The Tinkerer
Chapter 3
Soon, the meal was over, and Dumbledore stood up again to deliver a more proper speech. "Pupils!" he called. "Just a few announcements before we all go to bed. First, it is my pleasure to welcome back Professor Quirinus Quirrell, who will be resuming his post as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Said Professor awkwardly stood up for a few moments to scattered applause, then sat back down. As Harry looked at him, he felt a strange pressure on his head, like if he had a really bad cold. But as quickly as the feeling came, it went.
"I have been asked by our dear Mr. Filch to remind all students that magic is strictly forbidden in the corridors. Mr. Filch has also kindly prepared a list of forbidden items, which you may peruse in your House Common Room at your disposition.
"Next, House Quidditch teams are advised to arrange a date to hold tryouts with Madame Hooch between next Monday and the following Friday. Interested parties may contact the same Madame Hooch for more information.
"Finally, I must warn you that the third floor corridor on the right-hand side is strictly out of bounds for any who do not wish to die a painful and humiliating death."
Neville and Justin both laughed, but Harry, Hermione, Hannah and Susan just exchanged taken-aback expressions.
"He must be joking, you lot!" Justin said, seeing their faces.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Neil told him. "I suggest you don't go check for yourself."
Neil, who turned out to be a Fifth Year prefect, led the First Years to their Common Room, which was not far away. He gave them a quick rundown on some of the important amenities offered by the Common Room: the central hearth, which was a very nice place to relax, having a ring of comfortable couches and chairs all around it. The quiet study room, which was off in a sound-proof side chamber and was complete with a number of desks and chairs. The mini-library, which consisted of five hundred or so hand-picked books, including many works of fiction. And finally the recreation area, which had two billiards tables and a great number of games; the House had billiards tournaments every Friday night. Finally, Neil directed them towards the two archways that led to the boys' and girls' dormitories.
The boys found at the end of the hall a room with a placard saying "Year 1." Inside were five large beds arranged in a circle around the room, each accompanied by a night stand with an enchanted lamp on one side and a dresser on the other. At the foot of each bed was their luggage they had left on the train. Their suite also included a large bathroom with two toilets, two showers and a bar of five sinks with a massive mirror over it.
Harry brushed his teeth and washed his face in the bathroom side-by-side with Ernie Macmillan. The other three boys were moving their luggage around, trading beds. "It's pretty nice," he said around his toothbrush, looking around at the bathroom fixtures.
"It's all right," Ernie said.
Harry choked a bit and spat, then rinsed his mouth out.
"All right, mate?" Ernie asked. He seemed a bit weary.
"I'm good," Harry said, leaving the bathroom.
Harry had always been a quiet and shy person, and while he had learned to assert himself a bit, he had never really learned to open up to people. He would even lie to people for no apparent reason, sometimes, like how he had lied to Hermione when he first met her. He would sometimes stay up long nights fretting over unimportant things. And even though he knew that he was an intelligent, capable person, sometimes he just didn't act like he knew it.
As he stared up at the ceiling above his bed now, in the Hufflepuff dormitory on his first night at Hogwarts, he decided that he would put all of those weaker parts away forever, and do everything he could to embrace the better parts of himself.
It was easy to say – but here he still was, staying up late staring at ceilings, again.
He thought about the other boys in the dorm with him: Neville, Justin, Ernie and Wayne. They were all good guys. He could see them all as potential friends.
He could even see Draco as a potential friend.
He thought about Hermione, and wondered how she was doing. Hannah and Susan both seemed like good people, and she was already friendly with them. He hoped the other girls in the dorm, Megan and Cerie, were nice too. He hoped that it hadn't been a mistake to rope her along with him to Hufflepuff.
After spending years thinking of nothing but computers and problem solving, Harry's mind was suddenly extremely focused on everything he had ignored that whole time. He was focused entirely on people.
It was weird for him, but he thought it was good. This whole 'social' thing, he would approach it just like any other problem. He would work out every bug. He would find every edge-case. He would make it run. He would optimize it. He would add new features.
He hoped that people worked like that.
As his eyelids finally grew heavy, his mind began to play a series of images to him: the faces of everyone he had met that day. Their names, all that he knew about them, ran through his mind rapidly like an electric shock. Then all of it was before him, in a great array of information, all visible, all at once.
He slept without dreaming, and when he awoke the next morning, a thought came sluggishly into his mind: treat every moment like a defining moment.
He let this thought swim around his head for a while as he listened to his dorm mates arise and get ready for the day, until Neville came and asked if he was awake.
"I'm up," he said. "I'm up."
He got out of bed and took a shower and brushed his teeth and got dressed. All of his dorm mates were waiting for him.
