the Room of Hidden things was filled with Trunks with expansion charms. But most of them were standard sized trunks and even those that were created with private commission were far smaller than what he needed so he knew that this time, he would have to create a trunk of his own.


    Which meant learning the expansion charm and learning how to do it well. Plus he would have to carve even more runes on the trunk to make the changes permanent and then add a wardstone just to be extra secure. So learning runes was an inevitability at this point.


    It needn''t be said that he would buy and use the best quality wardsone material for his first space expansion project. It was not like he was lacking in galleons. His trust vault and his bank robbery and other thefts had already seen to his needs and right now he was probably the wealthiest child in Magical Britain.


    But even if all his wealth somehow vanish into thin air, he was not worried because he could always ask Besalla to give him some of her Basilisk Venom and sell it at a high rate in the Knockturn alley. She was usually in a good mood when she finished feeding on a cow and would not mind parting with some of her venom if he asked her nicely.


    Or he just go and rob a bank once again.


    But until then, he would take all the books related to charms from the room of Hidden things and keep it in the original trunk that held a library room of it''s own. He had to admit that the more he learnt about charms, the more he liked the subject.


    Transfiguration was his second favorite subject at the moment and Defense in dark arts being the third favorite one.


    Of course, all this could easily change in the future if he found something else that caught his fancy. But for now, he knew that he was head over heels for Charms.


    While he was reading one of the books on Expansion charms, he also found that Newt Scamander, the bloke who wrote the book called ''Fantastic Beasts and where to find them'' had built such a large space inside his suitcase that he could easily keep thousands of species of endangered animals, birds and plants inside it.


    So in hindsight, his dream of creating a library that was five times larger than the Hogwarts'' library was really not that big of an ambition.


    Well, all those things would come later. He realized that reading continuously for the past few hours with the help of the Diadem had tired him out by quite a bit and he was in no position to study anymore.


    Plus, he was feeling lonely and he needed some fresh air, so after one last look at the Marauders'' map to make sure that there was no one in the near vicinity of the door, he left the Room of Requirement and watched it''s door fade in the wall.


    The Room of Requirement was a treasure on it''s own. A treasure that he was not willing to share with anyone else. Well maybe he would share it with Hermione sometime in the future. She was kinda like a friend so he was willing to do this much for her. And she gave him hugs so there was that.


    With those thoughts, he left the corridor in search for his hug machine.

 Damsel in Distress

    Hermione was currently dealing with the predicament of having girl friends who kept bothering her about Harry Potter, who was probably the first true friend she''d made in her entire life and someone who was far different then what the books and newspaper wrote about him.


    But still, she doubted that she could tell her friends that Harry Potter was an abused child and that he didn''t like people as a general rule.


    The problem was that somehow the news that she was with Harry when he fought the Slytherins had leaked out. And now she had the unfortunate task of dealing with her class and house mates who bothered her at every turn in order to get to know more about the mysterious Harry Potter.


    Though to say the truth, it was not like she knew a lot about him either. She just knew that he had been abused as a child by his relatives which was the reason why he was not comfortable with other people but that didn''t explain his knowledge about charms and transfiguration.


    It was hard for her to accept the fact that he was in fact, smarter than her in those subjects since she had always prided herself in being the number one in all of her classes and it was a big blow to her pride when she realized that Harry was far more knowledgeable in those subjects than her and that the only reason why she was the number one in her class was because he didn''t bother with those classes.


    But still, he was her friend and she was not going to tell the girls about him. Especially when all they see in him is The Boy-who-lived and not the real Harry Potter.


    But as it usually happened with her. What she wanted from her life and what she got from life were two totally different things.


    Which was why she was sitting in the common room and trying to complete her homework while being constantly harassed by Lavender Brown and Parvati Patel.


    "Do you know what he likes to eat. Or his favorite color?" Lavender asked excitedly and Hermione wished for the nth time that they would simply leave her alone.


    She was alright with the fact that they didn''t want to be her friend but to know that they were only talking with her because of Harry hurt her pride even more and filled her with sadness.


    "I don''t know." She said with gritted teeth trying not to let the irritation show in her face "Look, you might think that me and him are best friends because we were sitting together but that''s just not true. I was just there when he fought with Draco and the other Slytherins and that''s it. I don''t really know him any more than you do."


    "Granger. If you don''t want to tell the truth then you could just say so. You don''t have to elaborate such lies you know." Parvati huffed and left, Lavender only a step behind her with a scathing remark on her lips "Yea. I don''t know what he sees in the know-it-all."


    And with that, both the girls were gone, leaving her behind on the verge of tears. But she wouldn''t cry. She wouldn''t let them see that they''d won. That they''d hurt her. She wouldn''t let them have that satisfaction.


    But try as she might, their words had cut her deeply and there was only so much bullying she could take on her own. So knowing her limit and knowing that she would start sobbing any minute now, she decided to go to the bathroom to cry when a person suddenly appeared in front of her before she could react, she was enveloped in a tight warm hug by that person whom she soon realized was her new friend Harry Potter.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    It didn''t take long after she was hugged that she let go of her emotions and started openly crying in his arms. Feeling relieved at being hugged by a friend and horrified that she would dirty his robes and that he would leave her because of that.


    But all her thoughts were put to rest as he hugged her firmly as she cried and started soothing her instead. And she realized with some morbid fascination that she had not been soothed like this in a very long time. Mostly because of the fact that she hadn''t openly cried in front of her mom and dad in a very long time.


    They were already too worried about her lack of friends and she didn''t wanted to worry them even more by letting them know that she was being bullied in the school by her peers.


    Crying while being hugged like this made her feel safe. Safer than she had in a long time. Even though she felt a bit embarrassed about the whole situation.


    It was then that she suddenly remembered that they were still in the Gryffindor common room and she look around wildly for the commotion that might have occurred because of Harry''s presence and their close proximity but to her surprise, everyone in the common room was avoiding them and acting like they didn''t exist.


    "I call it the shroud of Concealment." She heard Harry murmur in her ears and felt a tingle go through her spine at his soft voice "It''s a passive ability of mine that keeps attention off of me." Then he broke the long hug leaving Hermione feeling a bit empty all of a sudden.


    "Now. Why were you crying. Did those girls said something mean to you?" he asked as he looked in her eyes and years of conditioning took over at once and she shook her head dramatically before he held both her cheeks and narrowed his eyes at her, looking more intimidating that she ever remembered him being and she was suddenly reminded of the fact that he had dealt with a few 7th year Slytherins like they were unruly children and gulped at that thought.


    "The truth now Hermione." He said and then added a bit softly "Were those girls being mean to you?"


    She wilted under his intense gaze and nodded her head, wondering what he''ll do with that news before he took her hand and pulled her toward the door and she suddenly realized something that she''d missed all this while.


    "Wait! How did you enter the Gryffindor common room in the first?" she asked and he slowly turned to her before giving her a toothy smirk that looked quite out of place in his usually blank face.


    "I used imperius curse of the Fat Lady and forced her to open the door for me." He said and her eyes went wide with shock.


    "W¡­ what?" she almost shouted but then realized where they were and lowered her voice though the urgency in her voice remained "Why would you? You know that it''s illegal to perform the curse and you could be sent directly to Azkaban for performing that spell."


    But instead of looking concerned, like her, he simply gave her a cheeky smile "Relax Hermione. No one saw me performing the curse and you''re the only person to know so I''m perfectly safe." He said with a smile that only went to irritate her even more.


    Couldn''t he see how serious this whole thing was.


    "Harry." She whispered with urgency before clutching his hands tightly to stop him from walking and turned him so that they would be face to face and said "Please promise me that you won''t use that curse. Ever again. Please." She almost begged but instead of getting serious, he suddenly stopped smirking and then smiling kindly at her instead.


    "I didn''t use the Imperius Curse Hermione. I was just saying that to take your mind of other things. In truth, I followed one of the Gryffindor boy inside under the Shroud of Concealment nothing more." He said with a smile and Hermione suddenly felt the urge to shout at him for making a fool out of her and rant at him for making such a stupid joke but his kind smile melted all the anger out of her and she realized that it would be pointless to try and get angry at him right now so she simply huffed and turned away from him but try as she might, the corner of her lips turned upward regardless as she realized that it was the first time anyone has joked with her in such a way in Hogwarts.


    It felt nice.


    Then he took her hands in his firm grip and took her out of the common room and she realized that she had not felt so good in a long time.

 A talk with Minerva

    "What do you mean you can''t do anything until you''ve definite proof?" he asked softly to the foolish old woman "One of your student is getting bullied and all you care about is the proper procedure instead of helping her. What kind of head of house are you?"


    Minerva looked miffed at his choice of words while Hermione looked horrified at his argument with her head of house.


    He wanted her to punish Lavender Brown and Parvati Patel who had bullied his one and only friend in Hogwarts so that they would not do so again. But the old coot refused to take any action without any proof.


    A part of him understood that she was right. That she could not simply punish another student at his word. That part of him also understood that even if those two girls were punished, that would only make them hate Hermione even more which would in turn make her life at Hogwarts worse.


    But another part of him that wanted to protect the girl didn''t listen to reason and so he had come to the old woman, knowing that she would most like disappoint him once again by not any action when it was needed.


    And just like he had expected, the woman had failed to live up to reputation once again.


    He talked with her for a few more minutes, asking the old woman to at least do something to make sure that the girl won''t be bullied in the future.


    But the woman had not listened.


    In the end, he realized that he was losing his patience a little bit and that talking with this woman was like asking a deaf dog to bark.


    It just wouldn''t work.


    So he had been about to lay off and leave along with Hermione to do something rather productive with his time when the woman had made a huge mistake.


    She gave him a week of detention and took 20 points from his house.


    The punishment was meaningless to him. He would attend his detention and he never cared about house unity or house points in the first place. But this action of her made him realize just how fucked up this whole situation was.


    A boy was trying to ask for help for his friend who being bullied by her house mates but instead of being rewarded, he was being punished instead.


    He felt this patience break a little at that, something that would not have ended well for any of them when Hermione gave him a pleading, telling him to stop. And a sad look in her face that made him realize that he was being of no help to her.


    Well, fuck the woman in that case.


    Fuck the teachers.


    Fuck the house.


    Fuck Hogwarts.


    From this point onward, he would deal with his problems himself, like how he had always done.


    If any boys, even if it was Ron or someone else who hurt Hermione, he would beat them to an inch of their life and send them to the infirmary for a long recovery session.


    And if she was harmed and bullied by the girls, then he would humiliate them in such a manner that the thought of returning home would feel much sweeter than remaining here for them.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Minerva also must have seen the determination in his eyes for she stood up from her chair in order to say something but he had already turned back at this point and he closed the door before the old woman could say anything.


    He could still hear the footsteps coming toward them from the other side of the door so he wrapped an arm around Hermione and hid both of them with the Shroud of Concealment.


    The old woman would not find them again in the corridors and a part of him felt like he was running away from her and that he should confront her instead but he had nothing else to say to her and would prefer to spend some time with his friend Hermione than spend it fighting the old woman.


    He offered his apologies to Hermione for upsetting her but she simply smiled sadly at him and gave him another of her hugs that he could never get enough of and he realized that maybe having friends was not such a bad thing after all. If those could give such nice hugs to him.


    He had originally planned to take her to the library but with all that had happened over the last hour, he thought that it would be better if they change their location for this one time and took her to the Great Lake instead.


    He had a few memories of the Lake from the movies of Harry Potter and one of the most prominent ones was the one in which the original Harry flew over the lake on the back of a Hippogriff.


    He also remembered that at the end of that movie, the original Harry and Hermione had flown on the back of the Hippogriff in order to rescue Sirius Black and wondered how it would feel to spend some time with her like that.


