Chapter 10: Routine
Dear Ginny Weasley
Hey! This is Harry. Remember me from the train station? I told you I'd write! I bet you thought I'd forget, didn't you? Well, I didn't!
I've had a fantastic, and incredibly eventful first week. I got sorted into Gryffindor and I'm dorm mates with your brother Ron. He and I sat together on the Hogwarts Express and have become fast friends with two other Gryffindors named Hermione Granger and Nevile Longbottom.
I have a bit of a confession to make. I'm a seer. I have visions of my own future. I've had them for as long as I can remember, so I've been 'seeing' my time at Hogwarts for years. What this basically means is that I've been having visions of being friends with your brothers, and yourself, for years now.
I know it's really weird, and it's a hard concept to wrap your mind around, but I swear it's true.
You and I wouldn't have become friends until after you'd actually gotten to Hogwarts, but I saw how sad you were at being left behind and I wanted to try and find a way to cheer you up. That's why I offered to write to you for the school year.
I know I come off as a bit mental sometimes, so if you decide you don't want to be quill pals, I'll understand. No hard feelings.
Anyway, my classes were really interesting. We've already got homework in almost every one of them, and Ron can't stop complaining about it. It's honestly kind of funny to see him whining so much. Hermione just finds it annoying though.
I was actually raised by muggles, even though my parents were magical, (they were killed when I was a baby) so I've been going to muggle school since I was five. Hermione is muggle-born too, so she and I are both really familiar with the concept of homework. Ron, on the other hand is really struggling. It's really obvious that Ron's only been home-schooled his whole life. The idea of homework is such a foreign concept to him. Haha.
I may be familiar with the idea of writing essays, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it much. I'm way more fond of the practical exercises that we actually do in class. We haven't done much practical work in Charms yet, which is kind of a bummer. Transfiguration has been pretty interesting so far. The teacher is Professor McGonagall, and she's a cat Animagus. It's really cool to see her transform.
I'm really eager to learn Potions, but the professor for that class is a bit difficult for most to handle. He's pretty intimidating, and he's got a bit of a grudge against me. He and my parents went to school together in the same year, and while Professor Snape was good friends with my mum, he and my dad were always at each other's throats. I guess it was sort of a rivalry for my mum's affections, and since my dad won in the end, Professor Snape is a bit... bitter. Don't ever let him know I said that. He'd eviscerate me, if he knew!
Next week we start our flying lessons and I'm really looking forward to that. I've been looking forward to actually trying out a broom for years. I've had visions where I was flying and the feeling was beyond exhilarating, so I can't wait!
Anyway, this letter is already getting pretty long, so I'll call it quits here. If you aren't too scared off by the whole me being kind of psychic thing and still want to keep chatting, then great! If not, don't worry about it.
Sincerely,
Harry Potter
– –
"Who's the letter for, mate?" Ron asked as Harry began stuffing the folded parchment into an envelope.
"Your sister," Harry said as he began walking over to the window.
"What!" Ron exclaimed.
Harry opened the window near his bed in the Gryffindor tower, stuck two of his fingers into his mouth and let loose a high pitched, shrill whistle that made Ron cringe.
"When I saw her on the platform at Kings Cross Station, I offered to write her as quill pals," Harry said as he stared into the inky darkness beyond the window.
"What in Merlin's beard for!"
"She looked sad. She's going to be lonely this year, being the only one left at home. I thought it would help cheer her up if she had someone else to write to during the school year."
Out of the inky darkness a white spec slowly became visible and grew larger.
"But what do you care if Ginny is sad?" Ron asked, looking entirely beyond confused.
"Once she gets here, next year, she's going to be one of my friends too," Harry said as a large snowy owl swooped in through the window and landed on Harry's outstretched arm.
"But she's – Whoa! Awesome owl!"
Harry chuckled as he reached up and pet the owl's head gently. "Her name is Hedwig. She's a real beauty isn't she?"
"Yeah... I didn't know you had an owl... anyway, I still don't get why you would want to write a letter to my little sister."