"Sorry guys," he said with an apologetic grin. "I couldn't sleep a wink last night! Too excited, I guess."
"Same with me," Ernie Macmillan said. Harry was surprised. Someone else had been silently staring at the ceiling too? "I don't even know when I finally got to sleep."
Treat every moment like a defining moment, he thought again, but wondered how. What did that mean for him right now? What was he supposed to say, to make this instant an important one? What –
"We'll be late," Justin said.
As they walked the short way to the Great Hall, Harry told Ernie, "You know, I was more nervous than excited, really. I don't have any idea what to expect."
Ernie grinned at him. Little things like this, Harry realized. Little private comments, little shared ideas. That's all it is. "Yeah," Ernie agreed. "All of this is kind of overwhelming, really. I've never even slept anywhere but home."
There it is, Harry thought. Just like that.
Harry grinned back. "You know, I spent a month in America by myself. It was really weird at first. But then it was really amazing, too."
"Best seven years of our life, right?" Ernie said.
"What took you so long!" Hannah exclaimed as the boys arrived at the Hufflepuff table.
Harry rubbed the back of his head with a grin. "Sorry, my fault," he said. "I slept in."
"Classes start soon," Hannah said. "We have your schedules. Well, all of our schedules are the same. Get some food in."
"All right, all right," the boys all said, amused or exasperated, grabbing toast and muffins.
How quickly it happens when you let it, Harry thought. This scene right here – the boys late for a meal, Hannah chastising them – it was already like they were all good friends. Everyone was smiling, talking about their classes for the day. Harry was smiling, putting in his penny's worth.
He thought, I've got to get a camera.
"They're all talking about you," Neville said, looking around the Great Hall. It was true. Everywhere, people around him were staring at him, craning their necks trying to get a better look, and trading rumors with their friends. He couldn't tell what they were saying for the most part, but he heard his name on their lips.
"I'm used to it," Harry said nonchalantly. It had been a little bit like this – maybe not quite as bad – when he first went to his new school in London. It wasn't the most comfortable thing, but they didn't mean any harm, after all. "It doesn't matter."
"You've made it in the paper, too," Susan Bones commented. "Front page, even."
Sure enough, looking at Susan's newspaper, Harry saw an image of himself, which he had no idea when it had been taken, along with the apparently shocking news of his sorting, along with all kinds of speculation about what it might mean.
"Must be a slow news day," he remarked.
"It's time for classes," Hermione said, standing up. Harry and Neville both snagged another piece of toast to go before the food all vanished, and the whole lot of First Years trooped off. "Charms is up first," Hermione said unnecessarily. They all had schedules. "Should be on the second floor somewhere."
Out in the Entrance Hall, there was a massive staircase which seemed to be the central staircase, if the amount of traffic was anything to go by. In fact, almost the entire student body seemed to be heading up it. The Hufflepuffs joined the mass of students heading up the stairs. The stairs, however, led directly to the 'third and a third' floor. The third and a third floor consisted of a single landing where the central staircase ended, and then a great square chamber absolutely filled with dozens of staircases which went up and down. Most of the older students seemed to know where they were going. The Hufflepuff First Years had a brief, informal vote and selected a staircase – which, unfortunately, took them all the way back down to the ground level. When they all turned back to try another staircase, they found that the one they had taken down was no longer there, having swung around to connect the third and a third floor with another part of the ground floor.
"Brilliant," Wayne Hopkins said sarcastically. "Now we're stuck!"
"Relax," Justin said. "Look, here comes another staircase."
Sure enough, another staircase swung around and connected itself to where they were standing. Not seeing a lot of options, the first years climbed up the staircase, only to realize half-way that it went much higher than they needed to go. At the top was another landing, which had another staircase connected to it. Hermione rubbed her temples. The boys looked around at each other and laughed. They had no choice, so they went down the stairs.
Fortunately, they found themselves on the second floor – but on the north side of it, when their schedules said that their classroom was on the west side. Still, hoping that there might be a corridor connecting the two wings, they went in.
The north side of the second floor was apparently not used much. There were no students around, for one thing, and all of the classrooms they peered into were empty. Eventually, at the end of the corridor, they did find another corridor that led off to the left, and further along they finally found their classroom.
"We've got to get a map or something," Wayne said. "That was mad."
"I wonder how one could make a map of something that's always changing," Harry said thoughtfully, thinking the problem over. If there was a pattern, it would be simple, but require a lot of observation, to sketch out a list of rules and design a program that always produced the correct map. Of course, at Hogwarts, that was useless. And if there wasn't a pattern, there was no way.
"At least we made it in time," Justin said, consulting his watch. And when they entered the classroom, they found that they were the first arrivals.