    He made a note in his mind to bring a Broom with him the next time he and Hermione came here. He knew that he was too prideful and would most likely not bow down to a Hippogriff. So a ride on the back of such a majestic animal was out of his reach. So he would have to content himself with a Broom for the moment.


    He was brought out of his musing by a tug on his sleeves and turned to see Hermione looking at him questioningly.


    "Harry, I''m not saying that this place is not beautiful. It is. And very peaceful. But why are we here?" she asked and he could see that she was simply curious about his decision to bring them here.


    "After that debacle back at Minvera''s office¡­"


    "Professor Minerva, Harry." She chided and he pinched his nose at her blind worship of the teachers and anyone with authority.


    He probably knew Hermione''s history better than anyone. How she only ever found any acceptance from her teachers which was why she even now tried to find acceptance from them instead of her classmates. But it still irritated him a bit that she would defend someone like Minerva who could not even be bothered to protect her from bullies.


    Hermione must have seen his irritation in his expression as well for her smile died away at once and now he felt even worse.


    "Alright. Professor Minerva" he acquiesced and continued "After that debacle in her office, I decided that it would be better for us to go outside and get some fresh air instead of sitting indoors so I brought you here for a study picnic." He said with a smile and was rewarded with a smile from her in return.


    "But Harry. There is no where here for us to sit comfortably and we have no books to study either." She said with a smile. A smile that did wonders to improve his mood.


    "I will admit that you''re better than me at Charms but that doesn''t mean that you can simply teach me without any book. Plus it''s evening already and it''s a bit cold out here so I don''t think that your plan of having a picnic right now is very good."


    At her words, he simply smiled at her. "Yes. I can see your problems but believe me when I say that I have a perfect plan for all of this."


    She looked skeptically at him but he just waved away her concerns and took out a time turner and showed it to her.


    "Do you know what this is?" he asked and she gazed skeptically at it for a moment before shaking her head.


    "What is it?" she asked, looking a bit miffed at the thought that he knew something that she did not.


    "It''s an artifact known as time turner." He replied and went on to explain what it was, how it was used and how it was highly illegal to own one without the knowledge of the ministry.


    Moments later, Hermione was once again freaking out over the fact that he was breaking rules and doing something illegal though he felt that a part of her still liked the thought of breaking rules and doing what she wanted.


    By the end of their argument, he was able to placate her and just like before, she acquiesced to his wishes and he wrapped her with the chain of the time turner and revolved the time turner five times, which was, to his knowledge, it''s maximum limit.


    Time reversed itself and once the reversal ended, they were both standing near the lake at mid afternoon with a warm sun shining down upon them.

 First Occlumency Lesson

    Hermione was looking at everything with fascination, which was how he reacted the first time he used a time turner.


    It was a surreal experience after all.


    After all, time had been called the ultimate equalizer since time immemorial. To know that you had the power to change such a fundamental part of your life would be shocking to anyone.


    Just like when people realize that they can use magic and bend the laws of physics, gravity and many other things to their will.


    After the novelty of the experience wore off, Harry took out the Bottomless Purse and kept his eyes on Hermione, who was looking intently at his actions. And just like a magician would take out stuff from inside his hat, he took out a large bed sheet from the purse and was rewarded satisfactorily when Hermione''s eyes being widened at the sight.


    "I believe you''ve already seen the use of Extension Charm?" he asked with a grin, amused at the surprised expression of the cute little girl.


    If she had bought a trunk from Diagon Alley then there was no way that she would have missed the use of the Extension charm.


    But seeing the charm used on a trunk and then seeing the same charm being used on a small purse were two different things.


    She looked affronted at his grin and quickly reined in her expression before crossing her arms and sticking out her tongue at him in a childish manner which only made him want to hug the adorable little girl even more.


    So that''s exactly what he did and got a surprised squeal in return as he picked her up and spun her around a few times.


    "Put me down." She said with mock anger and punched him playfully in the shoulders while he kept grinning like a fool at her "Never" her replied and spun her around playfully a few more times before he started to feel a bit faint, which led to both of them falling down on the bedsheet and laughing uncontrollably for some time.


    "I''m glad I met you Hermione." He said after they stopped laughing. "Life was so much cold and boring without you."


    He himself was surprised by his own honest admission as he had not put any thought in those words as they had come from deep within his heart itself.


    "I''m glad to have met you as well Harry." She said with a kind gaze before leaning in and kissing him in the cheek.


    He smiled at her and then leaned in and hugged her once again, realizing that he had found something incredibly important in his life that he had not realized was missing all his life.


    They spend some more time playing with each other like children even though deep down he knew that he was not a child. But he allowed himself to feel and act like one for this one time when he felt happiness and warmth that he''d not felt in his entire life. As Harry at least.


    He never remembered anyone from his past life. The presence of any family member, friends or lover was totally absent from his mind and he had always wondered if someone had removed those memories intentionally from his mind or if he was just a reclusive person in his past life as well.


    He had tried not to think too much about such things over the last four years but he had been thinking about it more and more ever since he joined Hogwarts.


    So despite having a past life and despite being an older person, Hermione was probably the first person to ever befriend him and he planned to not forget that fact anytime soon.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    After they stopped playing, Hermione was finally able to divert her attention from him and started asking questions about Extension charms and the things he carried inside that purse and at that moment he realized what gift he would be giving her at her birthday.


    A moleskin pouch like the one that she used in the movie would go a long way to serve her. Maybe he would make the pouch himself. Yes, that ought to show his sincerity properly compared to if he simply bought a pouch like that and then gifted it to her as he was quite wealthy in his own right and he could buy and gift such artifacts by the dozen.


    "So you have books on charms and transfiguration in the purse?" she asked excitedly and he smiled at her excitement before nodding his head.


    "I have. But I won''t be teaching you about them today. Instead, I''ll be teaching you something far more important. Something that''ll serve you better in the long run."


    At her inquisitive expression he continued "Occulumency."


    "Occulumency? What''s that? And if it''s so damn important then how come I never heard of something like that before." She asked, not realizing that she was coming off as a bit rude.


    He would have to talk with her about this sometime in the future. But not for now.


    So he spent the next ten minutes explaining to her the meaning behind the terms Legilimency and Occulumency and a few more things about mind arts.


    And by the end of his explanation, to say the she was thoroughly shocked would have been an understatement.


    "So you''re saying that Professor Snape and Headmaster Dumbledore could read my mind whenever they want just by looking at me in the eyes?" she asked with a horrified expression and he realized that for someone who prided herself on her knowledge, it must have come as a huge shock that some could simply get inside her mind and pluck the knowledge right out of her brain.


    And even though the truth was a bit different then that, he was not going to correct her if that little bit of misunderstanding made her more willing to learn the art of Occlumency.


    After all, now that he was going to spend a bit more time with her, he would eventually let her in on some of his more important secrets and so, it would be important that she learnt the mind art to an extent where she would at least be able to tell when someone is subtly trying to enter her mind.


    "So you''re saying that you can''t teach me this because?" she asked with her hands crossed and he held the urge to sigh.


    "Because you''re too young right now and me using legilimency on you could harm it to a large extent. It is one of the reasons why this thing is not taught to young people. The other being that it takes time to learn and does not show any substantial result and not many people are capable to maintaining the drive to learn it over a long period of time."


    "Then how did you learn it?" she asked petulantly and he realized that she was simply being jealous of him once again for the simple fact that he knew something that she did not.


    The girl was adorable but she really needed to let loose sometimes and stop being jealous of everyone who was better than her.


    "Because I''ve been learning it for some time now." He explained "Before I even came to Hogwarts, I knew that I would be breaking a lot of rules and would need to know and learn everything that would help me protect my secrets."


    He then showed her the time turner for demonstration "This thing. It''s just one of the many secrets that I have. And some of them are far more dangerous than this. So before you''re able to protect your mind, I''ll not be able to tell you those secrets." He said, recalling all his knowledge about the Basilisk, Horcruxes, Voldemort, etc.


    Of course, he never planned to tell her that he was a transmigrator.


    Mostly because he himself wanted to forget that bit of information.


    He wanted to forget that he had unintentionally hijacked the body of the original Harry and probably killed his soul in the process.


    He wanted to forget that he came from some other time line and didn''t truly belong in this world.


    Oh no. He would be taking that bit of information to the grave with him no matter what.


    "But once you create a good occlumency shields, I''ll tell you more about my secrets and believe me when I say that those secrets will be worth it." He explained and could see the determination in her eyes as she decided to learn the mind art.


    "But until then, make sure to not make eye contact with the Headmaster or Professor Snape alright."


    "Alright." She said with a determined expression and then he started her first Occlumency lessons.


    Fair to say, Hermione''s occlumency sessions with him were far more peaceful and beneficial then the ones that Snape gave to the original Harry Potter in which the potion master simply ordered him to clear his mind before brutally attacking him with his strongest legilimency attacks.

 Teaching Hermione

    From that day onward, Hermione started to spend more and more time with him in abandoned classes where he would use the time turner and teach her Transfiguration or Charms.


    It wasn''t that she was behind him in the subjects. In fact, she had already completed all the theory of first year but reading a book on transfiguration does not make you a transfiguration expert.


    It just makes you a well read person.


    "It''s about your intent and will more than anything else." Harry explained "Saying the incantation and waving the wand in the correct manner will help but they''re only there to help. The main power comes from your will. When you point your wand at the cup, you need to focus all your intent on it and and then you must will it to change. And your magic will do the rest."


    "You know I''ve heard that explanation hundred times already." Hermione huffed angrily "But I still can''t change this blasted thing into a crystal ball."


    Looking at her angry and defeated expression, Harry thought about it a bit and tried to recall all the helpful tips he''d read in the books about transfiguration so that he could help her complete the task.


    "Well, how about you try visualizing the changes in the cup in various steps?" he asked.


    "Visualizing?" she asked.


    "Yes. Take a mental image of the crystal ball in your mind. Then start changing the cup into a crystal ball in various steps. First imagine the metal changing into glass from top to bottom. A bit at a time. Then imagine the cup shrinking in itself slowly until it gains a spherical shape. And there you have it. A crystal ball. Try it." He said.


    She looked skeptically at him but decided to follow his instructions regardless.


    Harry could understand her hesitation. After all, things such a will, intent and visualisation were never truly taught in the classes. He had no idea why Minerva never taught the students about this method of transfiguring things instead of doing it the easy way by relying on your will and intent,


    Harry had realized that incantations and wand movements were like crutches for a person who was learning how to walk.


    In his opinion, those crutches should never be used unless there is something seriously wrong with your magic and you can''t perform it without the use of the crutches. But not only does the students in this school rely on those crutches but they also come to overly rely on them as time passes to the point that once they become an adult and their magic matures properly, it gets very, very hard for them to let go of those crutches.


    After something deep thinking, he realize that maybe there was a reason behind it all.


    After all, he had been practicing how to use his magic based on will and intent alone for the past four years without any incantation or wand movement. And he could easily recall the many failures he met in his early years when he was not even able to use his magic to call a book to himself.


    Maybe Hogwarts teaches magic they way it does because it provides instant results instead of the slow method that he chose when he started to learn about magic.


    After all, he may be crazy about learning magic but not everyone else had his drive.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Who knows how many of them would have dropped the classes and then the school after Minerva spent the first half of the year simply telling them to pull a piece of paper and they were still not able to do it.


    In it''s comparison, saying an incantation, waving a wand and then getting a result instantly was so much more satisfying.


    Yes, maybe there was a reason why the teachers did what they did.


    But that didn''t made them right. Or wrong. Just different.


    His path was different from theirs and in a way, he was grateful for his path because even though he had a shaky start, he was now far beyond the capabilities of his peers. Or even other students who were far older than himself.


