When Harry woke up again, he realized he was lying on a firm bed with a blanket covering him that radiated just the proper amount of warmth compared to the cool air, and he felt quite cozy with the combination. And yet, despite that sensation, it felt quite impersonal.
Harry didn't get time to wonder about his flight of fancy, imagining the "feelings" his bedding was giving him, when a gruff voice began talking to him.
"Heir Potter. Good, you're awake. Sign the payment invoice for services rendered."
And a parchment and quill was passed to his hands by a goblin in blue clothes that looked suspiciously like hospital scrubs. Looking down at the parchment, he began reading what he was expected to sign, and so didn't notice the look of approval on the healer goblin's face that he didn't simply blindly sign anything that was given to him.
But strangely enough, he felt the emotion of approval radiating from the healer. Sensing the emotions of those around him was an aspect of the Psychonaut perk he'd bought. That must be what was happening to him, to feel emotion, no doubt. Harry kept his head down instead of staring at the goblin in shock at that realization and continued reading. He could explore his new talents later on, when he wasn't in the middle of business.
It was a simple enough piece of writing, no convoluted legalese in sight. Harry quickly read through the itemized list of treatments that he had undergone while unconscious and compared it to how he currently felt, physically. All the pains in his improperly set bones were gone. His insides felt well settled and robust. His eyesight was perfect, as he noticed when looking around the hospital wing. His ropy unhealed curse scar was gone. He was now taller with more healthy meat on his bones than ever before.
It looked like the time compression healing treatment had worked a charm, and he had only lost a day's time while being brought up to perfect health. The fifteen thousand galleon fee seemed entirely reasonable to him in light of all that was done to fix everything that was wrong with him, and to ensure that he was at the peak human fitness possible for his age and body structure.
He wasn't sure what the conversion rate between galleons and pounds were, but if anything he would have paid much more to get to this point of health so quickly. Now he had an entire month before going to Hogwarts to actually study and practice his magic where he didn't have to worry about medical treatment getting in his way or slowing him down.
'I'll have to be sure to reward Larrig for authorizing the deluxe treatment,' Harry thought as he signed off on payment for the wonderful services rendered.
"New clothes are in the closet. Get dressed and someone will take you to have a meal before meeting your Account Manager." The healer commented after accepting the payment authorization and promptly exited the room.
With a brief chuckle at the abrupt nature of goblins doing business, Harry got up from the bed naked, and stumbled a bit. He was several inches taller than before, and he wasn't quite used to it yet. He would have to do some exercising to get used to his new length.
After a filling meal of roast beef, potatoes, and seasonal greens, Harry and Larrig had a meeting back in Larrig's office.
Mindful of his promise to reward his Account Manager, Harry paid attention to the emotions he could feel coming off the goblin, and soon noticed that he had a great desire to have certain restrictions he worked under removed. Looking at the static proposals Larrig gave him, he was sure they would make him money.
But it seemed that Larrig didn't particularly like those approvals. Harry could feel the goblin's emotions yearning for a set of contracts that would loosen the restrictions on what he could invest in, and how much autonomy he had to make those decisions without first getting approval from Harry himself.
The restrictions he was working under at the moment precluded investing in the muggle market at all, and without specific approval Larrig couldn't invest in riskier investments that would be huge money makers if they didn't tank.
Harry inwardly shook his head at the first restriction. There were so many avenues to make tons of money in the muggle world, that it was insane to him not to invest in it.
And Harry, though he didn't know if this world's future market was like his old one, figured that certain technologies and trends would be similar, seeing as how the past that led to today was pretty much the same, except with a hidden magical world.
So Harry released Larrig from his restrictions on investing in the muggle world, and figured out with Larrig what would be a good percentage of his wealth to be invested in the high risk, high reward investments.
Harry admitted to himself that he might have given Larrig quite a lot of leeway there. But even if all the high risk investments failed, then he would still remain quite wealthy and he would know that Larrig was not the goblin he could truly rely on for such investment schemes and could then reign him in.
Either way, it was a bit of a reward for Larrig for his initiative in pre-authorizing Harry's healing without express permission from him.
At the end of their meeting Harry wished Larrig happy hunting in making them both money, and then left to continue his magical shopping tour.