"Ah! Hufflepuffs!" a tiny man said from the front of the room. "You found the place in almost record time! Please, please, take your seats, take your seats."
They waited quite a while for the majority of the students to find the classroom. A pair of Slytherins drifted in not long after them, but then it was quite a while more before the next group of Slytherins – Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, plus a girl Harry didn't know – found the place. Then the Gryffindors came in all in a group, as the Hufflepuffs had. Finally, the Ravenclaws showed up with the remaining Slytherins in a group.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the Hufflepuffs arrived.
"Is it going to be like this every day?" Justin asked.
"Oh, it's always like this, First Year!" the professor said cheerfully. "Worry not! In a few weeks, you will have it down pat."
Their lesson consisted not of spellwork, but of the very basics of wand magic: how to properly hold and care for one's wand. Then the professor told them all a brief summary of the history of how wands had been invented to begin with. Harry and the others diligently took notes – it was, if nothing else, a good opportunity to practice with a quill – but they left feeling disappointed. Their first assignment was to write a one-foot essay on the various magical conduits that were used before wands, and how wands addressed some of the shortcomings of those eldritch devices.
"When will we get to learn some magic?" Wayne lamented as they filed out. But he did not have to wait long. When they eventually made their way to the transfiguration classroom, way up on the sixth floor – the entire mass of First Years traveling more or less together – they found that Professor McGonagall wanted to get to work right away. She gave a brief demo of animate-to-inanimate transfiguration by turning her desk into a great hairy boar and back again. Then she immediately dove into a lecture on the most basic principles of the art of transfiguration. Finally, in the second hour of the class, she let them try their hands at some real magic. They wouldn't be turning their desks into pigs right away, but at least it was something: they all went to work trying to turn a matchstick into a needle.
Before Harry set to work, he reviewed what the professor had been telling them.
The matchstick and the needle were roughly the same size and shape: this took advantage of the Principle of Superficial Similarity. They were, however, very different materials, which went against the Principle of Material Similarity, and they had different functions, which again went against the Principle of Similar Purpose. In elementary transfiguration, each of these principles were used to make the spellcasting easier.
Thinking about it as a riddle, he came to what he hoped was the right conclusion: in order to make the transfiguration easier, he would do it in two steps, rather than all at once.
Looking around at his fellow students, Harry noted that he was the only one who still didn't have his wand in hand. Ron Weasley seemed to have already gotten frustrated and was just jabbing at the matchstick randomly. Hermione had already affected some changes in her own matchstick – it was longer, and pointier, and a bit shinier than it had been originally.
Harry pointed his wand at his own little wooden stick and focused on making its purpose similar to that of a needle. When he was ready, he pushed the magic out, and to his pleasure the matchstick had transformed into a perfect, if wooden, needle. He prepared his mind again for the second step, which, to him, seemed to be the more difficult one. He decided that it might be best to approach this as a sort of pseudo-chemistry problem. In order to change something that was basically carbon (a bit of wood) into something that was basically iron (a needle), he would have to increase its atomic number by 20 – which meant changing its period from 14 to 8, and changing its group from 2 to 4. Focusing on this, he was about to cast the spell, when it occurred to him that the professor had not specified iron. Wouldn't it be simpler to change it to aluminium? In that case, he would only have to increase its atomic number by 7, change its period from 14 to 13, and change its group from 2 to 3. Certainly, out of the metals that one would want to make a needle out of, aluminum was the 'most similar' to carbon. So, with that in mind, he pushed his magic through, and he had a perfect aluminium needle.
"How did you do that!" Hermione burst out, staring at his work. Harry saw that her own needle had not changed from when he had last looked.
Professor McGonagall came over and plucked his needle from the desk, inspecting it. "Aluminium?" she asked, bending it.
"Yes, Professor."
"A perfect transfiguration, Mr. Potter. Five points to Hufflepuff. Would you care to explain to the class what you did?"
To Harry, it seemed that the professor herself was quite interested to know. Looking around, Harry found that he once again had an audience. "All right," he said, taking control of his embarrassment. "Well, I was just thinking about the Principles you were discussing, and it occurred to me that it would be easier to alter the needle twice, rather than try to do it all in one go. So I first altered its purpose by changing its shape into that of a needle, and then altered its material to metal. But I chose aluminium specifically because it is the metal most similar to wood."
This earned him a great number of confused looks and not a few uncertain giggles.
"Care to explain, Mr. Potter? In what way is aluminium similar to wood?"
"Well, I was just thinking of the Periodic Table, professor, and it occurred to me that aluminium has the most similar atomic number, period and group to carbon – and wood is basically carbon. Beryllium and magnesium also might have been good choices, based on their chemical properties alone, but they're not ideal materials for a needle."