    He was brought out of his musings by a shriek of happiness before he was once again engulfed in a hug by an excited Hermione who had just completed her transfiguration perfectly.


    "I did it. I did it. I did it. Thank you so much Harry. This transfiguration is taught to us at the end of the year and I''ve already managed to perform it perfectly."


    "Yes. You did." He said with a smile and let her have this moment of happiness before he continued "But there''s still so much more for you to learn."


    She looked at him with some confusion "But Harry, I''ve you already learned how to do all the transfigurations from the first yes. OH! You now want me to learn how to perform second year Transfigurations. Don''t you? Oh this is so exciting. I bet none of the other students have managed to do this so far." She said before breaking the hug and going back to the crystal ball.


    "Tell me what I should do next Harry." She said, bouncing in excitement and he felt a bit bad for what he was about to do next.


    "Now you''ll have to learn how to focus your will and intent on a object. Because the better you''re at it, the better control you''ll have over your magic." He explained in a sagely manner which only confused her even more.


    He sighed and decided that since he was about to do this anyway, he might as well show her the true extent of his talent.


    "Hold my wand." He said and gave his wand to her who just looked even more perplexed at his actions.


    In wizarding world, giving your wand to others was not something that people usually did. If ever. Because giving your wand to other signifies your giving all your power to the other person because most wizards and witches are not capable of doing much magic without their wands.


    Because of that, giving your wand to someone else also shows the sign of ultimate trust.


    Like how Narcissa gave her wand to Draco once he lost his own wand to Harry.


    But he was different from the others and made sure to never overly rely on his wand even if it was a huge help when performing magic.


    "Now look carefully. I''ll show you how to perform magic with just your will and intent alone. And a lot of visualizing. No wand waving and incantation. Just magic in it''s purest form. Watch carefully because this is the most farthest I''ve reached in transfiguration so far." Except for the human transfigurations he''d been performing as of late. But of course, those were two different things.


    And he doubted that she would like to see human transfiguration in the first place.


    Then he focused his magic, will and intent on the crystal and visualized it being transfigured into a sparrow before finally adding the key element, life, to it and watched in fascination as a live sparrow took the place of the crystal glass ball and cocked it''s head to look at the two of them before it flapped it''s wings and flew away.


    He then turned to look at Hermione who was looking at him with a gob smacked expression.


    He chuckled at her expression which brought her out of her moment of shock before he was flooded with questions.


    "What? How? When? How could you? That''s¡­ Harry. That''s a¡­ I don''t know.. A 6th or 7th year transfiguration. And you did it without a wand or an incantation. How?" by now she was looking at him imploringly and he knew that he had chosen the right student for himself.


    "Well sit down then. And I''ll teach you how to do it." He said and watched in fascination as she followed his orders while looking at him like he was some like of Messiah. Or Merlin reborn.


    He really overdid it with that sparrow, didn''t he.


    Then he turned a matchbox into a piece of paper before giving the paper to her who looked at it questioningly.


    "Now keep you wand on the table. You won''t be needing it for this exercise." He said and spent the next ten minutes explaining her that she needed to use her Intent and Will and a bit of visualization to pull the paper toward herself.


    And she spent the rest of the day in frustration. Trying to pull the paper to herself without much success.


    Yes, maybe there was a reason why this method of learning was not taught in the school.

 Extension Charms and Ancient Runes

    Hermione''s birthday was in two weeks. And although Harry had learned how to perform the extension charm perfectly by now, that didn''t mean that he was capable of creating a Bottomless pouch for her.


    Well, he could create one for her but it wouldn''t be good enough as a gift.


    There was far more to creating a Bottomless Pouch or a Trunk then simply performing the extension charm and being done with it.


    For example If you create a library inside a trunk, and then you flip the trunk, then would the whole library be turned upside down and be destroyed?


    No, that would be a disaster of epic proportions so there were charms in place to make the expanded space more stable. So that no matter how the trunk was turned from the outside, the inside will remain peaceful and stable.


    Then there were the charms that constantly changed the air inside the expended space so that it would not go stale and cause the person inside to suffocate.


    And if there was a whole library worth of books inside a trunk, then how would a person ever be able to pick up the trunk.


    So there was another charm that would negate the weight of the things kept inside the trunk.


    Then there were charms that would put things like food and potions in stasis so that it would not go stale or rot or become useless in a day or two.


    There were also charms for the proper lightening so that the space inside the trunk won''t remain dark.


    And shrinking charm that is placed on everything that a person puts inside a Bottomless Pouch. Otherwise it would be impossible to a hardcover book inside a Bottomless Pouch because of the small size of it''s neck.


    All in all, there were more than 30 different types of charms that needed to be applied and carved into the trunk in rune form and then the runes are connected to a ward stone that would keep providing magic to the trunk before a expanded space could be called a success.


    Sufficient to say that he might have been learned how to do the extension charm but he lacked the knowledge required to perform the other charms just yest. What it meant was that he was in no position to create a gift for Hermione.


    Maybe in the future when he learn those charms but not now.


    And since he couldn''t create it for her, it meant that he needed to buy it for her instead.


    And in order to buy it for her, he would need to go to Diagon alley. A place which was more than 400 miles away from Hogwarts.


    If he used one of the school brooms to go from Hogwarts to Diagon Alley then it would take about 3-4 hours to make the journey and the same amount of time to come back.


    Now he could easily do that with the help of the time turner but he was still not willing to waste that much time when there were other alternatives of magical travel that he could use.


    It was one of the reasons why he left Hogwarts at midnight in order to get away from the wards that would impede the type of magical travel that he wanted to learn.


    Apparition.


    He wanted to learn how to apparate because it was the fastest method of travel that existed in the world as far as he could tell.


    He knew that this method of travel was uncomfortable and knew that if he made any kind of mistake then he would inevitably get splinched.


    In fact, many people get splinched when they first try to learn how to apparate.


    It was just a common thing that happened to just about everybody except a rare few who were able to perform flawless Apparition from the get go.


    Most of the people who get splinched however, suffers from only minor injuries like getting a small cut in their leg or arm. Or losing a toenail or a few strands of hair. Nothing major. Otherwise wizards would have long discarded this method of travelling due to fear.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    He would admit that he was a bit surprised when he managed to do a Perfect Apparition on his first try.


    Of course the apparition was performed in a short distance where the destination was visible to him but that still didn''t discount the fact that he was able to teach himself how to apparate without any damage.


    Then he thought about the three Ds of Apparition. Destination, Determination and Deliberation and thought about how it worked and everything instantly became clear to him.


    Apparition was one of the purer form of magic. You don''t need any wand movement or incantation to perform it.


    You just need visualization, will and intent. And that was something that he was a master at.


    So in hindsight, he should not have been surprised when he managed to perfect the art of Apparition without any problem.


    Maybe those people who were able to do successful Apparition from their first time knew the importance of Will and intent and were more intuned with their magic than other wizards and witches.


    But that still didn''t meant that Apparition was a perfectly safe mode of travel.


    It was just as safe as a car drive. Which means that if you''re careless, then no matter how good you''re at it, you''ll still get fucked.


    Or splinched.


    So yes, he knew that he had to be careful whenever he wanted to do this form of magical travel.


    And that was a good news because he now had the means to travel instantly from place to place without any problems.


    This called for a celebration but before that, he needed to go to Diagon Alley so that he could buy a gift for Hermione which was the main reason why he had learned Apparition in the first place.


    So after drinking an Aging potion, wearing an adult wizard''s robe and covering himself with a mild shroud of concealment, he finally apparated to Diagon Alley.


    And reached his destination without splinching.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "Professor Bathsheda Babbling." He called out and was rewarded with an opened door after a few minutes of waiting.


    A middle aged woman with brown-red colored hair wearing black silky robes came out of the door and her eyes widened in surprise as she looked at him.


    "Harry Potter, my word. What are you doing here child?" she asked after she reined in her surprised expression.


    He felt a sting at his pride for being called a child but he knew that ''beggars can''t be choosers'' so he reined in his pride and gave her a smile in return, which probably just looked creepy on his face, if the slight cringe on her expression was any indication.


    "Hello Professor." He said and took out the basic course book on Ancient runes that he found in the Room of Hidden things and showed it to her. "I want to learn how to carve runes properly without blowing myself up."


    The looked at him questioningly for a moment before she sighed and shook her head sadly "You''re just a 1st year student Mr Potter. I cannot teach you Ancient Runes until you''re a 3rd year. And I''ll not make an exception for anyone. Not even you."


    "You misunderstood me Professor." He said while shaking his head "I''m going to learn Ancient Runes on my own and carve runes with or without your permission. Now you can either teach me how to do it safely or you can leave me to do it on my on and then later explain to the authorities how the Boy-who-lived blew himself up because the teachers in Hogwarts were unwilling to teach him." He said with a somber expression and watched in fascination as her expression hardened at once.


    "Is that a threat Mr Potter?" she asked in a cold voice and he shook his head with a blank expression of his own, not feeling the slightest bit intimidated by her.


    "No. Just simple facts. You can either teach me. Or I will be forced to learn on my own. There is no in between."


    With those words, a staring contest started between the two of them and lasted for almost a minute before she removed her gaze and let out a sigh and he knew that he had won this confrontation. Now he just needed to push her a bit more so that she would buckle under the pressure and accept to teach him about the subject.


    "Alright Mr Potter. I will teach you how to carve runes on a surface without blowing yourself up. But you will need the permission of Headmaster Dumbledore and a written parchment signed by all the other teachers that says that you''re well above your classmates in their respective subjects. Until you show me that parchment, I''ll not be able to teach you Ancient runes." She finished and he felt the irritation climb at those words.


    "I will not go begging other people to sign a parchment for me." He said with no small amount of venom in his voice and the woman looked at him as if he''d slapped her in the face.


    "You''ll either teach me the subject or you''ll not. But I''ll not play your games of authority like a sheep." He said and then the anger ebbed away from his face at once. "Now I''ll ask you one last time. Will you teach me Ancient Runes or will you not?" he asked softly and the woman looked a bit scared and worried for a moment before she schooled her expression and looked at him in a dignified manner before speaking.


    "I''m afraid you''ll have to give me a parchment signed by all the teacher and headmaster indicating that you''re well beyond your classmates in your subjects before I even think about teaching you my subject. I''ll not make an exception for you just because you''re a celebrity Mr Potter. You can either do as you''re told or I''ll refuse to teach you my subject. Am I clear Mr Potter?"


    He gave her a glare in return for her words for a long moment before he reined in his emotions. Then his expression went cold and he gave her one last glance and left the room without another word.

 Asking for Resignation

    "Mr Potter. You cannot simply barge into the Headmaster''s office whenever you want."


    "Oh it''s quite alright Minerva. It''s quite alright." Dumbledore said with a raised hand and that was enough to cow the old lioness. "Harry my boy. What brings you to this here today. It''s not everyday that a student comes to meet this old man of his own violation." Dumbledore said jovially but Harry''s expression remained cold as he passed a piece of parchment to Dumbledore received the parchment with a raised eyebrow.


    "What is it my boy?" he asked without a look at the parchment.


    "My resignation letter from Hogwarts school sir." He said without a hint of emotion and heard Minerva gasp as his words while Albus went still at his proclamation before he lowered his spectacles and started reading the parchment with a grim expression and finished reading it just as quickly before shaking his head.


    "Why would you want to leave Hogwarts Mr Potter?" Minerva asked with more concern than she ever showed for Hermione.


    "Many reasons Professor. Would you like to hear them?" he asked calmly and at her nod, he started.


    "The number one reason would be the and discrimination I''ve seen in the school by the children of pureblood houses against Muggleborns. I do not want associate myself with an institution that condones such bigotry between it''s own students."


