I had never liked school, in my previous life. It was too long, too boring, and too easy. Even during classes I would spend half my time and attention reading some book or another, while the rest was spent on various imaginations of stories I would write in the future. Even back then I had wanted to be an author. The worst part, however, was simple; I had to get up at a specific time.
"Mrrrrrrrgh…" I grumbled as my alarm went off from the bedside table, purposefully loud and obnoxious so I couldn't ignore it. Only by the grace of the Hufflepuff Dormitory's enchantments enchantments, which I had vaguely noticed the night before while stumbling in after the Feast, was I not assaulted by half a dozen other grumblings from my new to sit up, I reached over and turned the blasted thing off, before struggling with the urge to fall back asleep as soon as I saw the time. Fucking hell, it was six o'clock. I hated school.
A few minutes later, I stumbled out to the common room, dressed and blinking back the last dregs of sleep as I glanced around. It was cozy, brightly lit from the sun streaming into high-set round windows and with wood-paneled flooring that made me shiver at the thought of winter and cold feet padding across it. There were, of course, the obligatory armchairs and couches scattered everywhere-more of the latter than the former, I noted with amusement-and several tables of varying sizes with high-backed chairs for doing schoolwork. Few places were occupied, mostly by sixth or seventh years looking even more grumpy than me, but I did cock an eyebrow at the sight of crimson red hair tucked away in one deep corner.
"Getting an early start on your classwork?" I asked as I approached the armchair in which she sat, low enough others couldn't hear, but just loud enough her inhuman ears could pick it up. The devil girl glanced up from whatever book she was reading, startled, before blinking at the sight of me as I finally moved into regular conversation range.
"Ah, Potter. I didn't expect you to be awake this early. You seemed quite tired last night." I smiled at the faint hint of concern in her voice, but brushed it away with a shake of my head.
"More worried than tired, really, and I believe in over-preparation besides. Until I'm sure of our schedules, I'll be keeping my alarm set early, just in case. And you?"
"This is my usual time." Rias replied, her own smile tugging at her lips. "Punctuality is a must for one of my status, as I am sure you are aware." Her smile turned a touch sharp, and mine did the same. Ah, we were already at the sniping stage of a not-quite-friendship, that was good.
"The little details are beneath my notice, sadly." I shot back, before raising an eyebrow at the book she still held open. "Seriously though, what are you reading? I'm curious." Rias looked surprised for a moment, glancing down to the book in question before looking back up. Then she blushed faintly. "Oh, nothing important. Just a personal tome." I blinked. That was… unexpected. Then I looked closer, and understanding dawned.
"Hmm, if you say so. I might have asked to borrow it once you're done, but romance books aren't really my style." I said, just barely masking my laughter as the girl turned an even brighter red. It was unexpected, and certainly clashed with my pre-concieved notion of Rias from what I remembered of her character, but then I recalled that she was only eleven at this point in time. While she still possessed the most obvious traits, she was also a child, and had yet to grow into the noble and distinguished devil from the show. Eventually, however, she calmed down, giving me a dirty look once her face was no longer the same color as her hair.
"What then, may I ask, is your 'style'?" She questioned after a moment, expression turning curious. I cocked a questioning eyebrow, but then shrugged.
"Adventure, usually." I replied, smiling as a multitude of the many books I had read in my past life flooded my memories. "Romance is well and good as a subplot, but i prefer something that gets the blood pumping, and not in Akeno's preferred manner. Magic and fantasy world's especially, with some science fiction to round things off." It was a shame I didn't have much time to read anymore, really. With all my studies and preparations, I rarely got the chance, and the Wizarding World was woefully lacking in fictional works. Since there was no easily accessible internet either, especially with the way technology tended to fail around large amounts of magic, I couldn't even search the web. Oh well, I was entertained enough with other things, usually.
"It seems strange a Wizard would look to fantasy for entertainment," Rias mused quietly, breaking me from my thoughts, "I would've thought living in the Wizarding World would be fantastical enough." I smiled at that, shaking my head.