"Of course!" Hermione exclaimed. "How did I miss that?"
"I'm afraid I really don't follow you, Mr. Potter," the professor said. "However, I can't deny that whatever it is you did worked. For the remainder of the period, please try to do the same transfiguration in a single step."
Harry was able to do so on the first try by thinking of the whole process as an algorithm or function and then 'running' it all at once. So after that he tried to help his fellow Puffs to get the transfiguration down. Only Hermione really knew what he was talking about, though: although Wayne and Justin had at least heard of the Periodic Table, they didn't really get it, and none of the other students had ever heard of the Periodic Table. Still, the advice to do the transfiguration in two steps, making it similar according to one Principle at a time, seemed to help everyone.
"You really are that Harry Potter," a boy sitting behind the Hufflepuffs observed.
"Probably," Harry said, turning around. "And you are?"
"Terry Boot. I found your advice very helpful, by the way." Terry's own needle, on his desk, was overly-long and wide. "I've just been experimenting with altering its superficial similarity," Terry explained.
"Brilliant," Harry said with a grin. Of course, manipulating the Principle of Superficial Similarity would be the next logical experiment.
"I guess it's inevitable that you cause a stir," Terry said. "Being who you are."
"Oh? Care to elaborate on that?"
Terry just laughed and shook his head, leaning back in his seat. Harry realized that, once again, he had an audience – Terry Boot probably had something to say that he didn't want the whole of First Year to hear.
"What was that all about?" Neville asked him, eyeing Terry.
"Dunno. Don't worry about it."
Lunch was a boisterous affair at the Hufflepuff table. Harry was happy that some of the attention had been taken away from him thanks to a Third Year called Eric Riley. Once the majority of the House was assembled and eating, Eric stood up on the bench and struck a goblet with a spoon. "Hufflepuffs!" he said loudly. "I have an announcement! It is my pleasure to introduce you all to our newest couple: Haleigh Copperbell and Cedric Diggory!" Said Haleigh and Cedric, covering their faces in embarrassment, were the subjects of much catcalling and back-thumping, most of the House laughing and cheering. The Ravenclaws and Slytherins mostly just looked on, while many of the Gryffindors joined in the cheering and jeering. Even a few of the staff could be seen laughing. But they were good sports, and after the initial shock of the embarrassment had worn off, they stood up and took a bow – Cedric bowing while holding a struggling Eric in a half-Nelson. The whole affair left them all in a cheerful mood for their afternoon classes.
A mood which, unfortunately, would not last long for the First Years.
"What's our next class?" Justin asked as things were settling down.
"Potions!" Hermione said promptly. "I'm ever so excited. It seems like such a fascinating subject!"
"Oh Merlin," Ernie said morosely.
"What's wrong with potions?" Cerie asked.
"Nothing is wrong with potions," Ernie said. "It's the teacher. Look, you see that hook-nosed guy?"
They all looked, and noted a most dour-looking man standing up from the staff table, apparently taking an early leave of the meal.
"Professor Snape," Ernie said, putting a name to the face. "My sister says his mother was a hag and his father was a ghoul."
Indeed, looking at his gaunt, pointed face, partly obscured by thin, oily hair, and the way he walked, or rather glided, phantom-like, in the shadows of the edge of the Great Hall, Harry thought that perhaps that theory had some merit. The Hufflepuff First Years finished their meals and headed into the subterranean part of the castle with no small measure of trepidation. Hermione was the only one among them that thought that what Ernie had said was nonsense, and was trying her best to get everyone excited about potions class. Neville, Hannah and Cerie seemed to appreciate her words, even if they didn't seem entirely convinced.
The Hufflepuffs arrived after the Ravenclaws and took their places at the remaining seats of the classroom. The Hufflepuffs all partnered off and set themselves up at a lab station, since the stations, having one cauldron and two chairs, were meant to be used by pairs. Harry partnered up with Hermione, who dragged him to an empty station in the front row. "Don't let that Ernie sour you on potions!" Hermione hissed at Harry. "This is going to be one of our best classes. Ernie's sister probably just got a bad grade or something."
Harry gave her his best grin. He, too, had enjoyed his study of the potions textbook over the summer. It had even kept him up late, some nights, as he poured over it. But he just couldn't shake the feeling of distaste his first impression of that professor had left him with.
Soon enough, said professor swept into the room. Even this close, he seemed to glide more than walk, moving without the slightest hint of audible footsteps.
After favoring the lot of them with a dark look – that Harry was sure lingered on him for overly-long – Professor Snape took the class's roll. When he came to Harry's name, he gave pause, and said, "Ah, yes. Harry Potter, our new – celebrity."