    "We don''t not condone Bigotry Mr Potter." Minerva said with a bit of steel in her voice this time but just waved her away.


    "You may not actively condone it but you never do anything against it either which only gives the purebloods even more freedom to discriminate against other muggleborns. That''s as good as condoning in my book Professor."


    Before she could say anything, he raised another finger in the air and continued.


    "The number two reason would be the lack of good teachers in the school."


    Mivera''s expression turned grim at that but before she could say anything, he interrupted her once again.


    "Professor Binns. Who is ghost and whose classes are used a nap time by almost all the students in my class."


    "Professor Quirrel. Who stutters so much that it''s hard for anyone to even understand what he was saying let alone learn anything from him."


    "And Professor Snape¡­"


    "Professor Snape is a certified Potions Master Mr Potter." Minerva interrupted but he continued without a change in his voice.


    "That may be. But he''s not a good teacher. In fact, not only is he not a good teacher, he actively insults other students in his class and shows blatant favouritism for his Slytherins. Plus I''ve my own share of incidents where he actively tried to single me out and humiliate me in front of the whole class."


    "I assure you Mr Potter. He meant no such thing by¡­" Minerva started but was interrupted by his glare.


    "Oh stop it Professor. You and I both know what kind of person he is. So don''t even try." He said.


    "Those three incompetent people teach us half of our subject." He snarled with contempt "You people say that Hogwarts is the greatest magical school in the whole world and maybe it was, a few centuries or a few decades ago. But as it is now, I don''t see how Hogwarts could even be called good. Let alone the ''greatest'' wizarding school."


    "Harry¡­" Dumbledore started but he was interrupted by Harry raising his hand once again.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "I''m not finished yet Headmaster." He said gravely.


    "The third would be the fact that you professors blatantly ignore various instances of bullying by other students. And yes Professor Minerva I''m talking about Hermione."


    "Did I ever tell you about my History Headmaster?" he asked as he looked at Dumbledore''s eyes, knowing full well that if the old man tried legilimency on him, then he would know. "Did you know how I was treated back in that house by my relatives?" he asked with no small amount of venom laced in his voice.


    "No. I don''t think you do. Why would you? I was one among many other students attending your school and you''re a busy man so you probably don''t know but let you tell one thing."


    "Vernon Dursley, my uncle is currently serving 15 years of time in a prison on account of Child Abuse and Domestic Violence because he was caught in the act of beating me because I was freak." Both Dumbledore and Minerva flinched at that and it seemed as if Dumbledore had suddenly aged a full decade while Minerva gave him a stern glare which promised that they would be having a talk after they were done talking with him.


    "Yes. I''ve most of my life in an abusive environment where I was constantly beaten by my uncle and aunt while my cousin actively tried to harass me because I was a freak."


    "That was one of the reason why I usually stay away from other people. Especially older people. And also the reason why I don''t usually make friends."


    "But I made one in this school." He said and suddenly Dumbledore looked a bit hopeful but then he continued.


    "Hermione is perhaps the brightest witch in her class which was probably why I became her friend but imagine my surprise when I found out that my only friend was being bullied by her classmates and being call a know-it-all while the teachers watched from the sidelines and even her own head of house refused to help her on the account that we had not proof of her being bullied." He finished with a heated glare at Minerva whose face had gone pale at his lashing.


    "I don''t it when people discriminate against other people based on stupid things like someone''s blood status but I hate it even more when others are bullied simply because they''re better than others at something."


    "Those are my primary reasons for wanting to drop out of the school though there are a few other reasons as well. But that''s not important right now."


    "So please sign the resignation letter Headmaster so that I can get rid of this school that claims to the greatest magical school in the world" he said mockingly "And falls far short when it come to delivering on it."


    "After this I would probably talk with Hermione''s parents as well and tell her how badly she has been treated in this school and will make sure to take her with me when I''m leaving Hogwarts."


    By now Minerva had gone as white as a sheet because of his admonishments while Dumbledore merely looked sad.


    "Where do you think you''ll go after you leave Hogwarts my boy?" he asked sadly and Harry shook his head.


    "Frankly. It''s none of your business Headmaster. But since you asked so nicely, I was thinking of going to Bauxbaton in France or Castelobruxo in Brazil. Aside from that, I was also thinking about searching for magical schools in USA or Australia. And this time, I would make sure that those schools are actually delivering on their words so that I would not be hoodwinked like I was when I joined Hogwarts."


    "My boy, both of your parents graduated from this school. I don''t think they would have approved of your decision of leaving the school." Dumbledore said with a disappointed look that would have crushed any other student but this Harry knew how manipulate Dumbledore was behind is kind grandfatherly facade so he didn''t fell for his manipulations one bit.


    "On the contrary headmaster. I think my parents would want me to have the best education that their hard earned money could afford. Especially if they could see how far this joke of a school has fallen."


    "Mr Potter. I forbid you from saying anything more about Hogwarts." Minerva almost shouted but Harry simply looked at her with an unimpressed gaze.


    "Why? Can''t bear to hear the truth?" he asked mockingly which only infuriated her even more.


    "Harry. I don''t think any other schools will allow admission at this time in the year. So how about spending the year at Hogwarts and then thinking about your decision once again at the end of the year?" Dumbledore asked sadly, all the while maintaining his disappointed look and Harry held the urge to sneer at the manipulative bastard.


    "And spend a whole year by accosted by students simply because I''m the boy-who-lived? I think not Headmaster."


    And from there, their argument divulged from topic to topic as Dumbledore tried to reason with him to make him stay in the school, making promises about how he would try his best to improve it up to better standards while Harry remained unimpressed by his false promises.


    Dumbledore had also promised Snape that would do everything in his power to protect Lily and her child.


    From that single event, Harry knew all too well what Dumbledore''s promises were worth.


    The answer was Jack shit.


    And when his false promises didn''t work either, Dumbledore finally showed his true colors.

 Request Denied and the Truth

    "You may not know it Harry but the night you vanquished the dark lord, you made yourself the enemy of all his followers. I''m afraid that if you resign from the school then you''ll leave yourself vulnerable." He old man explained in a sad voice as if it was his life they were talking about. "So I can not sign this parchment of yours in a good conscience my boy."


    Harry sneered at him in return "I didn''t knew that this school was a prison. I''m frankly quite appalled by the length in which you''ll go in order to keep the boy-who-lived in your school."


    "Mr Potter." Minerva shouted "How dare you accuse the headmaster of¡­"


    "Oh It''s quite alright Minerva. It''s quite alright. He''s an angry child and it''s within his rights to throw a few tantrums every now and then." He explained in a calm and understanding manner and Harry was floored by his shamelessness.


    The old man was really quite a manipulator wasn''t he.


    If it was a normal child instead of him then he would have already lost his temper.


    But he knew that getting angry at this point would only give ever more credence to Dumbledore''s words so he remained calm.


    "Regardless of whether you see me as a child or not is not the point here. I would once again ask you to sign that piece of parchment so that I could leave this third class school of yours and find some other school where I would actually be able to learn something."


    "I''m afraid you''ll need the signature of your muggle and magical guardian in order to leave the school my boy. And seeing as I''m your magical guardian and I cannot sign the parchment for your safety, I''m afraid you''ll have to remain here until you''re deemed strong and wise enough to protect yourself on your own."


    "Wait right there. You''re saying that you''re my magical guardian?" he asked incredulously even though he already knew that to be the case. But if he doesn''t show any shock at the news then Dumbledore would get suspicious.


    "That is correct my boy."


    "And can I ask who made you my magical guardian?" he asked in mocking voice that showed what he thought about Albus being his magical guardian.


    "I''m afraid that I''m the magical guardian of every muggleborn student that attends the school and.."


    "And I''m not a muggleborn student. So I''ll ask you again. Why are you my magical guardian. Didn''t my parents left a will before they died or did they actually not see you for the manipulative old bastard you are and made you my magical guardian instead."


    "Mr. Potter" Minerva actually shouted this time "How dare you call¡­"


    "Oh it''s quite alright Minerva. He''s an angry young man. I remember the times I when I was a young man myself. I also had my moments when I became very angry and did foolish things. In fact, there was this one time when..."


    At that point, Harry thought that he''d heard enough from the old man and interrupted him instead.


    "Please forgive me if I''m not interested in your history Headmaster. But let''s get back on the topic. How did you become my magical guardian? Did my parents not left a will behind or did they actually made you my magical guardian." he asked.


    "Harry my boy¡­"


    "Just tell me alright. I want to know why I was chucked off to Dursleys who were not only muggles but also abused me at a daily basis instead of sending me to a magical family where I would at least be treated like a human. And since you''re my magical guardian then¡­" he paused and scrunched up his nose in frustration "You were the one who sent me to the Dursleys didn''t you." He accused with a snarl and Mcgonagall and Dumbledore both flinched at his words.


    "You did. Didn''t you. Oh my god. You were the people who sent me to live with my abusive relatives." He said and managed to look thoroughly shocked even though he knew that news ever since he came to this world. In fact, he was acting quite well so far.


    "You sent me to live with my abusive relatives and never checked if I was even alive. Is guess it must have be too low priority of a task for the Great Albus Dumbledore to visit a lowly abused child like me, wouldn''t it?"


    "Mr Potter, Headmaster Dumbledore is a very busy ma¡­"


    "11 YEARS!!!" he shouted. "For 11 years I lived in an abusive home. Do you know how much time it takes for someone with a Pheonix to flame from one place to another and check if your ward is even alive or not. Do you? My guess would be two minutes at most. At most."The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "You were so busy you couldn''t find two minutes to check up on your ward in 11 years. And I''m supposed to believe that."


    By now Mcgonagall was almost at the edge of crying and Dumbledore looked as guilty as he should have though Harry could never tell if his emotions were true or not. The man was a master in the craft of manipulations after all.


    "I lived in the cupboard under the stairs for god''s sake. If you had taken two minutes out of your day then you would have seen how they treated me worse than an animal but you were to busy for such things weren''t you. I wonder what the headlines will say if I tell the prophet about it."


    "About how Albus Fucking Dumbledore sent the Boy-Who-Lived to an abusive muggle home."


    "Mr Potter. Language." Mcgonagall managed to dish out looking quite scandalized.


    "Oh fuck you too you old hag. You''re no better than him. You won''t even stop someone bullying my friend just because we can''t produce any physical evidence. Do you think I hold any more respect for you than I do for the old fart over here."


    "Mr Potter." Dumbledore snapped all of a sudden and suddenly, large amount of magic surged out of his body creating an oppressive atmosphere in the room, pressuring him from all the sides as Dumbledore looked like the Most Powerful man in Wizarding Britain. The man who even Voldemort was scared of fighting.


    "I know I''ve made mistakes but I''ll not allow you to stand there and disrespect me and my colleagues like that." He thundered and Harry almost felt intimidated. Almost. And would have if he himself was not rather powerful himself.


    In truth, he knew he was no match for Dumbledore. At least for now. But he also knew that he was 3-4 times more powerful than an average child of his age and would probably even surpass Dumbledore when he becomes older.


    There is a reason why the original Harry was able to disperse hundreds of Dementors in this 3rd year. A feat that even most adult wizards are incapable of performing.


    There was a reason why he was able to stand against Voldemort on his own even if only for a brief amount of time.


    But despite that, the original Harry Potter was not known as a very powerful person simply because he never truly focused on his magic and was never truly trained by any adult.


    So much wasted potential.


    But not anymore.


    He released his magic and pitted it against Dumbledore and even though his magic was no match against the raging thunderstorm that was Albus Dumbledore, he was perfectly capable of negating it''s effect from his body and stopped feeling any pressure at once.