Harry exited Gringotts in the late afternoon and went to a particular shop that he owned called The Emporium. He recognized it as one of the items he'd purchased in the void before becoming Harry in this world.
The Emporium - It's all fine being massively talented and capable. Now if only you could convert all that into some cash, eh? This is your tool for that! This is your very own Emporium, a one stop shop focusing on one thing! You!
This is a shop that moves along with you, appearing unobtrusively in whatever cities you go to. As long as it's not a one-of-a-kind, ultra-rare artifact, anything and everything you make, be it weapons, enchanted items, potions or simple, mundane items can be replicated endlessly here, ready to be sold off for its full worth.
And you will always get its full worth. In the context of the local world, your items are priced to get the optimum result possible in terms of sales and profit. You can change this too, if you want to only sell to one side or something. The metrics are set by you, and the shop adapts to achieve the best possible results under them.
Arriving at the three story shop, Harry found that the door opened easily for him. Looking around the empty shelves, he couldn't help but shake his head. The store looked great, but it was empty of product to sell.
"Looks like I'll have to start making things to stock the shelves with," Harry muttered to himself.
"Master Harry is finally here!" A thin voice cheered, causing Harry to look over and see a female house elf standing near the checkout counter.
"Hello. Are you one of the Potter family elves?" Harry asked. "And what's your name?"
"I be Feeney, master Harry. And I'm your personal elf, not the Potter Family elf. I be here to meet you and follow you home to do the running of errands, cooking, cleaning, and whatever else master Harry needs to make his learning smoother."
"That sounds great, actually." Harry grinned at the little gal, and she smiled and bowed her head back. "Now, I know I'm supposed to have a set of vanishing cabinets somewhere. Do you happen to know where they are?"
Through the various Harry Potter Jumpchain documents that he'd had access to back in the Void, he'd purchased a few different items, some of them free and some of them requiring drawbacks to afford. Aside from The Emporium, he should have a pair of vanishing cabinets, a pocket watch, a Marauder's Map, a bobble head candy dispenser Trinkets, a Dragon-Hide Jacket, a bottle of Felix Felicis, a copy of Hogwarts: A History, the Cloak of Invisibility, a Nimbus 2000, Language Lozenges, a Bucket of KFC, and a Personal Island. He already had the Pet Owl, as far as he was concerned, with the purchase of Hedwig.
"Yes, Master Harry. It be upstairs in your personal room. I'll show you."
Feeney then led Harry upstairs to the top floor, which turned out to be an apartment he could live in. Smiling cheerfully at the complete setup, Harry looked around and found all the items he'd purchased present in the living room.
Well, except for the Island, of course. At half the size of Ireland, it wouldn't be fitting in his apartment anytime soon. One of the vanishing cabinets was on the island, and the other was in his room, so with a quick trip through the cabinets with his Nimbus 2000 in hand, and Harry was soon flying above his own personal island.
The salty ocean breeze was perfect for his first flight. He was pleased to see that he was at least as much of a natural as the original Harry Potter on a broom, thanks to the perks he'd bought. He spent quite a bit of time flying around the hills, forest, and beaches of his island, enjoying the sensations of flying while exploring around.
After exulting in the amazing feeling of flying for a good hour or more, Harry returned to the cabinet and frowned at seeing it sitting out in the open on a cliff above the beach. He would need some kind of structure on the island to house the cabinet and allow for him to live in while on his island. Maybe he would purchase a wizarding tent. Those could be quite elaborate and would work until he could figure out how to build his own house or manor. The idea of building it himself appealed to him.
Returning to the apartment above The Emporium, Harry worked on organizing his living space and putting away all that he'd purchased with Hagrid earlier. He looked at his Hogwarts curriculum books sitting on the bookshelf in his office, and with a shrug pulled down The Standard Book of Spells (grade 1). There was no time like the present to get started on learning magic.
With the perks he'd purchased for his memory and learning boosters, he should be able to speed read through the entire 7 years of curriculum and remember everything. So he would owl order all the books he would need to study over the next few weeks. Obviously he would need a set of books on Occlumency and Legilimency so he could study how to protect his mind better than relying on the Psychonaut perk alone. The more ideas he learned about this world's magic and the stronger his mind defenses were, the better off he would be.