"Here," Harry said calmly.
You could hear a pin drop. Professor Snape favored him with a deadly, gleaming expression that made Harry want to blink, which he finally did after a few moments. Then the professor finished the roll.
"You are here to learn the science and art of potioneering," Professor Snape said quietly without any further preamble. "Few of you, however, will ever understand the delicate beauty of the distillation of decadently dancing vapors or the vivid viscerality of venomous extracts. In this classroom, you may learn to bottle luck, blend longevity and brew loyalty. If, that is, you are not as big a bunch of beetle-brained buffoons as I normally teach."
Professor Snape's poetical speech was definitely not what Harry had been expecting to hear. He could not help but quirk a brow, perplexed by this professor's odd mannerisms. Next to him, Hermione seemed to be chomping at the bit to prove herself other than normal as she leaned forward, fascinated.
"Potter!" Professor Snape suddenly yelled, causing most of the class, including Harry, to jump in their seats. "What would I get if I added the powdered root of an asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Professor Snape asked in extremely rapid speech.
It was straight out of the introduction of their text, Harry realized. Although the manner in which it was asked was disconcerting, it was not a difficult question. "The Draught of Living Death," he said.
"Correct," Professor Snape said, although his eyes narrowed dangerously. "I see you've at least cracked open your text. Tell me, then, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
That particular question caused Harry to smile. He remembered reading all about the natural properties of untreated bezoars, and how those properties could be augmented to create some of the most important and powerful medical potions of the day. "They occur naturally in the stomachs of a number of animals, but the bezoars of goats are considered the most potent."
"That is correct," Professor Snape said, now openly scowling at him. Professor Snape's dark eyes lingered on Harry for a while before he said, "Seeing as we have an odd number of students, one of you will be required to work alone. As Potter has demonstrated a passing knowledge of the text, I'm certain he will be up to the task. Potter, Turpin, trade places."
Turpin, a gangly girl with curly brown hair who had been sitting at the very back of the class, apparently trying to avoid the notice of even her fellow housemates, let alone the teacher, had a deer-in-headlights expression as she was asked to replace Harry in the front row as Hermione's lab partner. As Harry passed her, he offered her a tight but encouraging smile, but she didn't even look at his face to see it as she scurried by him. As Harry replaced her at that station in the back corner, he found that she had left behind an ink pot and a quill in her haste. With the idea of returning it to her after the dust had settled, Harry put her things in his bag and got out his own stationary.
There was little note-taking to be done in the class, however. Professor Snape waved his wand, and a recipe appeared on the blackboard in a tight scrawl of chalk. Harry copied the recipe down just so that he wouldn't need to keep referencing the board. The recipe was dead simple, though, so maybe it hadn't really been worth the bother. It consisted of just four ingredients – five, counting the water – and some simple prep instructions and brewing instructions. They had to measure out a precise weight of dried nettles, and Harry took the extra few seconds required to pick out all of the dark brown nettles and only use the better-looking red ones. Then, instead of crushing the snake fangs with the flat of a knife like some of the others were doing, he got out his mortar and pestle and ground them into a fine dust. Professor Snape lurked around the classroom the entire time, standing over people's shoulders and whispering criticisms to them. When he came around to Harry and saw him working the mortar and pestle, he said, "I see you've decided to pulverize the snake fangs instead of crush them as the directions clearly instructed."
Steeling himself, Harry said, "I have."
"Why."
"It seemed the only way to get a uniform consistency was to grind them into powder, rather than use random crushed fragments."
Professor Snape stared Harry down darkly for a moment, before saying, "I hope you've thought to compensate for the much greater rate of dissolution," and moved on.
After he had plucked out the bad nettles and weighed the rest, pulverized the snake fangs, skinned the horned slugs, and counted out the porcupine quills, Harry set all of the ingredients to one side in a perfect line of glass beakers and dishes, and lit his burner. He was running behind, he noted: all of the other students were already stirring their simmering cauldrons, and he was just now heating his up. But a glance at the clock told him that he would still have plenty enough time to complete the brew. As he waited for the cauldron to come to temp, he quickly jotted down some notes under his recipe for how he had modified the concoction. Then he brewed.