    "Is this what you do when people accuse you of being a miserable cunt. You show your power and pressure them into submission so that they will be too scared of going against you." He said and suddenly all the pressure in the room disappeared at once and Dumbledore suddenly looked ashamed.


    But just like before, Harry couldn''t really tell if that emotion was real or not.


    "You know what the funny thing is?" he asked "Voldemort..." cue for Mcgonagall''s flinch that reminded him that she was in the office as well "...might have killed my parents but it was you who sent me to live in an abusive environment. He was the one who took my parents from me but you were the one who made my life hell. So for me, you''re actually worse then Voldemort."


    "Mr Potter." Mcgonall gasped looking scandalized. She seems to be donning that expression a lot lately "How could you say that?"


    Harry just shrugged in response. In truth, he knew that he might accuse the old man for treating him like shit but in the end, the old man would just take out the card of ''For The Greater Good'' and then everyone would go back to licking the old man''s toes once again so there was not much point in taking these accusations any further.


    "The main point is." He said and pointed at the resignation letter that had been discarded in the table "Are you going to sign that letter or not?"


    "I''m afraid I''ll be putting you in grave danger if I did that my boy." Dumbledore said, looking immensely sad at his fate and shook his head slowly "Thus I can''t sign this in good conscience."


    "Ah¡­ It''s good to know that this school can be used as a prison as well. Good to know what kind of low life you actually. My parents would have killed you for treating me this way if they knew what you did to me. And what you''re doing to me. It''s so convenient for you that they''re dead aren''t they."


    "Mr Potter." Mcgonagall looked so sad by now that he almost felt pity for her because unlike Dumbledore, she didn''t use her emotions as a weapon and if she looked at sad then she must really be that sad. Which was a bit sad in itself because he knew that she actually liked his Lily and James Potter quite a bit.


    But he had to do what he had to do.


    "So you will not sign the paper and will keep me in your school as a prisoner. Is that correct?" he asked and Dumledore simply nodded his head, looking disappointingly at him like Harry was the one who had done something wrong and not the other way around. The old manipulative bastard.


    "See you around then." He said and left the office without looking back at the two distraught looking people he left behind.


    As soon as he left the gargoyle the anger in his face ebbed away and a serene expression took it''s place instead.


    After all, he knew from the start that Dumbledore would not allow him to leave the school at any cost let alone magical Britain. After all, if he truly left Britain for good then what of the prophesy.


    Moreover, he had still not copied even a hundredth of all the books in the library from the Room of Requirement so he did not wanted to leave the school yet anyway.


    But now that his plea for resignation has been rejected, he had the leverage required to do as he wished in the school.


    Now if he stops going to some classes, like those of Snape, Binns and Quirrel, then the Headmaster would not be able to accuse him of anything since he never wanted to remain in this school in the first place.


    He might even stop going to the Transfiguration class since there was truly nothing that he could learn from the old hag. Though in truth, the same went for his Charms classes as well. But he liked Professor Flitwick and did not want to cause any inconvenience for the diminutive professor.


    So with a smile, he went back to the Room of Requirement where he would be able to do some reading on the Extension charms.

 Level of Discrimination in the Ministry

    From that day onward, Snape, Quirrel and Mcgonagall would regularly turn in for the staff meeting and complain about one Harry Potter who refused to come to their classes.


    It went on a some time before Headmaster got tired of it and sent for Mcgonagall to call for the boy. But as it was, she was not able to find him anywhere in the whole school. No student of his house knew where he usually spent his time and when she asked Hermione about it, the little girl bit her lip but refused to tell Mcgonagall about his location as well. Claiming that she didn''t know and even Minerva was not cruel enough to interrogate the poor child so she simply dropped the matter and accepted her defeat.


    In truth, the only thing that Mcgonagall needed to do was call one of the house elves and ask them for Harry''s location but wizards had the tendency of ignoring those little guys and their usefulness. Thinking of them as nothing more than mere servants who only knew how to cook or clean.


    But even though Harry spent most of his time in the Room of Requirement or some other abandoned room which no one ever visited aside from him and Hermione, he did spend some time in the Charms class and Minerva finally caught up with him in that class. And as soon as she gave him the invitation, the whole school came to know that he held absolutely no respect for the Headmaster whatsoever.


    "Tell the old man that if he wants to meet me so badly then he can come here and meet me himself. I''ve no interest in wasting my time with the likes of you." He said with a dismissive gesture which angered Mcgonagall to no end but she was able to hold her temper.


    "I''m afraid that I must insist Mr Potter." She said through gritted teeth while he looked as unconcerned as ever.


    "You can insist all you want but my answer will remain the same Minerva."


    "Mr Potter. You''ll call me Professor Minerva or Professor Mcgonagal and treat me with the respect deserving of a Hogwarts staff member." She said icily and he snorted at that.


    "Oh I''m treating you with the respect that you deserve. I think you and me both know that. And if you don''t like how I treat you and Headmaster then just give me an expulsion letter and be done with this farce." He said and heard the whole room gasp at his words.


    Even Professor Flitwick who was looking at the proceedings with some concern looked quite worried now.


    "What is this about Minerva?" Professor Flitwick asked as the whole class now descended in murmurs. Especially the girls who looked quite interested at this latest gossip. The gossips turned up a notch when they realized that Harry was sitting in the class with them and they never even knew.


    But instead of answering Flitwick, Minerva saw this situation as the disaster it was and just shook her head and apologized for disturbing his class before leaving.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    "But Harry. This is the greatest magical school in the whole world." Hermione argued and he held the urge to frown at her.


    Over the few weeks that they''d been friends, he had come to know that Hermione had a really fragile ego and read into his actions far more than he usually intended to convey.


    Meaning if he would frown at his words, then she would take it as a sign that her words had somehow displeased him greatly. Which would make her feel concerned for her one and only friendship and then she would go back in her own shell and refuse to be straightforward with him.


    So he knew that he had to walk on eggshells around her until he either proved her that he won''t break their friendship for something small like this. Or until she gained sufficient self confidence in herself.


    She was the most brillient witch of their generation, true. But she was also a work of art.


    And he did not meant that as a compliment.


    So instead of frowning at her words like how he wanted to, he instead smiled and sat her down the chair beside him and then maneuvered his own chair so that they were face to face once again.


    "Hermione." He said "You''re a smart person so let me ask you something. Do you really think that Snape¡­"


    "Professor Snape Harry." She interrupted him and he just stared at him for a while before she blushed under his gaze and ducked her head "Sorry. I won''t interrupt again."


    "Very well." He said with a smile "Now tell me. Do you really think that Snape, Quirrel and Binns are acceptable teachers?" he asked.


    She bit her lips in that adorable way and looked at the ground in thought for a long moment before she slowly raised her head in order to meet his eyes and shook her head.


    For all her worship of the authority figures, even Hermione was not blind enough to not realize who was a good teacher and who was not.


    Especially after Snape deducted points from her for being an insufferable-know-it-all and after he pointed out how she was the only person who ever bothered to stay awake in Binns class.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Over the past few days, Harry had been showing her all the reasons for why Hogwarts was not the Greatest School in the world anymore.


    The constant bullying of the students. The constant discrimination of the purebloods against the muggleborns and the halfbloods.


    With students like Draco Malfoy and teachers like Snape, his job of destroying her love and respect for authority was not as hard a job as he had originally thought. Though he had come to realize that this project would take a bit longer than he had first thought.


    His job was made even easier when he showed her the true extent of his talent and showed her the method of learning about magic that was far better than the method that was used to teach students in Hogwarts.


    All in all, Project Destroy-Hermione''s-blind-worship-of-authority-figures was coming along quite nicely.


    "But still Harry. If you don''t go to all you classes then how will you pass your classes. In fact, I''m not sure if they''ll even allow you to sit in the exams considering how you never submit your assignments and have very low attendance." She said worriedly and he smiled at how she wore her emotions on her sleeves.


    It was so good to talk with someone innocent like her after talking with a master manipulator like Albus.


    "Hermione." He said and held her cheeks in his hands. Her soft and round cheeks "I never meant to pass the exams. In fact, I don''t really care about them in the first place."


    Hermione looked horrified at his proclamation but managed to stop herself from saying the first words that came to her mind. Instead she took a deep breath and then looked at him with concern that melted his heart.


    He knew that the both of them didn''t see eye to eye in a lot of things but it felt good to know that there was somewhere in the world that cared so much about him so much.


    She did not care about him because he was the boy-who-lived. Oh there were plenty of people out there would would claim that they care about the savior of wizarding world even though they don''t even know what he even looked like. But she was the only one who truly knew and cared about real him.


    "Harry. How can you not care about the exams." She almost shouted before he gave her the look and she realized her mistake and then started talking calmly.


    "Harry. If you don''t take the yearly exams then you''ll never be able to take the OWLs and the NEWTs. And without those you''ll never get a proper job in the ministry or anywhere else."


    "And you think that you can get any job that you desire simply based on your high marks or hard work?"


    It must have been the way in which he asked the question because she blushed instantly and shook her head at once "Of course not. I know that I can''t become the Minister or one of the Head of Departments in the Ministry simply based on my marks. But I know that I can become one if I just work hard enough for it."


    She said it with such enthusiasm and such determination that he almost pitied her for a moment.


    Then he realized that his pity won''t be of any help to her. And that he must open her eyes right now otherwise the longer she held onto those beliefs, the worse she''ll feel when she fails later in her life.


    So as gently as he could, he held her hands and asked "Hermione. You know that the Ministry of Magic has been in existence for a long time right?"


    She nodded her head, looking a bit apprehensive and he continued.


    "In all these years that the ministry has been in power, can you name one instance in which a muggleborn became a Minister of the Magical Britain."


    She scrunched up her nose at that "Well, I can''t be expected to remember the names of all the ministers in the history of magical Britain but I''m sure there must have been a few." She said and he let out a sigh once again.


    She truly didn''t know how far the Purebloods in the magical society had oppressed others whom they thought were below them didn''t she.


    "Very well then Hermione. I''m giving you a task right now." He said and she perked up at that.


    "Go to the library and search for the names of all the Ministers of the Ministry of magic and how many of them were Purebloods, Halfbloods and Muggleborns."


    "Also, search for the names of all the different department heads in the ministry right now and then find out how many of them were Purebloods and how many were not."


    He might have given her the task but he already knew the answer to that.


    There were only two Minister in the last three centuries who were Halfbloods and that was only because they came from ancients houses. The rest had been been Purebloods.


    Similarly, all the department heads in the Ministry were Purebloods.


    It didn''t matter to them whether those department heads were competent or not.


    For a prime example, Arthur himself knew little about muggles but they made him the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office instead of giving that post to a muggleborn who would have done a far better job in that position.


    And Arthur was one of the good Pureblooded Wizard. So you can only guess what the bad ones were like.


    The Ministry truly was biased and totally corrupt.


    "While you''re at it. Also research a few things about Wizengamot and then tell me how many votes are held by Muggleborns and Halfbloods."


    He knew the answer to that as well. Only a few were held by the Halfbloods and the rest were all held by Purebloods.


    When Hermione research these things, it''ll open her eyes to the discrimination going on in the Ministry and how she''ll have to fight tooth and nail for a decent job in that organization if she ever wanted to work there.


    And considering how she was going to be a beauty in the future, there would definitely be people in the ministry would try to take advantage of her weak position.


    No, joining in the ministry will ruin her.


    In fact, trying to work under the Laws of Magical Britain will frustrate her to no end and she would never be able to reach her true potential here.


    So it was essential that he opened her eyes as early as possible and brought her under his protection.


    Both for himself and her.


    He knew that he was selfish in trying to manipulate the girl in such a way that she would come to overly rely on him in the future but at the same time, he also liked the girl and would make sure that she was treated as best as he could possibly treat her.


