Although some of the magic in older year textbooks were interesting and Harry enjoyed reading whatever caught his eye, he wasn't able to understand much of it and the only thing that proved to make sense to him was still first year magic.
The magical theories he'd already figured out remained true for much of charms. Most charms didn't create reality, a fire-making spell didn't give quite the roaring complexity of a real fire, but rather a blurred version of what one might imagine to be a fire in their heads. If Harry didn't look at it closely, it looked like a real fire, but when he lit a match (he had bought a small box with him) it was clear the real fire burned with a savage complexity of different colours and form that the magical one did not. If one looked carefully they could always tell if a flame was natural or magic-made, just most witches and wizards didn't.
Softening charms, severing charms, were all rather the same.
Some changes were permanent though, the locking and unlocking charms really did leave their items in the state they were intended to be after the charm, food really was heated with a fire charm.
Harry hadn't gotten up to the level where charms did a whole lot more than model reality based on the witch or wizard's imagination or knowledge of it.
He'd also found that the more he understood the reality behind whatever he was trying to charm the easier it was. He'd ripped up a sheet of paper and used the mending charm on it. At a point the bits of paper got so small the edges were soft furry frays and it was difficult to reattach all of them and pull it back together. But when he studied the fibers carefully, tried to recognise just how much of the small bits of paper had frayed edges and needed him to imagine them coming together again, when he'd tried to imagine the fibres reconnecting, even tried to recall the smell of fresh paper and then cast the mending charm, he'd done a much better job than before. The paper was oddly uneven in places, but more together than when he hadn't understood it well.
Defence Against the Dark Arts was interesting to read about, but useless for lack of practice. Duelling was also an eminent need. He may need to duel Lord Voldemort at some point and practice was life-changing. How to get the practice however...?
Transfiguration was like charms except magic allowed materials to be changed from one to the other. The first year transfiguration of turning mice to snuffboxes was oddly curious however.
Harry was lucky no mice lived in the shrieking shack, it was old, abandoned and believed to be haunted by Hogwarts students according to Hogwarts: A History, but it was not so horrible to be haunted by mice. However he was able to purchase some from a pet shop in Hogsmeade. He did it through using his wand to levitate a heavy item onto the cashier when there was no one around in order to press the keys that said mice were being bought. Then he levitated the cash from outside the shop into the shop, put it into the cashier and pressed the buttons to confirm it using the heavy item, which was usually a pen, paperweight, stapler, or any other item seen around the tabletop. After which the anti-theft wards wouldn't count the item as part of the shop anymore, so it didn't set of anything alarms if Harry were to then levitate the item out.
He'd bought several pet mice this way and transformed one mice into a snuffbox at first. He didn't know what a snuffbox was at first but the textbook was nice enough to explain it was an old box that used to hold powder or sweet-smelling things that people would carry around with them in the 17th century where it was popular. It was also popular to take a sniff (snuff) of it at times and that's how it got it's name. There was one picture of a beautiful metal box shaped like a seashell lined with rubies and pearls.
Harry tried to transform the mice into the snuffbox and had succeeded, except instead for the gold metal of the box, it was a brown velvet, and there were tiny claws sticking out of the box on the sides in the rough spaces where the paws of a mice would've been.
Harry turned it over in amazement with the Hat on his head.
It wasn't because I didn't know what a snuffbox looked like. I copied it from the textbook. But because I didn't understand the mice well. I wasn't aware it had tiny claws on it's hands so I didn't imagine it disappearing when I transformed it into the snuffbox, and I half wanted the box to have a velvet interior because I wanted to prove something from the incorrect transfiguration. He mused. It wasn't because I didn't understand the snuffbox. But because I didn't understand the mice. I should've imagined the claws away.
Very good. Was all the hat said.
I still can't believe I turned a living animal into an inanimate object. I thought there'd be some magical rule or law against it. In the later books it says you can transfigure inanimate objects into living objects as well, though only spells for simple living creatures are taught. The books also say you can conjure up small animals. It doesn't seem real. Harry thought.