Brewing potions was both similar to and different from cooking food. The similarity was obvious: apply heat to ingredients, produce useful result. The differences were more interesting. The most obvious difference was that instead of simply timing things correctly – add the onions after the potatoes so they caramelize without burning, or what have you – a potion seemed to tell the brewer what to do. For example, he knew that his slugs were done stewing and it was time to add the nettles when the concoction shifted rather abruptly from just some slugs in hot water, to something that resembled marmalade. Then he knew that the nettles had bonded with the stewed slugs because the brew suddenly shifted from an orange-yellow to a rather lovely dark turquoise, and the consistency changed from a jam-like mess to a thin porridge. Minding his professor's advice, Harry added the powdered fangs slowly and carefully, stopping exactly when the potion had arrived at a magenta hue and began to smell of lemon grass. He still had roughly a quarter of the powdered fangs left, but it was clear to him that he should not use them – the potion was telling him that it was enough. He put out the burner and gently stirred the potion as it thickened again, until it whipped as suddenly and completely as cream when whipped by hand. One by one, but not too slowly, he dropped in the porcupine quills, each one liquefying the solution again where it landed, and slowly stirred it all together until uniform.
He referenced the instructions. Soft brown with a slight hint of green: yes, check. Viscosity similar to olive oil: check, that described it perfectly. The smell of white willow bark when freshly peeled on a sunny afternoon: well, he wasn't sure about all that, but it definitely smelled like a tree.
Harry carefully siphoned the potion into three vials, stoppering and carefully labeling each, and sighed. He had, he realized, been in some kind of trance throughout the entire process. Looking around, he found that he was not the last student to finish up, as he had expected, but rather seemed to be the first. Neville and Justin were just starting over again, having made some error in their first attempt, while Hermione and her partner, Turpin, were just a step behind Harry, doing some final quality checks.
Harry went over to the sinks to dump out the excess potion and clean out his cauldron, then tidied up his station, picked one of the vials, and brought it to the front of the class, where the professor had a rack for the students to turn in their finished potions.
The professor appeared suddenly and plucked the vial out of Harry's hand just as he was about to set it on the rack. He eyed it carefully, turning it over to check the consistency.
"Acceptable work, Potter," the professor said at last, setting the vial in the rack.
"Thank you," Harry said.
"You may leave once you have turned in your solution and cleaned up your station," Professor Snape said to the class at large. "Do be sure to make note of the homework assignment."
After jotting down a few last-minute notes on his brewing method and the homework assignment, Harry waited for Hermione and Turpin to turn in their solution and joined them on their way out.
"Hey," he said. "That was fun, wasn't it? I have your ink bottle."
"Thank you," Turpin said, accepting it and stuffing it into her bag. "See you next time," she added to Hermione before scampering away.
Harry gave his friend a questioning look, but she just shrugged.
"Nice show back there," Terry boot said, appearing behind them in the corridor with his lab partner, a Ravenclaw boy Harry hadn't met yet, and offering Harry a wry grin.
"What show?" Harry asked as the four of them began the long walk back to the surface of the castle.
"Don't act dumb, Potter," the other boy said. "You put Snape in his place."
Harry shook his head, his hands up. "I was just focused on the potion," he said defensively. "I wasn't trying to do anything like that."
"You did though," Hermione said speculatively. "You know, it seemed like Professor Snape was out to get you at first."
"Our new – celebrity," Terry Boot's lab partner quoted in a rather good impression.
Harry shrugged. "It doesn't matter. People are always going to treat me differently. I just focused on my potion."
"And altered the recipe," Terry pointed out.
"I didn't alter the recipe," Harry denied. "I just ground the fangs instead of crushing them with the knife. And using a mortar and pestle to crush something is hardly out-of-the-box thinking."
"So that's why," Hermione said in realization. "You know, I checked on how you were doing and you were at the same stage as Lisa and I – and then suddenly you turned in your potion, while our fangs still weren't infused yet."
"Professor Snape did tell me that they would dissolve more quickly that way," Harry said.
"Far more quickly," Terry Boot's lab partner said. "My aunt is a pro brewer so I know a few things. It might seem like a minor thing, but using powdered asp fangs instead of crushed makes the whole recipe way more volatile. If you had added them too quickly, or put in too much, it would have blown up and melted your face off."
"That git," Harry said in realization. "He told me 'I hope you've compensated for that,' but I didn't realize. What's your name, anyway?"
"Sonny Albright, of the Hampshire Albrights," he said. "Nice to meetcha."
"Nice to meet you. This is Hermione Granger, by the way."
"I can introduce myself, you know," she huffed.
"Pleasure," Sonny said.
"Listen," Hermione muttered. "What can you tell me about that Lisa Turpin?"
Terry shook his head sadly, while Sonny gave a whistle that seemed to say, 'oh, boy.'
"What do you want to know about Lisa?" Terry asked cautiously.
"She just seemed so – I don't know … scared?"
"Yeah," Sonny said. "That's about accurate. But look, it's not our place to tell you if you don't already know."