    "Go." He said "I''ll see you later in room 713 of the West wing as usual at 6 in the evening."


    "Very well Harry." She said and raised her from her seat and turned around to pack her bag. He smirked at her and smacked her butt playfully and she turned to glare at him.


    "Harry! That''s not very gentlemanly of you." She cried out though the pink on her cheeks made him wish he could do that again.


    "Who ever said that I was a gentleman." He said and crossed the distance between them and pecked her in the cheeks.


    Her cheeks became beet red in a moment and he held the urge to laugh at her shocked expression.


    "You look very cute when you''re angry." He chuckled playfully and she glared at him, though the glare once again lost it''s edge because of her embarrassed expression as she turned and practically ran out of the room.


    "You like teasing her." Selena commented from under his sleeves after the girl had left and he smiled at that.


    "Yep. Guilty as charged."

 A talk between Teachers

    "Minvera." The floo flared and Flitwick''s head stuck out of the fire place "May I come in?" he asked, his tone somber instead of the usual excited one.


    "Yes Please Filius. Do come in." Minerva motioned before stepping away from the fireplace.


    Flitwick''s head dipped away from the fireplace for a moment before in a flash of green fire, he appeared in front of the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts.


    "Hello Filius. It''s rare for you to come to my office. How may I help you?" she asked as she set up a chair for him beside her own. Though in her heart, she already knew the purpose behind this visit. And even though she had wanted to postpone this meeting for as long possible, she knew that sooner or later she would have to talk with Flitwick about this little problem.


    Flitwick sat down on the chair at her gesture and held a somber expression "I want to know with is going on between Mr Potter and the Headmaster." He practically demanded and Minerva let out a long suffering sigh before she went to the nearest cabinet and took out a bottle of firewhiskey.


    Gods knew that she was going to need it for this talk.


    Flitwick himself seemed a little surprised at her reaction but aside from that, his expression remained passive and for the first time Minerva understood how much value he put on Mr Potter. For she couldn''t even recall how long it had been since she last saw him looking this serious.


    And in a sense, he would be correct in his stance as well. For if what he had told them was the truth and Harry indeed was a once in a millennium genius in Charms, then they had already lost the respect of this prodigy because of their carelessness and neglect.


    If only Dumbledore had not lied to her when he told her that Harry was growing up in a loving home with his relatives.


    If only she had not believed in his every word like a fool and gone to check on the Dursleys herself. Gods, she knew that they were the worst kind of muggles and then she had sent Harry Harry to that house regardless.


    Gods she hated Dumbledore for betraying her trust like this.


    And so, she started to tell Flitwick everything that she knew about Harry''s life.


    By the time she was through with the story, she was already on her sixth glass of Firewhiskey and openly crying out her grievances at Flitwick who looked both sad and angry at the things that Harry had suffered and at the blatant stupidity of their supposed Leader of the Light.


    "How could you have let this happen Minerva?" Flitwick asked in a devastated tone as he remembered Lily, his favorite student and a genius in her own rights though even she would fallen short to the prodigious talent of Harry Potter.


    But still, she was his favorite student for a long time and then she fought against the Dark Lord for the good of the Magical Britain and when she died protecting her baby, Dumbledore picked up that same baby and threw it in an abusive muggle house where he was treated worse than dirt.


    In all his years as a teacher Flitwick had never felt so awful about following Dumbledore as he did now and just like the media critics, he was truly beginning to wonder if the headmaster had not truly gone senile as well.


    If you cannot even protect a child from his abusive parents, then what''s the point of holding three different posts like that.


    Especially when the child was someone whose parents fought beside you in the war.


    "It was my fault Filius." Minerva sobbed "I should not have trusted Albus'' words and checked on the boy myself. Now the boy probably hates me just as much as Albus. Oh what have we done."Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    After a long silence that was only broken by occasional sobs from Minerva and the occasional sip from the firewhiskey, Flitwick finally said weakly "We should let the boy go Minerva."


    "What?" Minerva jerked her head upward to look at her colleague incredulously. "What do you mean by that Filius?"


    "I mean what I said Minerva. If the child wants to leave Hogwarts then we shouldn''t stop him. He had been stifled in his home a great deal already. The more we try to keep him here, the worse he''ll feel."


    "And just like he said. Severus and Binns are not very good teachers." Flitwick raised his hands in order to stop her before she could refute his words.


    "I know we never talk about this in the staff meetings as it is rude to discuss the teaching methods of our colleague but we all know that Severus might have been an excellent Potion Master but he was never meant to be a teacher and we all know that he''s heavily biased toward his own house students. And the less is said about Binns the better. And then there is Professor Quirrel. I admit I don''t know anything about his teaching methods but if teaches in the same way he talks then I''ve no doubt in my mind that his classes must be an absolute waste of time as well." He finished and Minerva stared at her longtime colleague who had never before slandered another teacher like this.


    "But you yourself said that Mr Potter was a genius among geniuses. Don''t you want to teach him yourself?" she asked incredulously.


    "I do Minerva. Gods know that I do. But not at the expense of his own development." He said "I think we can both agree when I said that recently the Hogwarts standard have fallen to an all time low. It may have once been the Greatest School in all Europe, but I don''t believe that it can be called that anymore Minerva. At least not with the way that the Headmaster is running things."


    "So what are we supposed to do now?" Minerva asked sadly.


    "The first thing we can do is stop Headmaster from forcing the child to remain here as a prisoner. To use your authority to keep a child under your thumb like that is not only deplorable, it''s frankly disgusting. No wonder Harry neither trusts you nor like you all that much. In fact, it''s a miracle and dare I say, a small consolation that he''s attending my classes on a regular basis."


    "But Albus said that¡­"


    "Albus also said that the boy is safe in the loving house of his relatives." He half goblin spat "Look at where that got us Minerva."


    Minerva at least had the sense to look ashamed at his chastisement.


    "It''s a testament to the blind worship you have for Albus that you''ll even think for a second that forcing the child to remain here was ever a good idea."


    They could have talked in detail about this. In fact, Flitwick had to planned to tell her exactly what he thought about Albus'' action in this matter and how far his respect for the headmaster had fallen but one look at Minerva''s distraught face and he decided to change the subject.


    "Another thing I''ll do is that I''ll be giving the boy some extra classes in Charms." He said.


    "But Filius. Didn''t we all agree the before the start of the term to treat him like everyone else regardless of his fame." Minerva cried out but he held up his hand once again and Minerva stopped herself from speaking more in the subject.


    "That we did Minerva. But at that time we did not knew that he would turn out to be such a prodigy. In fact, I doubt he ever learns anything in my class either. Because whenever I ask him to perform a charm, he does it without a second thought, clearly indicating that casting those charms were of no difficulty to him." He said "Sometimes I still wonder why he even bother to come to my class." He said despondently.


    "Filius¡­"


    "No it''s true Minerva. There''s nothing I can teach the boy in my class that would ever interest him because he''s far above the level of his fellow peers. Maybe the only reason he bothers to attend my class is because I''m only one in the whole school whom he respect and who treats him with respect in return."


    Minerva sipped from her Fire whiskey and thought about his words and wondered when she had lost his trust and respect.


    Was it when he realized that she was one of the people who condemned him to his abusive muggle relatives.


    No, she lost his respect even before that. She had lost his respect when he came to him in order to save his friend from bullying and she had foolishly told him to show her some proof in order to be impartial.


    Just so she could be seen as someone who was not going to support the Boy-who-lived blindly because of his fame.


    And she had condemned his friend to bullying with her own mistakes.


    She felt like banging her head on the table for her foolish mistakes and wondered if James and Lily would ever forgive her for the grave mistakes she made with their precious son.


    The son that both of her favorite students gave their life for.


    She sipped from her glass once again as both Flitwick and her tried to come up with ways to deal with the situation at hand for the rest of the evening.

 Hermiones thoughts

    Hermione was at a loss for words as the cold hard facts hit her on the face with all the subtlety of a bullet train.


    There has never been a Muggleborn Minister in the history of Magical Britain.


    There were no Muggleborn with a seat in the Wizengamot.


    No Muggleborn ever sat on the seat of the Chief Warlock or the seat of Supreme Mugwump.


    There were no Muggleborns who were Head of their Department in the Ministry.


    In fact, there were no half bloods Head of Department either.


    The highest position anyone who was not a Pureblood, had in the Ministry of Magic was the Senior Secretary of the Minister of magic and that woman by the name of Dolores Umbridge who was one of the most bigoted person to have ever existed as far as Hermione could tell since that woman had spearheaded several laws and regulations that put goblins, werewolves and centaurs in an even worse position than a 3rd class citizen according to the laws of the ministry.


    She wondered how she could have been so blind that she had missed how messed up this whole society was.


    Sure, Draco Malfoy, that pompous git had called her a mudblood in more than a few occasions and sure none of the teacher had ever punished him for that but that really didn''t mean anything, did it.


    It was all just a school level bullying, wasn''t it.


    She had hoped that he was just be one of those idiot boys who would bully her simply because she was smarter than them but that was apparently not the case here.


    Apparently, blood purity was actually a thing, a real thing in this society. And by their standards, she was just a 2nd class citizen with far fewer rights then that of a pureblood.


    She wondered how she had not seen the true colors of their society until now.


    Had she been so blinded by the discovery of magic that she even forgot to check on how her new world worked.


    Had she been lulled into a state of peace inside the safety of Hogwarts to such a degree that she utterly forgot that she would have to join the world outside once she departed from Hogwarts.


    Did she even want to live in a society which actively discriminated against her and treated her like a 2nd class citizen based on something as stupid as her blood purity, which was all just a hoax as far as she could tell.


    She wondered where she would be if Harry had not barged into her life and opened her eyes to the reality of the wizarding world.


    She would probably still be that naive doe eyed child who thought that she would get any job she wants if she just studied hard enough.


    But now that she knew.


    The problem was that she had no idea what she was supposed to do with this new information.


    She couldn''t go back to the muggle world and live like a muggle. Not after she had seen the beauty of magic.


    Well, she might still be able to go back to the muggle world and be able to the muggle world and join a new school and continue her life like nothing had ever happened.


    But she knew that leaving behind and trying to forget about her magic would hurt her more than anything she had ever experienced in her life.


    And now, for perhaps the first time in her life, she had no idea what she should do. For the first time in her life, she was well and truly lost.


    But then another thought entered her mind as she realized that for the first time, she was not alone either.


    Yes. Harry would know what to do considering how he was the one who opened her eyes in the first place.


    He always knew what to do.


    And she was glad that he was her first friend.


    She removed the tears that had come to her eyes when she had realized how she had been lied to when she first entered this world. And by none other then Minerva Mcgonagall herself. A woman whom she respected to no end in the beginning, but a woman who was rapidly losing her respect lately.


    Well, technically Minerva had not lied to them but not telling them about the Blood Purity and the war that took place about 10 years ago was wrong. She and her parents should have known about all of this before she entered the magical world.


    If they did then maybe they would have thought more before deciding whether to send her to this new school or not.


    Perhaps this was exactly why Minerva didn''t told them about the dark side of this world.


    If Minerva had told every parent the true state of their world then Hermione had no doubt in her mind that few parents would ever send their children to such a school.


    A school where their children would be discriminated against because of stupid things like blood purity.


    She shook her head from her thoughts and stood up in order to search for Harry and felt a small pride in the fact that she was probably the only person in the whole castle who would have been able to find him.


    Whom he had honored with his friendship.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª


    She found him in one of the few abandoned rooms which he had taken for his own use.


    For a moment she stopped and wondered why there were so many abandoned rooms in the school.


    Was it possible that a lot more students attended classes in the past.


    From what she''d heard, a lot of magical families were wiped out in the past two wizarding wars.