Over the next month, Harry easily sped through the basic Hogwarts curriculum and more. With his Merlin Returned perk and a few other gifts, he was a natural at learning any type of magic. He had a tent set up on the island, and a plan to put better secrecy and hiding spells and wards on his island to make sure no one came sniffing around his property.
He hadn't been able to find any instructions on the fidelius charm yet, so he didn't know if it was possible to put such a charm on such a huge plot of land. He would have to make full use of the Room of Requirement when he went to Hogwarts to see if he could grab all the books in the castle. Just because he had a huge potential in magic didn't mean he wanted to spend all his time reinventing the wheel, so to speak.
If there were already established methods to use spells and magic, not only would he learn what the magicals he was living with were able to do, but he would be able to learn said spells easily and expand from there.
In addition to all the learning on spellwork over the month leading up to September 1st, Harry had been brewing up the potions they would cover in first year. The simpler first year potions were easy to get right on the first time, and perfect on the second try. But sometimes while brewing he would get an instinctive feel for when something could be improved on even more, and so Harry would test out the alternative methods and truly perfect the potion.
As a result of his work, many of the simpler potions were now stocking his shelves in The Emporium, and he was beginning to do a small bit of business. Very small, so far. But with his costs basically being zero after the first item was added to his shelves, he would make pure profit.
In addition to all his studying, he'd made full use of his Psychonaut perk to craft pretty decent mind defenses. He'd partitioned off a part of his mindscape to simulate the eleven year old Harry Potter's mind, before Carl merged with him, or woke up his reincarnated memories, or whatever method of arrival he had.
That way, anyone *cough* Snape *cough* Dumbledore *cough* that tried to peek on his mind would find exactly what they expected. A young boy that found himself excited for the magical world, and who had found he had money to spare and had splurged. Which incidentally included getting himself a health checkup and fixup, as well as a new wardrobe so he could make a good impression on his new classmates.
Occasionally over the previous month, including while traveling to King's Cross Station on the morning of September 1st, Harry had some doubts about going to Hogwarts.
'I mean, with how much money I have, I can easily buy All The Books. Added on that I have a bunch of learning boosters and magical perks I got from the helpful being that saved me from the void and sent me here, and there really is no need for me to go to Hogwarts besides wanting to experience the fun of attending a magical school.
'And meeting some of the people from the books, making them my friends, and generally having fun is all a part of being in this world. It is why I chose this world over all the others, after all. It's just that now that I've already studied the curriculum and could probably take my NEWTs right now, the shiny idea of attending a boring school is wearing off.
'Especially when I know that crazy things are going to be happening at Hogwarts now that the Boy-Who-Lived will be attending. I don't really want to jump through the hoops that canon Harry went through. It seems…painful.
'Well, I'll just keep in mind that I am physically a kid and act like it. Dumbledore claims he wants me to enjoy my childhood? Well, that's exactly what I'm going to give him! Absolutely no heroic derring dos from this Boy-Who-Lived! So if this world's Dumbledore is the manipulative sort who keeps trying to get me to live up to the BWL hype, then the completely "normal" me that ignores all the breadcrumbs he leaves out will totally drive him up a wall! Haha!'
Harry had thought all this through yet again while heading to the station on the Underground. He really appreciated having a trunk that easily shrunk for him, so he wouldn't have to lug it through the crowds. Even on a Sunday, there were still lots of people traveling here and there.
Once he was on platform 9 ¾, he paused for a moment to stare appreciatively at the shiny red Hogwarts Express. Lifting up his camera, he took a picture of the train for his scrap book. He didn't know if pensieves were awesome enough to be able to take pictures of the memories or not, so he figured he would take some pics, since if he didn't, then it didn't happen.
It was still pretty early, just ten after ten, and so he had nearly an hour before the train would depart. Harry found himself an empty compartment near the rear of the train and pulled out a quidditch book that he'd bought but been too busy learning magic over the past month to read.
One of the things he'd been impressed by was the text books he'd been reading over the past month, especially regarding the moving pictures and moving diagrams. It made it much easier to learn, as if he was watching videos on the internet. Just that alone proved to him that the wizarding world just didn't follow the same development path that the muggle world did.