"Oh, come off it," Terry said. "It's not like it's a state secret."
"Mate, no," Sonny said firmly. Seeing that Terry was going to argue, he scoffed and said, "Do what you want."
"Hermione," Harry said cautiously. "Maybe there's a reason."
"Look, it's not a state secret," Terry repeated. "But er – maybe let me tell you in private."
The two Hufflepuffs and two Ravenclaws ducked into an empty classroom near where the central dungeon corridor connected to the entrance hall. "Shit," Terry said, plopping down on the cold stone floor. "It's not a nice story."
"Look, if you don't want to tell us, that's fine," Harry said.
"Be quiet, Harry," Hermione said.
Terry laughed humorlessly. "Well, the thing about Lisa Turpin is, she's traumatized, you know? The story is like this. Her mum was real old blood – like, hundreds of generations – but she fell in love with this muggle. And, the political climate being what it was, her family, the Skidborns, disinherited her, and all that. But Lisa's mum, whose name I think was Margaret, and that muggle husband of hers were happy, and they had a bunch of kids. Lisa was the youngest of, I don't know, five or so kids. Anyway, one day the Death Eaters showed up on their doorstep, and they butchered the entire family, mum, pop, and all the kids, all except Lisa. I guess it was an oversight, or maybe they just wanted her to suffer.
"After that, Lisa was sent to live with her closest family – her mum's parents. But her grandpa is famous for being a bit senile and not very nice. Nobody can really say what went on in that household, you know, but Lisa's grandpa is a hardline conservative. Just last year he tried to pass a bill in the Wizengamot that would prohibit muggleborns from working at the Ministry at all. The bill failed, it had no chance of passing, but that's the kind of guy Lisa's grandpa is. Anyway, her being a halfblood, and the daughter of the family's white raven, and with that muggle's last name ... people speculate that they probably don't treat her right. Of course, there's no proof of any wrong doing, but just looking at Lisa now..."
"That's horrible," Hermione said, covering her mouth in shock.
"The Skidborns aren't good people," Sonny said. "But look, don't go treating her any differently. It'll just make her feel worse."
"I mean, that's the conclusion we've all sort of come to," Terry said. "Just pretend we don't know about all that, and not talk about it when she's around. But everyone knows. The whole thing is well-known."
"It's really horrible," Hermione said again.
"There's a lot of stories like that," Sonny said. "A lot of families were totally wiped out during the war. Everyone lost at least someone. Our whole society is traumatized, if you look at it."
Harry thought about Neville's story, then. It was so very similar to Lisa's story, really, except that Neville went to live with a grandmother that wasn't horrible. And of course it was similar to Harry's own story, too.
"Fucking Voldemort," he muttered.
Terry jumped in shock. Sonny stared at Harry in outrage and confusion and said, "Where do you get off?"
"Sorry," Harry said. Of course, he knew enough about this society to know that speaking the name of Voldemort, the guy who had in Terry's words traumatized the society, was a taboo. "I guess I should call him 'You-Fucking-Know-Who-I-Mean.'"
"That's hardly any better," Hermione chastised as the Ravenclaw boys had to laugh in spite of their previous outrage.
"Look," Harry said. "I wanted to ask you what you meant back in transfiguration class."
"Oh, that," Terry said. "What was it I said, again?"
"It was only a few hours ago," Hermione pointed out. "Don't you remember?"
"Remind me."
"You said, 'it's inevitable that you cause a stir, being who you are,'" Harry quoted.
"Oh, that's right, I said something like that, didn't I? Look it's not a super cryptic statement, is it?"
"Pretend I'm an idiot."
"All right. Look, I'm a halfblood. My dad is a muggleborn, I mean. Anyway, he makes sure we know about the muggle side of things in my house. We have a TV, and things like that. So when I heard about you in the muggle world, I had to wonder if it could possibly be the same kid. I mean, what are the odds? But it was true. That Harry Potter on TV really is the same Harry Potter."
"What's the point?" Harry asked.
"Well, on the wizarding side of things, you're this miracle kid. I mean, your forehead has killing curse reflecting properties? It's crazy, but there you have it. So you're this miracle kid. But over in the muggle world, you made a splash not with your weird forehead, but with that thing behind it. Your brain, right? So now people have to wonder about you all over again. Maybe it wasn't just a freak accident – maybe you're some kind of, I don't know..."
"Some kind of fucking messiah or something," Sonny finished.
Harry choked. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I wasn't the only one that doubted that those two Harry Potters could possibly be the same guy," Terry said. "But now that people know that it really is the same guy, the expectations people have for you are going to go up tenfold. At least. And you already were the savior."
"That's fine," Harry said. "I don't care what people expect."