    And from what she''d heard, a lot of subjects that were taught in the past had now been cancelled as well because of lack of students willing to learn those subjects.


    She wondered how it would have felt like if the whole school was filled with students.


    As of now, their whole 1st year class didn''t even have a total of 60 students.


    And that was the total amount of magical children in the whole Britain.


    Was it possible that fewer and fewer magical children were being born every year or was the decline in students because of the numerous wars Britain had gone through in the past.


    And that was when the good side won the wars.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    She shuddered to think what would have happened if the blood purists had won the wars.


    But then again, even though the so-called light side have won the past two wars, that didn''t mean that the situation got much better for them.


    It didn''t matter who won the war. In the end, the purebloods still held all the power required to change the laws in order to give equality to muggleborns and the other races.


    But why would they, when every law in existence are already in their favor.


    She suddenly wondered what would happen in the future when she had her own kids.


    Would she sent them to Hogwarts where they would be openly discriminated against only to graduate and join a magical society that''s filled with even more discrimination.


    She shook her head at that thought.


    No wonder why so few students attended Hogwarts now a days.


    She was starting to see why Harry did not like Albus-the-leader-of-the-light-Dumbledore that much.


    She entered the room slowly in order to not distract Harry from his work and quietly closed the door before putting a few locking charm on it.


    Then she attention went to the six 10 inch by 10 inch white plates with red colored ruins carved on it as Harry read instructions on some old tome before checking it with the tablets filled with runes again and again probably in order to find any kind of mistakes in it.


    She had no idea that he knew anything about ancient runes but then again, she did not knew much about him at all.


    And that was a rather sad thing considering that she was perhaps his only friend in the whole school as well. Well, except for his snake Selena whom he often talked with in Parseltongue.


    "What are you doing?" she asked softly as she stood behind him and gazed at the tome he was holding up that showed runes similar to the ones that were carved on the six tablets.


    He continued checking up the tablets for a minute before replying "Making sure that I''ve got the right thing and that I was not hoodwinked by the shopkeeper."


    "Hoodwinked?" she asked curiously before her gaze fell back on the tablets once again all of which held a white stone embedded at their center.


    She curiously tried to reach for the white stone but was stopped by Harry who held her wrist in a tight grip and gave her a reproachful look that made her feel like a child that''d been caught with his hands inside the cookie jar.


    "That''s a ward stone. They''re not harmful but you should not play with them unless you know a bit more about them." He said as he fell back in a lecture mode "That thing is called a warding tablet and creates a specific kind of ward around a given area when activated."


    She digested that information for a moment before asking curiously "What kind of wards do these ones create?"


    "These are simple Fire and Explosion containing wards. These wards that are commonly used in magical houses and act as an advanced form of fire alarm system that are being used in the muggle banks and other such building nowadays."


    "Though I would admit that most people don''t have buy these Ward Tablets since most of the Ward Specialist they hire are fully capable of constructing such simple wards on their own."


    "So why did you bought these Ward Tablets?" she asked.


    "Because I can''t really invite a Ward Specialist inside Hogwarts Grounds now can I?" he said and then with a wave of his arm, all the six Ward Tablets flew in the air and went on opposite directions.


    Four went to the four walls while the other two went to the roof and the floor of the room and then at once, they merged into the wall with some kind of magic before the wall returned to it''s original shape while she looked wide eyed at the spectacle in front of her.


    Even after seeing Harry''s command at wandless and wordless magic many times before, she sometimes still found it hard to believe that someone could have such a level of control over their magic.


    But then again, he had been learning how to do it since the past four years so that explained a bit about his mastery over his magic though she still doubted if she would ever have such precise control over her own magic that she would stop relying on the wand waves and incantations as crutches.


    Especially when after so many days of trying, she was still not able to move a paper by even an inch without using her wand.


    And he made it all seem so easy.


    She wondered how envious she would have felt if she still saw him as a fellow wizard and not a mentor, even though in truth, he was 10 months younger than her.


    Thinking of him as a teacher helped with her envy because she really respected her teachers.


    This was probably one of the few times when her blind worship of the authority figures actually helped her.


    "There. All set." He said with a grin that she saw whenever he finished a job properly.


    "Now I just need to make sure that the wards are working properly." He said and pointed his hand at a piece of paper before narrowing his eyes and in the very next moment, the whole paper ignited. The fire must have burned for a millisecond before a heavy pressure descended on the room and the fire was snuffed out before it could rise even a few inches.


    Silence.


    "It worked." Harry said with no small amount of enthusiasm and turned to her hungrily and she knew what he wanted and opened her arms before she was enveloped in a tight hug the very next second.


    Ever since the first time she hugged Harry, he''d gotten kinda addicted to that feeling and asked for one every time he succeeded in something.


    And considering how she never had any friends in her previous school and was attention starved herself, she never objected to those hugs that made her feel loved and wanted.


    She supposed that in a sense, it was both lovely and sad at the same time.


    Two children. One who was never able to make any friends. Another who was too wary of making any.


    But such thoughts were for another time, for now she was simply going to enjoy his warmth for as long as he deigned to hug her.


    "Mmm¡­ You''re so cozy." He murmured and she felt her cheeks redden.


    "Harry." She chided and he gave her another chuckle before allowing her to leave his embrace, leaving her feeling a bit cold without is warm touch but feeling satisfied all the same.


    He gave her another warm smile before he went back to experimenting with the wards once again.


    At first he simply lit something on a fire and saw the reaction of the wards and she had to admit that they were pretty impressive.


    Then he increased the level of fire in a steady pace and watched as the wards dumped down the fire time and time again until he increase the level once again and by the end of it, he was casting explosive curses left and right and each time the explosion was contained by the wards before it could scorch or damage anything too badly.


    By the end of it, there was a huge smile of Harry''s face and he looked thoroughly satisfied and then she was engulfed into another hug.


    "That was awesome." He cried out and she wondered what he was talking about. Sure the wards were pretty impressive but why did he need them in the first place.


    When she asked, he grinned at her and replied "Because I''m learning Ancient Runes on my on. And with no one to guide me, I''m pretty sure there will a lot of explosions going on around in here. So I bought these wards as protection."


    "Usually only one tablet is used for a single home but I''m loaded and these tablets were not very expensive so I bought six of them for additional safety."


    "I also bought a smaller tablet carved with runes that I will be wearing around my neck when practicing Ancient runes. It was much more expensive then these larger ones but it''ll do it''s job and keep me safe from any harm so it was totally worth it." He said with a smile that often made her realize how truly young he was.


    And whenever she saw that carefree smile, he felt the urge to curse his abusive relatives that were the reason why only she, whom he trusted quite a bit, was able to see that carefree smile.


    "That''s good and all. But why didn''t you ask the Ancient Runes Professor to teach you the subject in the first place?" she asked curiously though she instantly cursed herself for her line of thought as she saw his smile fade away and turn into a scowl.


    "I did went to her in order to learn." He said with a forced smile "And she told me that she would not teach me until I brought a signed paper from all my teachers saying that I''m well above my peers in their subject."


    "Oh¡­" she said and realized that Harry would never do such a thing.


    Even in the small time she''d spent with him, she had come to learn that he was a very prideful person. A bit too extreme if anyone asked her. It was almost as if someone had once taken everything from him and the only thing that he had left was his pride which was probably why he guarded it with such zeal.


    He would never discard his pride and go to the teachers and beg them to sign a paper for him. He was too prideful for that. Especially when there were teachers like Snape who were openly hostile toward him and would never sign that paper in the first place.


    Not to mention that he would never even converse with Mcgonagall on his own accord after her head of house refused to punish her bullies in any shape or form.


    So yes, she could understand why he would resort to such protective measures in order to learn Ancient Runes instead of learning it from the teacher who, in her mind, had no right to decline a student like Harry who respected knowledge more than anything else.


    But maybe that was just her bias talking.


    She sometimes suspected that the only reason why he even bothered to talk with her in the start was because she was the smartest girl in the class.


    And he had even called her cute on multiple occasions though she failed to see why he would ever call her that.


    No one, except her parents, had ever called her that. In fact, the boys in her last school were usually quite mean to her, calling her names like Beaverface and Bucktooth.


    Not that the boys in this school were any better, calling her names like know-it-all and mudblood.


    In the face of all that criticism, she found it hard to believe that someone would ever call her cute but at night when no one was watching her, she would smile to herself and admit that she rather liked it when he called her cute.


    What girl wouldn''t.


    She felt rather lucky that she was Harry''s friend and often wondered where she would be without his friendship and constant support.

 Rift in Friendship

    Harry sat beside Hermione in the Herbology class and wondered if he should drop out of this class as well.


    Now that he had talked with Albus Dumbledore and they''ve made it clear between themselves that he was not really interested in remaining in this school anymore and the only reason he was even here was because Dumbledore couldn''t allow the Boy-Who-Would-Be-Sacrificed-For-The-Greater-Good to slip out of his fingers, he could literally stop coming to any class that he didn''t like.


    In fact, he had not attended the last two classes of Potions and History of Magic and the last three classes of Defense Against the Dark Arts.


    Now he was wondering if he should drop out of Herbology as well considering how he was not really all that interested in that subject.


    Learning how to plant and nurture Bubotuber might be good for anyone who was interested in learning about plants and wanted good marks in their classes but for him, it was nothing but a huge waste of his time.


    Time that he could spend doing something else.


    But then again, Pomona was such a nice woman and he didn''t want to leave Hermione all alone in case she might get bullied by her classmates which would force him to retaliate against them.


    Not that she''d been bullied by anyone recently.


    His name carried at least that much weight around here. Especially after he sent one Slytherin 3rd year to the infirmary for calling Hermione a mudblood behind their backs.


    No concrete evidence of his involvement was found as the boy simply tripped his legs and fell to the ground, hard, breaking his jaw and countless teeth.


    But regardless of any concrete evidence, everyone knew that it was him who did it so bullies now stayed well away from Hermione.


    Except for the few girls who were now bothering her even more now that they know how protective Harry could be when he wanted to.


    He wanted to teach the girls a lesson on his own but by some divine intervention, Minerva Mcgonagall took the incentive herself and called those girls to the office in order to deal with them.


    Those few that were called to her office had been strangely subdued since after their visit and Harry wondered what happened inside those closed doors.


    From the looks Minerva was giving him, it was clear that she was trying to turn over a new leaf.


    Or maybe she was doing it all under Headmaster''s order in order to make his stay in Hogwarts more comfortable. You could never tell with all the manipulations going around.


    And Hermione had also told him that Snape had also become a bit subdued lately.


    Maybe threatening the headmaster with leaving the school was not such a bad thing after all.


    Not that he was ready in any shape or form to leave the school in the first place.


    He still wasn''t anywhere close to copying all the books in the Restricted section and even if he did, he still needed time for using the Room of Requirement properly. After all, he doubted that he would be able to find any such room anywhere else in the world.


    He was brought out of his musings by an elbow on the ribs.


    He turned to look at Hermione who was sending him a glare telling him to focus on the given task and he sighed once again.


    He might have decreased the trust she had on the authority figures but there was still a lot of things about her that he didn''t particularly liked.


    One of them being her obsession with studying every single subject and getting top marks in every one of them.


    He could still remember how she took 11 classes in her 3rd year and had to use a time turner simply so she could keep up and even then she seemed haggard and tired all the time.


    Of course, she would probably never get the top marks in Herbology because of Neville who was a prodigy in that subject but that didn''t change the fact that her obsession with getting the top marks in all the other subjects was very unhealthy.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Especially when some of those subjects were Muggle Studies, Divination and History of Magic.


    Wait, didn''t she dropped out of Divination when Trelawny predicted Harry''s death once again.