Another huge difference was the economy. Harry had found out that the exchange rate was currently fluctuating around 50 pounds sterling to the galleon. But the buying power of the galleon in the wizarding economy versus the pound was very different. Food in the wizarding world was much cheaper than in the muggle market, similar in price to records he'd seen on the internet for the early 1900s where a five pound bag of flour was only 13 pence.
And that was just the food in the magical world. With magical fertilizer it was really easy for any magical to grow a bumper crop of normal food, so it made sense for food to be so cheap. Anything related to magical plants or animals required a lot more care and effort to grow and so was more expensive. Crafted magical items required extensive magical knowledge and skill, as well as proprietary knowledge, so those items were much more expensive. And yet some of them were almost necessary for the average magical to get by in their lives, so the prices were suitably high compared to an equivalent muggle piece of technology.
Overall it was a bit too simplistic to simply say that the wizarding world was a hundred years behind the muggle world. It was more to the side.
The magical world had indoor plumbing for several hundred years before the muggle one managed it. And even now that the muggle society had "caught up" in that regard, it required an extensive infrastructure and entire industries were dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure in order for muggles to enjoy the modern comforts. Whereas on the magical side, it simply required some rune clusters set up to conjure water or to banish the waste. Much simpler and less resources dedicated to the same function in the wizarding world, as compared to the muggle one.
And while Harry was reading the quidditch book, he was noticing another aspect of the wizarding world's culture that he hadn't thought of so much before. Because of how the magicals had magic to protect them from gross bodily harm, as well as having magical healing methods, their sport of choice was a lot more violent and bloody than the muggle sports.
'Damn!' Harry thought as he watched the moving pictures of the aggressive game. 'Poor Harry in the canon universe was forced to play this game as a scrawny little malnourished guy straight from the muggle world. No wonder it became a trope that Harry had a reserved spot in the medical wing, he was probably visiting it after every practice!'
Harry heard a sound at the door, and looked up. While staring into the brown eyes of a girl about his age, Harry only then realized he'd been grinning hugely because he was really enjoying the moving pictures of the quidditch matches. He let his grin fade a little while still remaining friendly.
"Hello. Did you want to come in and have a seat?" Harry asked while wondering who this girl was. She kind of, almost, looked like what he imagined the young Hermione would look like. Except that her brown hair was sleekly styled, she was wearing expensive looking robes, and when she went to talk, her front teeth weren't huge.
"No. I'll find somewhere else to sit." And with a slight sneer of disdain on her face for him and his book, the girl let the door close and walked off.
'Huh. That was weird.' Harry shrugged and went back to his quidditch book.
Seeing the absolute brutality of the quidditch game, he was starting to get an idea of just why a wizarding raised kid might not think that brutal and embarrassing pranks were that bad, and that it was all in good fun. A bit of a culture clash, that.
He still wasn't particularly interested in becoming the Heir to the Marauders and pranking the hell out of everyone, though. His disapproving attitude toward that kind of messing about had been set for quite a number of years, and he wasn't sure that he'd care to change it now.
But it did make him wonder if that's the reasoning behind why Dumbledore was so permissive to the pranksters in school, that magic being able to reverse any damage like a snap made it seem not all that important or upsetting to the older wizards and witches steeped in the culture.
'Well, aside from the fact the old wizard is just that, old. I don't know if the attitudes were the same in the muggle world and the magical when he grew up, but my impression is that back then people hadn't their own business and didn't appreciate people sticking their noses in that business. So maybe giving the kids room to handle their own social interactions without the professors hovering over them and holding their hands for everything seems like something that would happen back then.'
That bit of speculation set his mind to thinking about the issues and feud that developed between James Potter, his father in this life, and Severus Snape.
No matter how sympathetic ol' JK was to Snape by the end of the series, making him a tragic hero, Harry was far more partial to James Potter's side. Not only did James mature enough to snag Lily Evans as his wife, which must have been a hard sell, but he grew to be a responsible adult and did his best to protect his family and even died in their defense.
While on the other side, Snape was a loyal Death Eater, even bringing a supposed prophecy to his Dark Lord, until it threatened something that Snape was obsessed with. It was only when the object of his obsession was targeted that he chose to switch sides and fight against old Moldy. He didn't seem to care how many other people were being hurt in the meantime.