"Ron, in what way does her being your little sister make her less worthy of being my friend? I'm going to be friends with Fred and George too, and they're your brothers."
"I... well, she... I don't know..." Ron spluttered. "It's still kind of weird that you're writing a letter to my little sister."
Harry just shrugged and grinned. "She's going to be absolutely wicked in Defense when she's older. She's also going to make an awesome chaser on the Gryffindor team in her 4th year."
Ron perked up instantly. "She's going to make the house team?"
"Yup," Harry said as Hedwig hopped off his shoulder and landed on the ledge in front of the window. Harry began to attach the letter to her leg with a string.
Ron fidgeted for a moment before finally exploding, "What about me? Do I ever make it?"
"You mean on the team? Yes, Ron, you do – or at least in just about every variation on the future I've seen, you do, so it seems like a pretty sure bet. You take over as Keeper the year after Oliver graduates."
"Keeper! Wicked!" Ron said, pumping his fist in the air.
"Hey Hedwig, could you deliver this letter to Ginny Weasley at the Burrow, for me?" Harry said in a quiet, warm voice to his snowy owl. She hooted and nipped playfully at his hand. "Great. Thanks girl," Harry said as he handed her an owl treat.
She ate it quickly before flying back out the window and disappearing into the nights sky.
Harry went back to his desk and grabbed another piece of parchment and his quill.
"What are you up to now?" Ron asked, leaning over Harry's shoulder.
"Writing another letter," Harry murmured as he began to write.
"Another one? Who's this one to?"
"Ron, don't you think you're being a bit nosy?" Nevile called out from his bed across the room where he was currently reading a book while laying propped up by a mass of pillows.
"What? I'm just curious?" Ron said defensively.
"It's alright," Harry said, "I'm writing a letter to Remus Lupin. I'm hoping that he can come with me to St. Mungo's next weekend to visit Sirius."
Ron shook his head. "It is down-right mind numbing how much stuff you have going on all at once. I can barely keep track of all the homework I've got to do, and here you are with the same amount of work, and all of this other crazy stuff piled on top of it."
"It's not so bad. Plus it'll calm down in a couple weeks and I'll get into a nice routine. Things are just extra crazy right now because it's the start of the school year."
After a few more minutes of chatting, Ron finally made his way over to his own bed and let Harry finish his letter to Remus in peace. After that he pulled out another piece of parchment and began a letter to the goblins of Gringott's to request a goblin be sent out to his family's beach house to survey the property and provide him with a few estimates for warding the place.
Harry decided that he'd wait till morning to send out these two letters, and finally made his own way to bed.
– – –
Monday morning Hermione joined Harry for his morning exercises. Her stamina was obviously much lower than his was, and she ended up sitting down, puffing and breathless long before Harry stopped lapping the Quidditch pitch.
She watched him performing his katas with awe in her eyes. There was a surprising amount of force in each thrust of his hands into the air. The perfectly scripted movements that he had obviously performed many many times, repeatedly over the years. The exact way he placed his feet and shifted his weight from one pose or maneuver to the next. It was obvious to Hermione that Harry had been working at this for a long time.
As she watched him perform the exercise Hermione began to notice a tingle in the air. She could feel the hairs on her arms standing on end and goose flesh dotted her skin.
Harry thrust his hand forward with his palm facing forward, in her direction, and she felt the air push towards her. It was as if his punch had created wind!
"Harry, that's incredible! Are you combining your magic in with your karate exercises?" she exclaimed.
"Huh, what?" Harry asked as he paused in the middle of his exercise and shook his head to shift his focus on her.
"Your magic, Harry – you were putting some of it into your exercise! I could feel it. How were you doing that?"
"I was?" Harry blinked.
"Yes, I could feel the magical energy in the air, and when you punched forward a moment ago, it actually pushed the air towards me like wind. It was really impressive."
"Oh... I guess I did. I wasn't really paying attention to that. I sort of let my mind get absorbed into the movements when I'm doing my katas."
"I could see that. It was really quite beautiful actually. It's like a really ridgid, structured, dance. But it's also quite fluid and graceful too."
