Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own any characters, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately. Don't sue me.
The Dementor and the Mind Game
"Harry. Harry! Wake up, or you'll be late to class!"
Ender awoke instantly, his military-disciplined mind already overriding this body's slow, lazy wakeup routine. The brownish, blurry outline of a bushy-haired girl shaking his shoulder probably helped, too.
"Harry! Get up!"
Hermione Granger. Muggle-born. Born September 19, 1979. Will turn fourteen in just over two weeks. Harry Potter's best friend and closest confidant. Intelligent, perceptive, and willing to turn against authority figures if Harry convinces her that it is necessary, but otherwise dangerously submissive to those above her. A powerful resource, but will pose the greatest threat to discovering that I am no longer Harry Potter.
"Alright, alright," Ender groaned, trying to imitate Harry's morning grumpiness as closely as possible. "I'm moving, keep your voice down. What time is it?"
"It's eight-fifteen, Harry," the girl replied, shoving a bundle of clothes into Ender's chest about half a second after he put Harry's ridiculous glasses on. Harry's eyesight is awful and his body is weak and small. I'll look into fixing that as soon as possible; there must be some magical solution. "Here, I got a copy of your class schedule from Professor McGonagall. You've only got until nine, so hurry up!"
With that, the force of nature that was Hermione Granger swept out of the hospital wing, allowing Ender to change into his school robes. I never thought I'd miss the IF uniforms and flash suits—these robes are ridiculously impractical.
Ender looked at the class schedule. He had Divination, followed by Transfiguration, and then Care of Magical Creatures after lunch. Harry's memories supplied all the information he needed to make his next decision. Looks like I've got to see McGonagall about getting this changed, then.
"Excuse me, Mister Potter, you want to do what, exactly?"
Ender had dressed and immediately set off for the Great Hall. Upon entering, he had steadfastly ignored the stares—and in the case of the Slytherin contingent, jeers and insults—of the Hogwarts student body, and had marched right up to the head table. His request had been simple: to change his electives from Divination and Care of Magical Creatures to Arithmancy and Runes. Judging by the reactions of the staff within earshot, this was not a common request, and Professor McGonagall had promptly taken him to her office to discuss the matter in depth.
"I wish to change my electives, professor," Ender replied, more slowly this time, as though talking to someone who just wasn't quite getting a fairly simple concept. "I assume this is a simple matter? I can use textbooks from the library, until I am able to purchase copies for myself."
"Well, yes, Mister Potter, but why would you want to change your electives?" McGonagall asked, clearly reluctant to agree to his request. "Care of Magical Creatures, at least, is an important and useful subject."
Ender noticed with amusement that she had made no mention of Divination being important or useful (having thought, himself, that it seemed essentially worthless), before trying to figure out why she was so clearly against him switching to a different pair of electives. At Battle School, such requests had been honored without question as long as the prequisites had been met, and if the student turned out to have bitten off more than he could chew, then that was his own problem.
Ah. There being no prerequisites, all she has to work with is her familiarity with Harry Potter, and she thinks he's too much of an idiot to follow along with the more academically-demanding subjects. Well, I need to convince her otherwise, because if I am truly in a different reality, those subjects will hold more important information that I can use to try to make it back home. Plus, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures both sound painfully boring.
"I understand," Ender said soberly. "You don't think I can hack it in the tougher courses."
McGonagall began to object, but Ender stopped her with a raised palm.
"Professor, I have worked hard for the last two years to create a specific perception of my academic capabilities," Ender said quietly, as though reluctantly divulging some painful secret. "In truth, I am capable of much more than you have seen, and I guarantee that you will see significant improvements in my grades in every class...except perhaps Potions, given Snape's obvious and ridiculous vendetta against me. "
"Why would you ever do that?" McGonagall asked skeptically, not bothering to correct Ender for his disrespect toward Snape (even most of the staff were aware of the situation, despite Albus's willful blindness).
Guilt trip time.