It stops being easy somewhere though. The hat told Harry.
It seems surreal I can just remove life like that. In the flick of a wand, I can effectively kill mice, birds and snakes by transfiguring them into other things. In fact, it's a simple to master spell according to the textbooks which means many witches and wizards can. I thought there'd be a magical law against animals being effectively killed. I definitely permanently changed it from being an animal. Even if it shrank into a snuffbox in a wildly imaginative way, the effects were permanent. Thought Harry. I can also bring things to life as well. Conjuring up birds, snakes, mice...to think magic can control simple life.
You have the evidence in front of you. It is something you'd have to accept. Even though it's uncomfortable to think about. The hat said.
However, when Harry tried conjuring up birds which was also a first year spell, he found that they were small and plain, like the bare minimum one could think about when they thought about birds, and they did the bare minimum a human would observe birds doing. The birds he conjured up were mostly still, but they chirped and flew in a circle if someone else's gaze was on them. They also pecked at some bread Harry left near them and water if it was in front of them, but otherwise seemed to have no natural appetite of their own, and their flight was straight and plain, but he had the feeling the bird wouldn't be able to fly in large cirles, abruptly change, or do any tricks normal birds could.
He tested it by attempting to teach the birds he'd conjured up some tricks but they wouldn't do anything. And after several days he found the bird dead on the table in the cellar without much of a reason why. When he examined the bird he found it lacked a hole for eggs to come out as if he didn't recreate the reproduction system of the bird.
It seems I can only conjure up animals to my best knowledge of the animal. He thought. The more I knew about bird behaviour and modelled it, the more like a real bird the permanent change would be. This bird was still alive, a living, breathing, thing, but it's behaviour was more simple than a real bird. So for transfiguration with animals the more you know the better. No wonder why you can't conjure up a living human. Humans are the most complicated animal of them all.
True. Agreed the hat.
And so Harry learnt that yes, magic could conjure up small simple animals, but it didn't conjure them up perfectly. One could probably guess whether an animal set free in the wild was a natural one or one a witch or wizard conjured up based on it's behaviour if they observed it long enough. There were all the tells. Harry also felt the burden of using magic responsibly, to not conjure up animals for nefarious purposes, or unnecessarily kill animals by transfiguring them into something else. If he transfigured it back into the original animal, it tended to be his imagination of what that animal was, but lacked the normal behaviours of the original, so it was not actually a reverse transfiguration. Reverse transfigurations however, were more difficult and not covered until the later years. Even when Harry skimmed the chapter he didn't quite understand them so he did't attempt them yet.
The textbook also mentioned that although it was relatively easy to bring small animals in and out of existence, and the textbook wanted to acquaint young witches and wizards with this, as it was a simple bit of magic to do, it was more to show witches and wizards it was a simple spell, it could be done, but it wasn't as practical as some other branches of magic, some witches and wizards thought it was distasteful and many never touched animal transfiguration, conjurations or anything after they'd graduated from the courses where it was mandatory. Harry was one of the wizards for whom that bought relief to read it, to know he wasn't the only one with doubts.
Herbology was still a subject Harry would need to do more with as he lacked the specimens and reading about it from the textbook was only so helpful, but he had no plans for it yet.
Astronomy Harry also needed to do more as he didn't easily dare to leave his shack in Hogsmeade, and History of Magic was based on many wars and fights with magical creatures throughout the centuries that had little relevance to his immediate goal of defeating Voldemort now.
Those were the new insights he'd gleamed from his first-year subjects over the Christmas holidays.
He had a bit of an interesting conversation with Hagrid after Christmas however.
"How's Hogwarts?" Harry had thought to ask. They were in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, a picnic spread and the same turkey hamper in front of them. It was becoming a fast favourite of them both.
"Good, not much out of ter ordinary ter be honest. A troll snuck in on Halloween and got to the girl's bathroom but was taken out by two Gryffindor students. Luckily no one was hurt. Besides that not much," he said.