"Not really. There's no such thing as fantastical enough, Gremory. There are infinite numbers of worlds to be explored through books, each as new and wild as the last with their own laws, their own own powers and crazy adventures to follow. Magic, real magic, would seem amazing to a Muggle, but so would Space ninja monks or demons and gods to a Wizard. Everybody has their own definition of normality and what falls outside of it." Rias gave me a strange look at that, but after a few moments seemed to decide not to retort, instead humming noncommittally. Shrugging, I turned away and left her to her book. I had things to do after all, and as nice as it was to talk to her, we weren't exactly friends yet. We would just have to agree to disagree, I supposed.
XXX
Eventually, breakfast passed, with only the brief grunt of greeting from an exhausted-looking Draco and my response to break the monotony, before we received our schedules and it was off to class. I'll admit, I hadn't known exactly what to expect when first coming to Hogwarts. My last life I was an American, with a pretty straight shot through elementary and middle school, then repeated hopping around for High-school due to various reasons, so I had some experience in varied systems, but everything stacked up to the same basic pattern. Hogwarts, however, matched none of that, and I found myself wondering if it was simply the British schooling system, or a trait of Wizarding schools and using a massive castle as the premises. The worst part was, however, that I was fairly certain our schedule was physically impossible. There seemed to be at least five extra hours scattered throughout each week, and I had no idea where it was happening.
"Harry," Draco said eventually, growing annoyed as I glared at the paper while we made our way to the first Transfiguration class of the year. That, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts were combined between the four houses, at least for the first years. "Harry, leave it alone. You're not going to make the paper magically change itself. At least, not by glaring at it." I paused for a moment, blinking to process the joke he had just told, before snorting slightly. Then I went back to glaring.
"It just doesn't make sense." I said, trying once again to count everything up and finding the wrong number once again. "There's simply no way they can teach all seven years, even with drastic changes to the older students' schedules. Unless there's some sort of temporal fluctuation around Hogwarts, I…" Slowly, I trailed off as Draco gave me a dead-eyed look, forcing myself to stop and listen to what I was saying. Fuck, that was probably what it was, wasn't it. Now that I thought about it, it wouldn't be too surprising, especially given the way Hogwarts already shifted around its internal space supposedly. Taking a deep breath, I turned to look at Draco with narrowed eyes. "Let me guess, you already knew."
"Not definitively." He replied, shrugging. "There's a few mentions of it being a theory in Hogwarts, a History, but no one's ever been able to prove it, since things stabilize when they try." I half-growled, half-sighed, shoving the stupid paper back into my bag. Of course that was the case, 'cause fuck logical thinking for the Wizarding World. Even the magic castles were out to make everything confusing just to screw with people. And here I'd been hoping I wouldn't have to break out my non-standard perception skills until the actual magic happened.
Finally, we made it to the classroom and took our seats, with me throwing a passing wink at the tabby cat sitting on McGonagall's desk. Draco looked at me questioningly, but I just shook my head and gave him my most mysterious smile. The cat, for her part, did the same. We had been early, for the most part, so the two of us settled down, with Draco once again plugging in his Walkman's earbuds, and me pulling out my notebook to scribble in it. I'd had a few new ideas during the feast, and wanted to write them down before I got distracted with actual schoolwork.
Eventually, the rest of the class gathered, and things got started. Ronald Weasley showed up late-not entirely surprising, but still amusing-and Mcgonagall did her little transforming trick, which allowed me a small laugh as Draco jerked in surprise before glaring at me viciously. Then she started her lecture, and for once I was actually forced to listen. While I knew some basic underlying theory to how transfiguration and magic in general worked-with spells, at least-my focus had lied elsewhere, and it was good to make sure I knew where my knowledge fell short. Unlike mundane school, this wasn't going to be a repetition of knowledge we had already learned and just applying it in new ways, and even better, we would actually be using this knowledge. Five minutes in and I was already growing excited for the rest of the year, something I hadn't done since… oh, when I skipped second grade in my first life? I think I was more worried than excited, actually, but that was for personal reasons. Stupid childish crush, really.
Magic, as it turned out, was largely based on Conceptualism. There were a few major rules, things like special numbers and laws about what could and couldn't be done, but at the end of the day even those could be traced to a mass perception among the common populace, both mundane and mystical. With enough brute force and power someone could breach even that if they tried hard enough, forcing their own conscious onto the world and rewriting it to meet their standards, but that was extraordinarily rare. To be honest, none of this was surprising, especially now that I knew about the particular muddled nature of the universe I now lived in. Both Fate-style magic and Highschool DxD-style abilities tended to work on similar systems from what I recalled, albeit slightly different and to varying degrees of technicality. You just had to believe hard enough, and the magic would do the rest. At least, that was the basic theory.