"I'm surprised that you, of all people, have to ask, professor," Ender said casually. "Considering the fact that you signed my first Hogwarts letter, and addressed it to the Cupboard Under The Stairs. I would have thought you would understand that once I finally had somewhere to go, and once I had friends—especially Hermione, so proud of her own academic prowess, and Ron, so jealous of anyone who could do more than him—that it would be more important for me to fit in, rather than to excel and potentially alienate the people around me. I've been hated for my successes before, professor"—isn't that the truth, he thought ruefully as he remembered the reactions of many of the other Battle School students, though McGonagall would probably take it differently given her knowledge of the Dursleys—"and I desperately wanted people at Hogwarts to like me."
As Ender spoke, McGonagall's skeptical face paled and became a mask of horrified shock. Ender had always known that this was the greatest skill of all the Wiggin children: knowing a person well enough to find their weak spot, and then pound it with all their might. Ender may as well have hit McGonagall with a sledgehammer, for the look on her face. Well, her army's frozen; might as well go through the gate.
"Since, after the events of last year, we both know that my dream of actually being liked and accepted here at Hogwarts is long dead, I might as well take classes that actually interest me," Ender continued, watching as the professor practically flinched with each callous word. "You see, I had always planned to take the OWLs and NEWTs in these subjects—and a few others, as well—but I thought I would just self-study until then. Now, though, something just tried to murder me on the bloody train ride here, after two years of other things trying to kill me. It's clear that I need to leave this place before it becomes my grave, and I'd rather have some worthwhile classes and grades on my transcript for when I start applying to other schools."
"Leave Hogwarts?!" McGonagall sputtered, getting over her shock just enough to try to talk him out of it. Harry Potter, leave Hogwarts?! The nation would riot! "Mister Potter, you can't just...your parents would have—"
"My parents are dead, professor," Ender interrupted harshly. "And since I never knew them, I'll just have to go out on a limb and imagine that they would prefer me to be happy and healthy elsewhere, rather than miserable, hated, or dead here at Hogwarts. Please switch my electives, professor."
In reality, Ender had no intention of leaving Hogwarts (though he would, of course, investigate the possibility of transferring, if for no other reason than to see what his options were). After all, Harry Potter's background knowledge and celebrity status were powerful resources, but only in Britain; if Ender transferred to another school or moved to another country, he would lose a great deal of influence. As far as McGonagall knew, though, the threat was legitimate: "Harry Potter" was sick of being put in danger, and fed up with being alternately deified and demonized by the British magical community.
In stunned silence, the Deputy Headmistress pulled out a standard form, checked a few boxes, and signed her name. Moments later, a sheet of parchment appeared in her inbox, and she indicated mutely, with a wave of her hand, that Ender should take it. He looked at new class schedule briefly, noting that his first class was now Arithmancy (Runes was to follow later in the week), and nodded in satisfaction.
"Thank you, Professor McGonagall. I'll see you in class later this morning."
Minerva McGonagall watched, dumbfounded, as Harry Potter strode confidently from her office, new schedule in hand. She reached down to open her bottom left desk drawer—which would only open to her hand—and withdrew a bottle of thirty-year-aged Macallan single-malt whisky. She took a deep swig, swallowing hard, while silently lamenting the barbarism of treating such excellent whisky like two-quid malt liquor. Moments later, the bell rang, signalling the end of breakfast, and letting everyone know that they only had ten minutes to get to class.
"Eight fifty AM, a new record," Minerva murmured. James Potter and Sirius Black—curse that horrible man—would surely have been proud; at their most troublesome (a particularly notable incident regarding the knickers and skirts of every woman in the castle above the age of sixteen), they had only managed to get Minerva to spoil great whisky at nine-fifteen AM. "Well done, Harry. Once again, you've done your father proud."
Then she remembered what Harry had said about his "family"—and what he had (in a roundabout way, and, arguably correctly), accused her of supporting—and took another swig, before putting the bottle back and slamming the drawer closed in barely-contained fury. Albus was going to have a great deal of explaining to do.
This is a third-year elective?!