"How did it get past the wards?" asked Harry.
"The wards don't affect it as much. Magic is less effective on large animals - dragons, giants, trolls. So it would've already been able ter enter the castle more easily than any other intruder. But even then, it shoulda been stopped more by the wards. I couldn't help thinking about it yer know. Dumbledore said he had to change the wards a bit after my expulsion to allow Hogwarts to readmit me. I even got there early on the day and felt how strong the wards were before he changed them," Hagrid frowned, "the troll should've felt more than it did. I don't like ter think this Harry, but some part of me thinks someone with authority over ter wards purposefully changed them to let the troll in!"
"That's not a lead that's too hard to explore," said Harry, who'd begun to view anything relating to magic, Hogwarts and Lord Voldemort like a mystery which he must solve like a detective - it was what it felt like anyway. "We can make a list of individuals who we would most suspect for having some authority over the wards and narrow it down from there. I'd say all of the professors at Hogwarts are under suspicion. There's no proof they don't have control over the wards. It could be Dumbledore."
"Even if they had no control over the wards. It would've been easier for them to tamper with the wards. They are full fledged witches and wizards and everyone else are just students. Remember that," said Hagrid.
"Did anything else happen on the night?" asked Harry.
"Not that I know of," said Hagrid.
After a few more light-hearted chatter Harry went back to his cellar in the shrieking shack and thought about the wards some more.
When Christmas was over and the new term began (Harry continued his first year work) he'd ordered some books on wards from Diagon Alley. He asked Hagrid to order them for him and Hagrid obliged. Hagrid wasn't that much of a well known name among those book stores as he'd had no reason to visit since his first visit when he was a kid purchasing books that it wasn't too suspicious and he was able to get away with it without anyone particularly looking into it.
Harry read the books on wards with interest.
Wards it turned out had a long history. It started of with witches and wizards wanting to protect their house or crops from intruders.
They would charm and transfigure house traps, fences, lures, weapons, in order to give the intruder a nasty surprise if they set foot on the property. The first wards were normal lures and traps, but with the tripwire enhanced through magical charms and transfigurations. The tripwire was charmed invisible for instance, or the tripwire was transfigured into a guard dog with a zealous need to make physical contact with a witch or wizard who'd stepped over the threshold it didn't recognise and the moment it made contact the tripwire was triggered and the lure or weapon would be set of.
The witches and wizards were surprised to find that often the trap would behave in unconventional ways. A noose that dangled someone upside down by the ankle when the tripwire was set of, which when the tripwire was transformed into a dog, sometimes resulted in the rope lashing out and grabbing the intruder several metres away even when there had been no spell or enchantment put on the rope to make it move, and would suspend the user in air at that spot. The traps would sometimes go of at their original spot.
The first trap that was one which hung someone upside down by the ankle that still did it's job even crossing physical distance due to a tripwire transfigured into a dog was the very beginnings of ward magic. Ward magic was any sort of magic that took place within a set location or distance, which was known as the warded area. Whatever wards had been set (magical spells, charms, transfigurations) would carry out within the warded area if there was a tripwire or something that was set of. Wards were used to guard many physical locations. There were more ways of guarding things - curses that killed the witch or wizard who'd came in contact with the item, repelling charms, but wards were one common method.
Over time wards evolved. The tripwire became many different things - the mere presence of a human being could be the trigger in some cases, touching something was another, putting weight on the ground could be another tripwire, and many more possibilities. The set of things that were carried out also evolved, to harm to the intruder, to banishment, to identificaton, or trapping the intruder, however the most common was simply a ward whose tripwire was an intruder entering, and then the magic inside the warded area prevented the intruder from entering. There was no harm, simply intent to keep out the intruder.
Wards were used by decent people. Curses, trapping the intruder, or even attempts to magically steal items from the intruder upon the tripwire in order to get something out of them, were things done in unscrupulous areas.
There was a lot of magic involved in the history of wards, and the development to that day, the most commonly used wards now. Which ones truly worked and which ones were just a pretty design in idea.