"Well, you should, Harry!" Hermione burst out.
"Seriously, mate, you have no idea," Sonny said. "People are going to be watching to so closely. And there are going to be people who want to tear you down. You have a target on your back the size of a planet."
The four were quiet as Harry let the enormity of his situation and responsibility settle over him. "Damn it," Harry said. "I can't make any mistakes, can I?"
"You better not," Terry agreed. "There's no room for error."
"Harry, you just have to keep doing what you're doing already," Hermione said. "Excelling at every subject, and being nice to everyone."
Harry blinked owlishly at her. "Right. Easy enough," he said. "I've just got to blow everyone's minds, every single day, for the rest of my life."
"And you'll be needing a pair of eyes on the back of your head, too," Terry said, standing up. "Anyway, about Lisa … don't tell her I said anything, please."
"Well. Cheers," Sonny said. They left.
"The thing is," Harry said after a while. "I'm bound to disappoint them sooner or later."
"Maybe," Hermione agreed. "I mean, nobody is perfect. Even the messiah."
They both laughed, but a weight had settled in Harry's stomach. "Back in the muggle world, nobody expected anything of me," he said. "I mean, people mostly ignored me. So anything I did, I exceeded their wildest expectations. But here, it's different. If I don't solve everyone's problems, they'll be disappointed."
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione said, hugging him. It might have been the first time he'd ever been hugged, at least since he was a baby. Harry stifled his instinct to stiffen up, and returned the hug. He thought back to the day before, when he had found her on the train and wanted to hug her. Why hadn't he?
"For what it's worth," Hermione said as she pulled away, her eyes glassy but smiling, "I'll be there to help you. And so will Neville, and the others."
Harry smiled at her, but the weight in his stomach seemed even heavier, then. Hermione's promise to help him was well-meant, but it seemed like another responsibility, too. If people were trying to help him, and he still failed, it might hurt them too. "Thanks," he said. "Do you want to check out the school library?"
Hermione's eyes lit up in excitement. "I've read all about it in Hogwarts: A History," she said. "Did you know..."
After about an hour of wandering the castle, they even managed to find the library. And for Harry and Hermione it was like an amusement park of ideas. The Hogwarts Library was a truly massive repository of books and scrolls. The collection was truly impressive, stocking tomes dating back to the Dark Ages (or copies of them, anyway) sharing shelf space with editions printed earlier that year. The Library itself was actually split over three floors. First was the central floor, where most of the regular books people would need for their classes were: charms, transfiguration, potions, and so forth. The central floor also contained the library's literature section, which was a bit dated but contained all of the classic works of British and European prose and poetry. Next was the bottom floor, which the library had been expanded into in 1243 by Headmaster Humfrey Wiggnaft, who, according to Hermione's reading of Hogwarts: A History, blasted a hole in the floor in a fit of anger, and then put in a staircase when he realized what a brilliant idea it was to expand the library. The bottom floor contained sections for more esoteric branches of magic that were not on the curriculum, as well as books on foreign languages, maths, and other subjects that were not strictly magical but that any respectable school had to have, as well as references like dictionaries, genealogies, law books and so forth. The bottom floor also held a collection of old newspapers going back to before the Statute of Secrecy, uninterrupted except for March of 1716, the records of which had been destroyed by a student who had apparently thought that it was a particularly bad month for personal reasons. Finally there was the top floor, which actually consisted of a sort of loft overhanging half of the central floor, and which was also known as the Restricted Section because it required special permission to enter. Of course, they did not have said permission, but supposedly it contained books considered too dangerous for any random eleven-year-old to read, although all of the true Dark Arts books had been removed from the library altogether before the end of the nineteenth century.
"So," Harry said, surveying the bottom floor after they had completed their self-guided tour. "What's our first extra-curricular project?"
Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story so far! I really appreciate your supportive words, and your constructive criticism and suggestions have given me a lot to think about.
Some notes:
About the computer thing. So a lot of people were interested to see how Harry would get a computer to work at Hogwarts. Well, he probably will do that at some point, and the idea is already in the back of his head, but it isn't a priority. Computers were just a thing to pass the time for Harry to begin with – an outlet for his creative energy, and his compulsion to fix and improve everything around him. Computers will come back into the story, but for now he's using his background for other things: to help navigate the infinite complexity of social life, and to improve his spellwork and potions by thinking about magic more in a more procedural, organized way than your average witch or wizard might. Tinkering with computers will come back into the story, but for now Harry's busy tinkering with humans and magic.
As you might have noticed, Harry's question at the end of the chapter is just as much directed at you, the audience, as Hermione. What shall we study?
The story's rating has been changed to T on account of Bad Words