Professor Vector had spent the entirety of the first Arithmancy lesson going over the course syllabus and a few sample lesson plans, which provided a broad overview of the mathematics involved in the course. For the average Muggle-born, it would have seemed to be a simple review of concepts they learned a few years ago, before coming to Hogwarts; for Ender—who had long-since mastered the mathematics necessary for astronavigation—it was like someone telling an Olympic sprinter that they would teach him how to walk. Just...absurd. Even before Ender had gone to Battle School, his classmates were learning this material, and at that time, he hadn't even turned six!
Arithmetic. Valentine taught me arithmetic when I was three!
Clearly, he was significantly ahead of his peers when it came to the mathematics; in fact, Ender knew and could apply many theories that had not even been invented yet in this reality. Unfortunately, Vector's syllabus had indicated that the class wouldn't start applying those concepts to magic—the one area in the subject in which Ender was as ignorant as his peers—until their fifth year, meaning that he would essentially be treading water for two years before he could learn anything useful in this course.
Unless I can either self-study or convince Vector to advance me, this class will be a massive waste of my time and effort.
"Come on, Harry," Hermione nagged after Vector dismissed the class. "If we hurry, we can probably meet up with Ron before Transfiguration."
"Go on ahead," Ender said absently, already walking to the front of the class. "I want to talk to Professor Vector first."
Hermione followed the rest of the class out the door, leaving only Ender and the Arithmancy professor in the room. When the door clicked shut, Vector turned to Ender and let out a resigned sigh.
"Mister Potter," the professor began, "if the material is too difficult, and you want to switch your electives back, just give me your schedule—"
"Sorry to interrupt, professor," Ender cut in, holding up a hand to stop Vector. "It's just that...well, I've only got a few minutes before I have to leave for Transfiguration, so I'll be blunt. I looked at the syllabus, and paged through the textbook. All of the material for this year and next year is going to be a waste of my time. I would guess that the same is true for most of the maths in the OWL- and NEWT-level course material, but at least in those classes, I would be learning some magical theory to back up the maths that I already know. Is there any way that I can test into the fifth-year class?"
Having been on staff for "only" nine years, Septima Vector had not been a professor for as long as, say, the likes of Minerva McGonagall, but she had enough experience with teenagers to be skeptical when one of them (especially a teenaged boy) claimed to be far ahead of his peers. If this arrogant display—even away from his peers—was how Harry Potter normally acted, she was almost inclined to buy into Severus's anti-Potter propaganda.
"Mister Potter, I understand that you are used to some level of leeway due to your celebrity status, but I highly doubt that you are truly prepared for—"
"Professor, I don't mean to be rude," Ender interrupted again, "but, like I said, I've only got a few minutes. Trust me when I say that I was somewhat ahead of my peers in my muggle primary school maths classes, and that none of the maths in these classes will be a challenge for me. Please just humor me—schedule me a detention and give me a third- and fourth-year placement test. I guarantee that I will pass it to your satisfaction."
"Fine," Vector snapped irritably, clearly just wanting this conversation to be over. "Come to my office tonight after dinner, and I'll have a problem set ready for you. If you pass, I will talk to Professor McGonagall about switching you into my fifth-year class. Obviously, it meets at a different time, so that would likely impact your overall schedule."
"Thank you, professor," Ender said gratefully. "I will see you tonight, and I promise that you will not be disappointed."
Vector—clearly finished with the conversation—waved her hand negligently toward the door, causing it to slam open.
"Get going, Potter," she sighed, "I'm not going to write you a note, so if you want to make it to Transfiguration, you'd better hurry."
Ender, recognizing that he had won the battle and that there was nothing left to be gained by remaining on the field, scurried out of the classroom.
"Harry, mate, where were you for Divination? Blimey, but Trelawney was a right old bat!"
Ronald Weasley. Pure-blood. Born March 1, 1980. Will turn fourteen in several months. Harry Potter's closest male friend, a.k.a. "best mate." Surprisingly good at chess for such a linear thinker. Highly suggestible, prone to fits of jealously regarding wealth and status, and fairly lazy regarding schoolwork. Ruled by base instincts: currently hunger, but a likely candidate for womanizing and substance abuse in adulthood. Reliable while united against a common foe. Cannon fodder.