    Huh, the exhaustion must have caught up to her otherwise she would have never insulted a teacher to her face no matter how batty the teacher seemed to be in the movies.


    He looked around the class and noticed the other students learning to plant the dark red seeds with the black spot in their respective pots.


    An overall boring exercise in his mind especially when he''d made it clear that he was never interested in Herbology in the first place.


    He looked at Hermione who was now focused on her task and sighed.


    He didn''t know if he could find some way to change her mind so that she would stop paying so attention to things like these that would not matter in the long term.


    Tom Riddle was also a genius of his own but Harry doubted that he would have ever spent most of his time focused on subjects like these that would not help him in the long run.


    If he did, then he would not have found The Chamber of Secrets or The Room of Hidden Things. Nor would he have created such a large following in the Slytherin house.


    You don''t win the respect of your fellow Slytherin peers by getting top marks in Herbology.


    And even though he was not much of a fan of Voldemort, he knew that there was always something that you could learn from people like these.


    He looked at Hermione and wondered what he could do that would break her out of her fantasy world in which Higher Marks equals to huge success in the world.


    Words would not work on her. Especially when his conversation skills were rather bad and he had doubts that he would win an argument against her even if he was on the right.


    She needed to go through a dangerous situation that would change her world view.


    Something that would make her realize that things like Herbology, History of Magic and things like these won''t really help her in the long run.


    Not that he had anything against Herbology but he felt that the both of them could do much more in subjects like Transfiguration and Charms if they just put their minds together.


    So where was he, yes, she need something drastic to happen in her life which would help her understand that using her precious time on things like Herbology won''t be of much use in the long run.


    But what to do.


    And then he remembered a plan that he had scraped some time ago.


    The plan about the troll.


    The incident with the troll was something that he''d decided to stop when he became friend with Hermione.


    After all, there was not way he would endanger his friend and pit her against a troll just so he could come and save her at time.


    Such a traumatizing experience might bond them together like how it did in the real movie but that didn''t mean that he would continue with that event.


    What''s more, with all the changes he''d made in Hogwarts, he doubted that anyone would bully Hermione anytime soon, or that she would ever have to run to a bathroom in order to cry her tears out.


    So the troll incident was something that he''d scraped up some time ago and decided that he would rather leave it to the Headmaster and the other teachers like how it should have been.


    But here was a great learning experience for Hermione and if he was careful then no harm would come to Hermione.


    And who''s he to say ''No'' to such a bonding experience.


    But regardless, he still felt like a dick for betraying his friend like that.


    "Say Hermione." He said in order to get her attention and when she looked at him with scrutiny, he continued "You already know about my confrontation with the Headmaster. If, I leave this school at the end of the term, would you come with me?" he asked hopefully cause he considered himself a good friend if you ignore the incoming troll attack which might traumatize her a bit.


    Hermione looked at him in a complicated manner and chewed her lips for a moment but when she didn''t replied for a long moment, he felt something shatter in his heart.


    "You''re a very good friend Harry. But I don''t know if my parents would allow me to change school just because of a friend." She said slowly and he felt a stab in his heart.


    Because he had genuinely believed that he was her best friend and that she would follow him to the ends of the world with him.


    Well, maybe not to the ends of the world but he still believed that she thought more about their friendship than he did.


    But maybe it was just him.


    Or maybe she simply valued her education more than her friendship with him.


    A heavy feeling settle in his heart and he felt something prickle in his eyes.


    "I see." He managed to say which out a bit croaked because of his emotions and he could see Hermione''s face suddenly turn pale but before she could say anything, he turned his Shroud of Concealment to it''s fullest and watched in sadness as Hermione suddenly looked a bit unsure before she went back to her work.


    And he had thought that he had a friend in her who would always stay with him no matter what.


    The fact that she valued the school more than him felt like a stab to his heart.


    It should not have been as the logical part of his brain knew that such a feeling was a bit childish but his emotions didn''t let him think about any such logic.


    And he felt like she had betrayed him in some way even though she really didn''t.


    She really just... didn''t valued their friendship as much as he had thought.


    Well, in the end, you cannot really expect a person to leave his or her school just because their friend did so as well.


    And what made him even more of a hypocrite was the fact that if Hermione left the school then he would not have followed her, though he would try his best to make her stay.


    But that didn''t change the fact that he felt like utter shit right now.


    He left the class without anyone noticing anything strange and it would be a few minutes before even Hermione would realize that he''d left her side.

 Chapter 32:- Harrys Gift

    Hermione looked at the trunk in her bed and read the note attached to it before tears prickled down her face.


    It was the only gift she had received throughout the day.


    None of her other classmates knew that today was her birthday or even bothered to care and even tough her parents cared a great deal about her, they couldn''t send a gift to her here in Hogwarts because no muggle Post would ever reach here and they had no magical owl with which they could send their gift.


    The only gift she received was given to her by Harry and she hadn''t talked to him in the last two weeks.


    No, it was not that she had not talked with him but more like she hadn''t even seen him in the school till now.


    She searched for him in all the abandoned rooms in which they studied together but found that those rooms were just that now. Abandoned. Just like she was.


    She still remembered clearly how Harry had asked her if she would leave the school with him if she did and she remembered how she had hesitated and then said that she wasn''t sure that parents would allow it even though she knew that it was just en excuse and nothing more.


    After all, the school was becoming better these days for her.


    All the bullies now left her alone.


    All the teachers now paid more attention to her and even Professor Snape seemed in a better mood these days as he hardly took any points from them without reason.


    And all her roommates treated her better now. Even though most of the time they only wanted to know about Harry.


    All in all, her life was turning out to be pretty good here in Hogwarts which was why she had made that excuse when he asked if she would transfer with him if he left the school.


    She only later realized the weight behind those words.


    He had wanted to know how deep their friendship was.


    If she was willing to sacrifice something for him.


    He had wanted to know what their friendship meant to her.


    And then she had gone ahead and gave that excuse about her parents but in the end, that''s just what it was. A flimsy excuse.


    As soon as she had given that excuse, his expression had turned to stone before slowly crumbling away as his eyes became wet and at that moment, she knew that she had made a horrible mistake.


    He had not come to meet her in the abandoned room to teach her about charms that evening.


    She had tried to find him after that and hadn''t stopped her search till the curfew but found no signs of him anywhere in the castle.


    The same thing happened the next day. And the next. And she soon figured out why none of the teachers were able to ever find him no matter how much they tried.


    And why he was given the cheesy nickname of the ''Phantom'' even though none of the students dared to call that name to his face.


    She had felt utterly alone the first few days without his constant presence. Without his constant hugs.


    And that feeling only got worse along with time and by now she had even forgotten how many times she had cried over the last few days.


    Her roommates had asked her why she was crying and when she confided in them about the status of her friendship with Harry, their attitudes had turned a full 180 degree with concern to scorn and contempt.


    Unlike how it was at the start of the term, none of the boys bullied her or called her names as all the teachers had now become quite strict about this and gave quite harsh punishments to anyone who was caught in the act of bullying but that didn''t mean that she was treated any better by her housemates who had now actively begun to shun her.


    Harry had once threatened Ron in front of the whole class when he had called her a know-it-all and the red haired boy had almost pissed his pants in fright.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The Gryffindors hadn''t taken kindly to the fact that one of their own had been threatened by someone from outside the house even though they had conveniently forgotten that she belonged to Gryffindor as well and Ron bullied her all the time before Harry set him up straight.


    No all the housemates had actively alienated her at her time of need and she felt utterly horrible.


    At this point, if Harry even suggested to change the school, she would have jumped at the chance to do so.


    But that chance had come and gone a long time ago.


    She had failed to see that the only reason why her housemates and classmates were treating her better was because of Harry''s constant presence.


    She on the other hand, had conveniently forgotten that he had no interest in Herbology or History of Magic and the only reason he attended those classes was so that he could sit with her and protect her from others.


    She had conveniently forgotten how much she was bullied before he came into her life and rescued her.


    She had taken his precious friendship for granted and now she was getting everything that she deserved.


    She read the instructions given behind the note and carefully opened the trunk before stepping inside it.


    Her own trunk was nothing special and only held two times the actual space that a normal trunk of that size would hold. And there were only a few charms on that so that she would find it easier to carry.


    Her parents had bought that trunk for her so that she would able to carry the extra books that she bought in Florish & Botts.


    Of course she had known that there were trunks that had such such large spaces inside them that a whole house could fit inside of it. In fact, her parents had seemed downright fascinated by those trunks and had shown the desire to buy them but those trunks were terribly expensive and despite the fact that both her parents were Dentists and had a lot of money to spare, they decided that those trunks were a ''luxury'' and didn''t bought them in the end.


    And now Harry had gifted one such trunk to her even though she had not seen him for two whole weeks even though the actual time seemed so much more to her.


    She held the urge to sob and entered the first room on a ladder.


    It was a small bedroom with a cozy looking bed and a wardrobe that was filled with dresses of her size.


    She could only guess how much Harry must have spent on these things and held a sob. Thoughts related to him made her feel like crying all over again.


    She closed the dresser and moved to the second room which was a large study room which was also filled with various tools and trinkets that she knew from her Charms and Transfiguration classes along with a cauldron and a large amount of supplies of Potion ingredients for her to practice with.


    She remembered Harry telling her that he was quite rich but she had never truly asked him how much. Now she had a little idea about that but at this point she didn''t even care about frivolous things such a money.


    She just wanted her friend back.


    Oh, if she could only go back in time and remind herself to not take his friendship for granted.


    She sobbed once again and moved to the last room with held two large selves and was a library for all intents and purposes.


    She browsed the books and saw that they were divided under various subjects such as Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmency, Potions, Alchemy, Ancients Runes, etc.


    She didn''t knew anything Alchemy but knew that books related to that subject were horribly expensive. And there were more than a dozen of such books in the shelf.


    But that was not the end of it either.


    She read the last instruction on the small note and went to the third row of the second shelf before pulling the 8th red colored book in it and was startled as the whole shelf suddenly moved to the side like how she''d read in some of the detective novels.


    She giggled at that thought and realized that only Harry would do something so dramatic like this and sobbed as she was once again reminded of their broken friendship.


    She entered the hidden room and was floored at the sight that greeted her.


    A library almost as large as half of the Hogwarts library was in front of her and she gaped openly at that sight for a long moment before her gaze hungrily went to the books upon the various shelves.


    She did not even had to go through the first bookshelf completely before she realized what this was.


    All the books kept in the Restricted section of the Library were present in front of her plus a few more books that even their library didn''t have.


    How had Harry gotten hold of these books? Had he bought them. They all seemed so new. And she suddenly realized why this whole library was hidden. She could not show these books to anyone else. There was a reason why these books were kept in the restricted section.


    She was so lost in this new world that she almost missed the note that was kept in the first table.


    Knowing that it must be something from Harry, she immediately left those books in their places and jumped at the note before picking up and reading it''s contents.


    ~~A gift for someone who values Education over Friendship~~


    If anyone else had written the note, she would have taken it to be sarcastic or mocking. But coming from Harry, the note seemed to be filled with sadness.


    And was that an indent made from a water drop at the corner of the note?


    She traced over that indent and realized that no. Harry had been crying when he wrote this note and she suddenly felt like the worst person in the world.


    The world might see him as their The Boy-Who-Lived. The Vanquisher of The Dark Lord. The Savior of Magical Britain. A Mysterious Boy. A Phantom. But she and only she knew about his abused childhood. About why he never made any friends or why he held such hostility toward most adults.


    And now she had hurt him even more with her actions.


    She sobbed as she clutched that note tightly to her chest before her sobbing turned into crying and before long, she was openly wailing in the empty library.


    She did not need this gift.


    She needed her friend back.