And then when Snape's object of obsession was dead, he spent the next decade being a complete ass to all the students he taught. And in particular he was a complete git to the child of the object of his obsession, simply because said child looked like his childhood nemesis.
And as said child of the object of Snape's obsession, Harry really didn't appreciate that his future Potions instructor had perved on his mother back in the day.
'Ooh, I'm dying, Potter! Fulfill my dying wish and let me stare into your eyes and pretend they are your mums. Too bad you don't have a cracking set of tits and red hair like she did, I might have been nicer to you in school, no matter how skeevy that would have been!'
Harry chuckled darkly and returned his attention to his quidditch book, when the sound of the door opening once more caused him to look up. There was a red headed boy standing there in nice robes, staring down at him with a judgmental look on his face.
Before Harry could even say hello, the boy sniffed disapprovingly and turned away, letting the door close behind him.
'Okay…' Harry scratched his head in confusion. 'I could swear that was Ron Weasley, but done up in much nicer robes and far more…pureblood elite in behavior than I expected. Not to mention he's here 20 minutes early, which is very unusual for the Weasleys, to be early that is.'
Over the next 20 minutes as the time for departure ticked closer, Harry experienced the same scene, over and over again. A young eleven year old first year would look in his cabin, see him, obviously recognize that he was Harry Potter, and then have some strange reaction or other and then leave rather than staying to talk.
Some of them were nice and cheerfully introduced themselves, leading him to be able to match the names and faces of characters in the book. But a large majority of his fellow first years simply sniffed at him and his quidditch book and left.
One blonde girl even muttered under her breath about how she was disappointed she got a "lazy BWL who didn't want to study", and that she wasn't going to "waste her time on him". Harry was pretty sure she didn't expect him to overhear what she said, but he did, and it was setting off all kinds of alarms in his head.
After 30 of the first years had made their way to his compartment simply to take a look at him, as far as he could tell, before leaving, and with Harry still sitting in an empty compartment with no new friends, he was once more doubting the brilliant idea to go to a magic school to socialize with his peers.
'My classmates are weird,' Harry couldn't help but think as he resigned himself to a quiet trip and returned his attention to his quidditch book.
When the trolley lady came around with sweets, Harry couldn't resist doing the thing Harry had done in the story and buying one of everything. He'd already picked up a bunch of sweets from the various magical alleys, added everything to his bobble head Trinket so that he had infinite candy. He'd even made a variety of sweets on his own that would be sold at The Emporium. So buying one of everything off the trolley was just for a bit of fun.
But then another three first year students came by his cabin and took one look at all the sweets scattered around his seat, glared at him with anger in their eye, and left while muttering about "stupid NPCs following the dumb plot".
By that point in time, Harry couldn't help but suspect that he wasn't the only person inserted into this reality. But so far it was only his fellow first years that were acting so unusual, so he was left to speculate for the moment. And honestly…he wasn't that interested in going out of his way to investigate.
When another first year came by with two others in tow, he took a chance and employed the rudimentary Legilimency skills he'd been practicing to get a peak in the blond's head. He only got a short glimpse of the boy's mind, but what he did see completely confirmed that Draco Malfoy was someone from another world, inserted into the boy's body after dying in another world and while he was in the void he had chosen to come to the Harry Potter world.
For whatever reason, the person who had taken over Draco's body hadn't seized on the chance to use the Jumpchain documents to buy perks and powers when coming to this world. Apparently he didn't know that was an option and simply wished to come to this world of magic for a brand new life.
Since Harry processed that information at the speed of thought, he took a moment to peek into Vincent and Gregory's minds as well, and saw that the two of them were also people that had come to this world the same as the new Draco.
All three boys had woken up their past life's memories on midnight of the 31st of July, right about the time that Hagrid was arriving at the island he was dragged to by Vernon.
Draco, Vincent, and Gregory made a bit of noise, insulted Harry for forms sake, since that was what the plot said they should, and stole some of his candy, though Harry could tell their hearts weren't really in it. It felt like they were just going through the motions of "following canon" because they wanted to keep history on track with what they knew.