Ender had only just barely made it to Transfiguration on time, skidding through the door just as the bell rang, and had ended up isolated in the back corner, at the only remaining free desk. As such, he had not been able to speak to Harry's closest confederates until the end of the lesson. He had been amused to hear that the obvious fraud of a Divination professor had predicted Harry Potter's death—a bit late, in his opinion—but had been intrigued by the mention of a Grim, which was apparently a large black dog. Harry had apparently seen one such creature before his flight from Number Four Privet Drive that summer; Ender—well-versed in astronomy as only a graduate of the International Fleet's Command School could be—made another connection entirely, and resolved to do some further investigation at his earliest opportunity.
Of more immediate interest, though, was that Hermione Granger appeared to be a time-traveler.
"I'm sorry, Harry, but I promised the headmaster that I wouldn't tell anyone about it," Hermione repeated, taking another entirely unapologetic bite of her sandwich.
Ah, so Dumbledore had some role in giving her a time-travel device. Good to know.
Since he had concluded—correctly, given Hermione's not-denials—that there was a simple, paradox-free, in-universe method of time-travel, all other thoughts had fled from Ender's mind.
I must have one.
Though Ender's long-term ambitions remained the same (that is, to determine whether it was possible to return to his own reality, assuming that this one was actually real), his short-term goal was to amass as much wealth and power in this reality—the better to fund research for ways to get back home, of course—as he possibly could. A properly-applied time-travel device, even if it only allowed loops of a few hours at a time, would vastly simplify and speed this process, all through the mystical power of gambling. Between sporting events, horse races, and stock markets, it would be all but impossible to not become ridiculously wealthy. Now, he just had to figure out how to get Dumbledore (for, as ridiculous as it seemed, it had become clear that Hermione had been given a time machine to allow her to take more classes) to help him acquire such a device...
The end-of-lunch bell rang out, shaking Ender back to the present. An even shorter-term goal—getting into OWL-level Arithmancy—came to mind, and Ender began to walk in the direction of the library. He was confident in his ability to ace whatever test Vector came up with, but a little last-minute cramming wouldn't hurt, and he could look up legilimency and time-travel devices while he was there.
"Harry!" Ron called. "Aren't you coming to Hagrid's class? Hermione, where did..."
Ron looked around at the rapidly-emptying Great Hall.
"Bloody hell, where'd you go? Mental, they both are!"
"Done," Ender said softly, setting down his quill. The test—despite Vector's obvious attempt to stump him by overrepresenting the more complex problem types from fourth-year Arithmancy—had been extremely easy for Ender, and the only reason it took him nearly thirty minutes to complete was that he was a bit clumsy with the quill (Harry's muscle memory was of little help, as his handwriting was atrocious). Ender, courtesy of long hours of manipulating numbers at Battle School and Command School, was far beyond the abilities of most twentieth-century university mathematics professors, while the most complicated bit of mathematics on the fourth-year curriculum had been geometry, for crying out loud! "Here you go, professor."
Vector picked up Ender's exam and answer sheet, clearly skeptical; a skilled fourth-year Arithmancy student would probably have taken nearly three hours to complete the exam that she had cobbled together, but Harry Potter, of all people, seemed to have completed it in less than a half hour. She had watched as Harry's quill scratched furiously for the entire duration of his attempt at the exam...almost as though test was so easy that his physical writing speed was the only bottleneck.
Ender watched as Professor Vector's eyes scanned down the several pages of the exam's answer sheet. Gradually, her skeptical frown slowly melted away as her clenched jaw slackened until it hung open, while her furrowed brows rose steadily up toward her hairline, morphing her stern face into an expression of pure surprise.
"How...this...Potter, you got a perfect score," Vector stammered. "That is simply incredible...you didn't even put down half the work! And you were writing much too fast to be working it out on the parchment...did you do all the work in your head?"
Ender nodded, holding up his quill. "I would have written more, but honestly, the quill was just slowing me down so much that I decided to only write out the bare minimum to show that I actually knew what I was doing. My handwriting is much better and faster with regular pens and pencils, and they don't require constant re-inking."