When McGonagall passed out the matchsticks to be turned into needles, just as I had been expecting, I didn't start immediately. Instead, I glanced around the room, taking in the other students. Most, of course, were struggling mightily. Even Draco, who was almost as well informed as me, was frowning at his barely changed match as he waved his wand and repeated the short incantation. Hermione Granger was having more luck, but seemed stuck on some detail or another. Likely overthinking the process, if I was any judge from the way her eyebrows knitted together furiously. Rias, on the other hand, had simply waved her wand and incanted, and there was now a needle on her desk. I fought not to laugh at the smug little smile she wore, even as Akeno did the same beside her. Of course the devils would have more than enough experience working magic, even if it wasn't their typical combat arts. To be honest, I doubted they even needed the wands, and they were just using them for show.
A short but wary glance showed Illyaviel von Einzbern was… apparently having far too much fun with her attempts at transmutation, waving her wand wildly and incantating in a bright and cheerful manner. Again, I had to question just which timeline she came from. I hoped it was Kaleid Liner, but unless Zero had already happened even the original timeline Illya would be a joyful and innocent child. Then there was her hair. Kaleid Illya tended more towards a really pale blonde than actual white, but this girl's hair was pure as snow, which made me blatantly worried. I didn't want to fuck with the Grail War if I could help it, but even if I stayed out of the way I might have to deal with one of my classmates turning utterly murderous. That would suck. With these worries on my mind, it was almost an afterthought to glance in the direction of Percy Jackson and note that he was having just as much trouble as the rest of the class. Finally, I turned back to my own work.
There was, of course, more to this exercise than just belief and power, I knew. While that could, in theory, work, I had worked with even more complicated projects than this for three years now, and wasn't an eleven-year-old child to be distracted by the obvious. If it were that simple many more students would be having luck, especially the Purebloods who had been raised to believe the whole world bent to their whims. No, this was about the manipulation of Concepts. Slowly, I studied the matchstick, not yet lifting my wand. There were, I noted, several similarities between it and the needle I was meant to be creating. Long, thin, with a head that carried a particular property-flammable for the match and sharp for the needle-and they were both tools of some sort, used to either harm or create. That last bit was probably missed by most, but a match still created fire, and it was little things like that which could make or break magical effects. The secret would come in using those shared traits and concepts to bridge the gap between the rest, and force this match into its new shape.
Finally, I raised my wand and, slowly, started to go through the motions of casting, attempting to transcribe my purpose into the words and movements. I felt my magic, that ember of power buried deep inside my soul and mostly neglected for the last few years, respond to my will. It rose, bit by bit, passing through the holly and phoenix feather wand I held to wrap around the needle,shifting and turning as it worked. A moment later,the magic stopped, and I lowered my wand to examine what I had accomplished. Hmm, that was almost good enough. There was still a woody feel to a couple of spots and-testing the tip with my finger-not quite as much sharpness as I desired. It would pass muster, probably, but I was something of a perfectionist.
"Well done, Mr. Potter." I heard Mcgonagall say suddenly, and I blinked in surprise as I glanced up at the older woman. She was giving me a small smile, nodding down at the needle I still held. I smiled back, but shook my head slightly.
"Meh, I could do better." I said honestly, scratching the back of my head as I looked back at it. "Honestly, I think I'm just unused to manual casting. It'll take a bit to get used to manipulating my magic instead of simply applying theory." McGonagall hummed, but then nodded in acquiescence.
"See that you do, Mr. Potter. I expect nothing but the best from you." I laughed, and she moved on, going to admonish another student on their wandwork. Staring at my needle for a moment, I stood and started to make my way towards McGonagall's desk, where a box full of extra needles waited. Practice made perfect, after all, and I couldn't afford to be sloppy with my magic. As Draco said before: It was time to get to work.
XXX
Alright, I'll be honest, I had very little idea what I was going to do with this chapter before I started it. Then, when I sat down, things just kinda... flowed. As such I can't really say I'm happy with it, since there were no expectations to begin with, but I'm definitely not not happy. Sorry for the long wait, and hopefully it doesn't come off as too ridiculous.
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