Instead of getting offended, Harry just rolled his eyes and let them take the candy. Even if it had been the original little shit Malfoy, Harry wouldn't have cared if he shared a bit of candy with the boy. Thanks to his little Trinket item, he had an infinite supply of candy anyway, so it wasn't like he cared if a few pieces were given to someone else.
Trinkets (Free) Two in one souvenirs and candy dispensers featuring an animated bobblehead statue that guards whatever candy you put in the dispenser from sneaking sneaks who sneak. The distributor itself will not run out of candy and can switch between any candied delights you've placed in it before. The bobbleheads can be swapped with any others you've acquired.
No, the thing that Harry was concerned about was the huge number of his fellow first years that had been acting very unusual. So finally gathering the needed motivation to investigate, Harry swept up his mess and deposited it in his trunk, shrunk his trunk and dropped it in his mokeskin pouch, and then began wandering the train.
He poked his head in each compartment, asking anyone if they'd seen a toad. The older students acted like older students. Some told him to piss off. Others advised him to seek out a prefect to help him find the toad. Others cheerfully greeted the Boy-Who-Lived and told him he was a nice boy to help out a new friend find their toad.
And meanwhile Harry was able to confirm that, unless the older students had a partitioned mindscape like him, they were the original person and weren't swapped out with someone that died in another world.
His fellow first years were a different matter, on the other hand. Well, similar to the older students he got a mixed reception. Some of them expressed disdain for him, some were neutral, and some were kind enough. But then others kept muttering about the NPC's programming changing to keep close to the script. But one and all, they were all people who had died and been sent over from another world to get a new life.
After walking up and down the train completely, Harry settled down in his compartment again and tried not to be so frustrated that his wonderful afterlife vacation trip to the Harry Potter world was completely ruined by the presence of so many world travelers. He felt a headache coming on.
Even the two people who he thought would be easy to make friends with, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, were now pretty much out of the running. They were the brown haired and red haired visitors he'd gotten early on who had shown so much disdain for him.
The woman who had taken over Hermione was a hardcore feminist that hated men and wanted to build herself a Yuri (lesbian) harem while becoming a Dark Lady and taking over the magical world in order to destroy the "Patriarchy" of Pure Bloods and force all the wizards to become her slaves.
The man who had taken over Ronald was a business shark who as a jealous redhead in his past life had identified with Ronald Weasley. In this life he wanted to become rich, powerful, and build himself a Harem and become the equivalent of nobility in the wizarding world.
'Oh, man. If I thought that Hermione and Ronald fought in the canon story, then I can't even imagine the conflicts these two personalities are going get into in the future. At the very least they are going to be fighting each other for who they get to add to their respective harems. But I wonder how well that'll work for them when they find out every single member of our class is a reincarnated person? Will they start trying to seduce the older students? This world is crazy, ha ha!'
Harry was very tempted to just abandon Hogwarts and go to the other side of the world. Going to a school down under sounded great right about now. He eventually decided to stay for a while and see what happens.
'The only thing I can't figure out why it happened. Thankfully that none of these SIs recognized the opportunity they had while in the Void to pull up the Jumpchain documents and get free powers. So they are all sitting at their body's normal magical strength and physical and mental abilities. Thank goodness I don't have to deal with 39 other Merlin Returned perked individuals. That would be an absolute nightmare, and I would definitely head for the hills and bunker up if that had happened!'
Not to mention that if they had the Psychonaut perk, they would likely have been able to detect his intrusion into their minds as he looked for answers. And they would probably have been assaulting his own mind while they passed by, instead of simply sniffing at him in judgment.
'That's the other thing that's to my benefit,' Harry thought. 'They all think I'm the original Harry Potter, and they haven't cottoned on to the fact that each of them aren't the only SI around here. My little skit of asking about a lost toad helped convince them of that, apparently.
'And it's also weird that the majority of them kind of despise Harry Potter. It's like they want to see me suffer and fail through the trials while they play around and grab power. Bunch of wankers.
'Granted, there were a couple outliers that seemed to bear me no ill will and just want to play and have fun in this world. But none of them came here with the intention of making friends and just enjoying the life they have. Not even me, really, when I think about it. Making friends was a secondary thought, since I was too stuck on the idea of getting super magic powers.'