Harry quickly learnt that it was easier to select people to let in rather than people to keep out, and although the book provided no descriptions on wards at Hogwarts, he'd reasonably guessed Hogwarts wards were probably based around identifying students, staff and people meant to be at Hogwarts, and then allowing them in, which by default kept everything else out, rather than identifying the intruders and setting up separate magical ways to keep them out. This meant that by default the grounds of Hogwarts must've had some strong repelling enchantment on them, but made allowances for students and staff meant to be there.
The book also said that it was possible for outsiders to break through wards if they understood the magic more deeply, and that some wards could be better cast or configured than others. This supported his idea that a full-fledged witch or wizard may have higher chances of finding a loophole in the wards to let in a troll than a student, especially if the troll was less repelled by wards in the first place because magic didn't work as strongly on larger animals. This meant whoever tampered with the wards to let in the troll wouldn't have needed to tamper with them as much.
Harry frowned. There was a break-in at Gringotts on the day he went there. There was a tampering with the wards at Hogwarts as well. Something didn't feel right. His spidery senses were tingling and he told himself that there was something very wrong about this.
He remembered Hagrid taking a parcel out of a vault and carrying it with him to Hogwarts on the day they were there. Hagrid mentioned it was a once-of for the school but he didn't mention what it was.
The simplest conclusion was that it was something valuable stored within the school and that someone had tried to break into Gringotts on that day in order to steal the parcel from the vault somehow. Perhaps Hagrid took it out just in time. Perhaps the tampering with the troll might've been to create chaos and distraction in the school so another person, perhaps a teacher, could steal whatever the parcel was. It was likely kept at Hogwarts somewhere; perhaps guarded. Harry could imagine no shortage of magical enchantments that may be used to guard items. Especially with some powerful witches and wizards in Hogwarts like Professor Dumbledore or the staff. It wasn't like there was a shortage of talent around for that sort of thing.
He frowned. Things were getting more curious.
Harry also ordered several books on Gringotts and The Ministry of Magic, because he felt they were important things to know about the wizarding world.
He'd spent the next few months reading over them. He'd also ordered a broomstick from Hagrid because perhaps the number one thing he wanted to do the most was fly. But he was too afraid to take it out, so all he did was marvel quietly at it from the cellar as he ran his fingers over it. It was a Cleansweep 7, an old and classic model, but it excited him all the same.
Gringotts, he'd worked out, was one of the most heavily guarded and secured magical banks out of the entire world. Attempted thefts were rare and punished severely. It was highly unlikely that whoever tried to break into Gringotts on that day was an amateur. Rather someone who had a considerable amount of knowledge of magic to even attempt that. Further conversations with Hagrid revealed that a curse had been put on the Defence Against the Dark Arts place and that a new witch and wizard came in every year, leading Harry to theorise that a powerful dark wizard was the current year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and was hellbent on getting their hands on the parcel - whatever it was.
Considering the curse meant the professors left at the end of the year, this gave the professor approximately one year to get the job done and they were likely growing more desperate as time went on.
Harry shivered. He wasn't liking what he was learning. Hagrid's curious description of the twitchy nervous man with a turban around his head only caused Harry's senses to flare up even more. He didn't like the sound of the professor whatsoever, and he couldn't help feeling that only someone doing something bad would be so nervous and twitchy. Hagrid brought some plants that Harry should've learnt from herbology at Hogwarts but didn't there and taught Harry a few things. It was first year stuff so it was easier for him to teach, but Hagrid said Harry couldn't rely on him for this forever.
Hagrid also warned Harry to be careful in the forbidden forest because it was home to a lot of magical creatures who were sentient and territorial and that they had already marked out their territory and might not like intruders. Harry made sure to stick to the side of the Forbidden Forest closest to Hogsmeade whenever he travelled there and back.
So far nothing bad or eventful had happened besides Hagrid telling him about the troll on Halloween, but Harry's bad feeling about the year only increased as time went on.