Harry flushed lightly at her praise and grinned shyly. "Thanks."
"Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Um... I know that you were taking lessons for years and all, but do you think you could teach me any of that?"
"You want to learn karate?" Harry asked, surprised. Hermione wants to learn to fight?
"Yeah, I think that it might help me improve the power of my magic. You seem to be so in tune with your magic, it's just incredible to watch. It's like you're one with it, without even trying."
Harry's mouth floundered for a moment. He really had no idea how to respond to her observation so he just shrugged.
"Um... okay. Yeah, I could try and show you some things. Probably not today though. We both need to head back to the tower and get cleaned up and ready for breakfast."
"Of course. Whenever is fine with me."
"Okay. Well, we can start with something tomorrow, if you'd like."
"That's be brilliant, Harry. Thank you!"
"Uhm, sure. No problem," Harry concluded with a shy grin.
– – –
Classes progressed in much the same way that they had the previous week. Harry was really beginning to get the hang of doing magic through his wand, and it was taking fewer and fewer attempts for him to succeed during the practical portions of his classes.
Where the rest of the class would practice again and again for the entire practice period and be lucky to get even partial results, Harry was able to successfully perform every spell within four or five attempts at the most.
Hermione seemed frustrated a bit in their charms lesson on Tuesday. She was able to correctly answer every question that Professor Flitwick asked about the theory of the spell they were learning, but seemed to be having trouble at actually performing the spell.
The fact that Harry seemed to just get it so easily was clearly a bit frustrating to her. Once Professor Flitwick was done exclaiming how impressed he was at Mr. Potter's success, Harry turned and watched as Hermione scowled lightly and continued to attempt the spell.
After a few more frustrated attempts Harry tried explaining a few key parts to her and she snapped at him, insisting that she understood the theory perfectly well.
Harry just sat and waited patiently for her fire to die down. She huffed and then sighed before turning to Harry with an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry, Harry. I'm just frustrated. I didn't mean to blow up at you. You were just trying to help," she mumbled, while looking down at her lap.
"No, I'm sorry. I'm stealing your thunder."
She looked at him curiously. "Stealing my thunder? What on earth are you talking about?"
Harry shrugged. "Originally, you would have been the one at the top of all of our classes."
"What?" Hermione said, looking entirely confused.
"Well..." Harry hesitated and leaned in closer and spoke to her in a quiet voice so that no one would overhear them, "okay, so you know how my visions change over time as the future changes?"
"Yes?"
"Well, I first started having visions about my time at Hogwarts when I was four years old. The very first visions I had of my first year at Hogwarts were very very different than how things are actually playing out now. I made a lot of changes in my life over the years to avoid a lot of problems, and to try and become stronger and better. So the first time I saw myself at Hogwarts, I was a very different person.
"It was before I decided to make the Dursley's treat me better, so that me would have been a lot more... um, well, beaten down by them. I never would have excelled at any schooling, and wouldn't have had any experience with magic at all. My first and only friend would have been Ron, and you've already seen how he is with his school work and homework. With him being my only friend, my performance in classes really wouldn't have been much better.
"In my old visions, not only were you the person answering all the questions right, but you were also the first one to get any of the spells to work. Sure, it would take you till the end of class, but you were still the first to get it."
"Harry," Hermione said, cutting him off, "I don't see what this has to do with anything."
"I'm just saying that if it weren't for all my crazy preparation and my visions, I wouldn't be doing nearly as well as I am. You would be the one getting it to work first. I know that from your time at muggle school, that you're used to being at the top of the class. I don't want you to feel inferior just because you can't get it as fast as me. I've got some really unfair advantages. You're still doing a brilliant job! Don't get discouraged or frustrated just because you can't get it on your third try, alright? I mean, I'm a real freak for being able to do this stuff as fast as I am."
Hermione's mouth hung open as if she were about to say something, but she closed it, and gave him a soft smile while shaking her head. "You're really ridiculous, Harry Potter. But thanks for caring."