Harry didn't like to admit that he saw any of himself reflected in the attitudes of the other SIs, but it was the truth. The biggest difference was that he had been clever enough to grab some extra powers and abilities, but otherwise he'd been thinking of this world as a playground mostly. Harry swore to himself he would be a better person!
'And come to think of it, one of my perks might be helping me move away from my initial mindset of amassing power for my own ego trip…' Harry thoughtfully thought.
Silver Lining (100 CP) Maybe you haven't found yourself in the best circumstances, Jumper, but you're good at spotting the shine through the rust. This perk is like having a pep talk to cheer you up when you need it, even if you've been bound in chains and thrown into the deepest darkest hole you have a knack for finding the bright spot in your situation. This knack of yours will keep you warm when you're cold, allow you to remember good things during bad times, and look forward to the future even if it's centuries away. To you it doesn't matter when bad times come or how long they last because you know they have an end and it will arrive, eventually.
'I certainly acted less like a traumatized murder victim when waking up in this world and more like an excited teen who gets to go have some fun at magic school. Looking forward to making friends and doing awesome stuff!
'So, yeah. I think I've been a lot more upbeat person than I have been in the past, and I'm definitely easily changing my attitude already when confronted by the attitudes of those reincarnators.
'That Silver Lining perk combined with the Work Ethic perk has also, I think, been helping push me towards what I see as a brighter, more positive future. Can't say I dislike the effect it has had on me, either. I'm definitely more focused and happy than ever before.'
Work Ethic - Good things will come to those who wait but the best things in life come when you work for them and you work especially hard because you have nothing. Whether it's bookwork or physically demanding you get more gains out of the work you do than others who go at it twice as hard and the longer you stay at it the better those gains get. You can get up to a professional level in academics or from physical training within a few months and keep improving from there. Your mind is good at remembering what you need but it can be better, for an extra 100CP you can retain all you learn perfectly.
In an odd case of coincidence, Harry had just worked through all those issues in his mind just in time for the train to arrive at the Hogsmeade station.
"First years! Over here! First years!"
Harry followed the sound of Hagrid's voice, smiling up at the big man with enthusiasm. Even if he didn't see much of a chance of befriending his reincarnated year mates, he had lots of other opportunities to make other friends, like Hagrid here.
"Hey, Hagrid! Good to see you!" Harry called out.
"Hiya, Harry! Have a good train ride? First years! Gather over here!"
"Sure did. And thanks for recommending those books on magical creatures, they were really cool!"
"Anytime, Harry. First years! Over here!"
Soon enough everyone was gathered, and they followed Hagrid down the path. Rounding the corner of the train station building, they were right there at the side of the Black Lake and had a perfect view across the lake at Hogwarts. It was lit up beautifully, shining a beacon of light across the lake.
Harry gaped at the sight and took a quick picture of the sight before he followed along down to the docks on this side of the lake.
"Everyone in a boat! Only four to a boat! Hurry up now!" Hagrid called out as he headed for the boat that was noticeably larger than the others at the front.
Harry got in a boat with Dean Thomas, Daphne Greengrass, and Tracey Davis. There wasn't any small talk among them, though Harry tried to not laugh when Dean muttered "It's only a model".
"Okay! Everyone in a boat? Right, then. Forward!" Hagrid bellowed out, which sent their boats floating along the lake.
Harry smiled as he continued to watch Hogwarts castle coming closer. Whatever the chaos that may occur do to this weird world, he would try to have fun with it. He had already accomplished his main goal of learning magic through his reading and practicing on his island. Granted he needed to practice a helluva lot more to truly "git gud", but he was already up to NEWT level and he would have plenty of time to become as powerful and experienced a mage as the best of them in this world.
So whatever else happened, he would take it as a fun thing to do, practicing magic in between classes while he grew up.
'Oh, great. I'd been doing so well up to now with not thinking about having to go through puberty again!' Harry sarcastically laughed at himself. 'Well, at least with Occlumency and my Psychonaut perk I should be able to regulate my emotions better this time around.'
Throwing the concern to the back of his mind, Harry looked away from Hogwarts and dipped his hand in the lake. Yup, it was cold, all right. He turned his gaze back to admire the view of Hogwarts as they floated closer.