"...Unbelievable," Vector murmured, sitting back against her imposing mahogany desk. "And here I thought that I was the one calling your bluff. Well, you've proven that third- and fourth-year Arithmancy classes would be a waste of your time, and I agree a hundred percent. I'll speak to Professor McGonagall this evening, and she should have a new schedule ready for you tomorrow morning. Good work on the test, and welcome to OWL-level Arithmancy, Potter."
Ender grinned as he left Vector's office. Deciding to avoid Gryffindor Tower (no doubt Ron and Hermione were still busy whipping the other Gryffindors into a frenzy over the fiasco that had been Hagrid's first Care of Magical Creatures class), he made his way back toward the library. After all, he had a lot of catching up to do.
"—oh, Septima," Minerva noted in surprise from her position at the headmaster's right side. The professors were holding the traditional "first day recap" staff meeting; Septima had (as professors would do, now and again) told her at dinner that she likely wouldn't make it, due to her committing to supervising a detention. "We weren't expecting you at all tonight, let alone this early. Didn't you say that you expected the detention to take at least three hours?"
"I did," the Arithmancy professor said, appearing somewhat surprised herself. She had intended to slip in unnoticed and speak to Minerva privately after the meeting, but now every eye was upon her. "In fact, the student in question completed his assigned task much more efficiently than I had expected."
"Ah, well, we were just discussing Mister Potter," Minerva revealed, having already lost interest in her previous line of questioning. "Actually, I was rather hoping you would be able to tell us your impression of him. He was rather insistent about getting into Arithmancy and Runes, but he won't be in Runes until later in the week."
"Funny you should ask," Septima said with a sigh. "In fact, Mister Potter was the student I was supervising—"
"Typical Harry Bloody Potter," Severus interrupted, an unpleasant sneer already in place at the mention of his least-favorite student. "Of course the little brat would end up with detention on his first day back, and from a professor whose class he begged to get into. I say—"
"Actually," Spetima cut in, pre-empting Minerva's inevitable violent reaction (Severus's vendetta against the boy was truly getting out of hand—the rest of the staff honestly expected there to be blood spilled over it before Harry graduated); "I wouldn't really call it a "detention," per se. After class, Mister Potter approached me, and asked if it would be possible for him to test into OWL-level Arithmancy."
This declaration forced even those professors whose attention had wandered to focus back on Septima. Albus leaned forward, not bothering to disguise his calculating interest, while Minerva schooled her countenance to an expression of casual interest. Internally, though, Harry's words from that morning echoed harshly in her head. Was this the first salvo in Harry Potter's effort to break away from Hogwarts?
"I see," Minerva said calmly. "So this evening..."
"...I was proctoring an examination of Mister Potter's Arithmancy skills," Septima continued. "At first, I figured it for arrogance; we all know how teenagers—especially the boys—can be. Boasting, bragging, that sort of thing; for a moment, I thought that Severus might have had the closest read on the boy, though in fairness the fact that he only approached me and made his request after the other students had left did seem to indicate a more modest temperament. Then, I remembered that Mister Potter was Muggle-raised. As you are all likely aware, Muggle-born—or, in Mister Potter's case, Muggle-raised—students often have a leg up on the other students in the introductory material for Arithmancy, due to its similarity to mathematics courses in their muggle primary schools. It did not seem inconceivable that a student in muggle primary school might have been in an advanced maths course, or given advanced tutelage in the subject. Thus, I decided to humor him, and cobbled together a fairly difficult examination. I estimated that a competent student who had completed both basic level courses in Arithmancy would likely need about three hours to complete the test. It took Mister Potter less than thirty minutes."
In the silence that followed, the tension ratcheted up, and the entranced professors all leaned in a bit further. After a few nigh-unbearable seconds, the ever-excitable Filius Flitwick could contain his curiousity no longer.
"Well?" he practically cried out. "How did he do?"
With a wave of her wand, Septima produced several sheets of parchment, which she proceeded to tap against the tabletop, straightening the pile. She rarely commanded this much attention during staff meetings, and the sly grin on her face told the rest of the staff that she was quite enjoying it. Finally, though, she could draw it out no further.
"A perfect score," Septima pronounced. The other staff members gasped in shock; Arithmancy was a notoriously difficult subject, and Septima had often complained that too many of her fourth-year students did poorly enough on the final exam that they didn't even bother taking the class the next year. For a third-year to test into the fifth-year class without any actual instruction in the subject...it simply beggared belief. Septima, though, continued undeterred, clearly pleased that she had found a student worth taking under her wing. That it was the illustrious Harry Potter only sweetened the deal. "Minerva, I'll need to talk to you about scheduling Mister Potter into my OWL class."
This revelation struck a particular chord with Albus and Minerva. After lunch, the headmaster had been thoroughly berated (with a level of vehemence and rage that he had not seen from Minerva since the Marauders had been at school, and even then, it hadn't been directed at him) by his deputy over what she had learned about young Mister Potter's home life with the Dursleys. Albus had never expected the boy to have been subjected to so much suffering at Number Four Privet Drive—and he was certain that the Cupboard Under The Stairs was only the tip of the iceberg—and realized (far, far too late) that many of the comments that Albus had made to Harry in the last two years had implied that he had not only known about the boy's mistreatment, but had actively planned for it. Now, the boy's push to get into an OWL-level course was a grim reminder that he was investigating the possibility of leaving Hogwarts, and in the light of this new revelation, Albus couldn't blame him. Even so, many of his contingency plans for the future of Britain revolved around Harry Potter, and it would be a huge blow if the boy used the Arithmancy OWL as a ticket out of the country.
This was possible mainly because OWLs were seen as a sort of rite of passage in magical Britain. Even one OWL was sufficient to "qualify" a wizard (NEWTS were only really necessary for job placement; most adult wizards rarely performed magic above an OWL level except within their occupational specialties); effectively, upon receipt of an OWL certification, a wizard was assumed to be roughly capable of taking care of himself, and he could leave school and wade out into the world without having his wand snapped and magic bound. Though the official age of adulthood was seventeen, OWL-qualified wizards were practically exempt from the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery; the Trace still monitored their activitied until they came of age, as a sort of "probation" period, but the Decree could only be enforced when the Trace indicated that a wizard had "unreasonably" performed noticable magic that could put the International Statute of Secrecy in jeopardy. Thus, Harry, having indicated an interest in escaping from the peril-laden Hogwarts (and perhaps even Britain entirely), could easily make arrangements to do so once he successfully passed the Arithmancy OWL.
Albus and Minerva shared a meaningful glance. Both were thinking the exact same thing.
This could be a problem.
Author's Note
Don't worry, I won't go into such crazily-mundane detail for all of Ender's classes. I wanted to take this opportunity to show how advanced Ender's skillset is (at least in some ways) when compared to the average wizard. Remember, Ender is not just a brilliant military commander...he's straight-up brilliant. Peter tells Valentine that there are about ten thousand humans as intelligent as them (obviously, Ender is one of them—the Wiggin children differ mostly in their balance between empathy and violence). Since there are worldwide population limits, we can assume that Earth is at its maximum carrying capacity of about ten billion people. So Ender's brain is something like literally one in a million. Given that IQ tests become less and less reliable the further away you get from the average, and he's somewhere around 5 SD's above the average, AND that IQ actually experiences an upward trend over time as society advances (meaning his distant-future one in a million is worth even more in 1993)...well, let's just say that Ender is fucking smart. Give him some quality time with the OWL textbook, and he'd probably be able to take the OWL in a week. He won't, but he could.
Mathematics is apparently abbreviated to "maths" in British English; who knew? In American English, the word is truncated to "math," which I think makes more sense. Why add that "s"? It's like they're pretending that the original spelling was "mathsematics," but only when they're cutting the word down to size. Is there a good reason, or is it like the changing of "aluminum" (which did actually come first) to "aluminium"...that is, just to be different? Dammit, Britain! First "u", now "s"? What's next?!
Review! Please!