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Chapter 1: First Year.
Harry rode the Hogwarts express in silence, keeping his notorious scar concealed beneath a simple hat. Across from him, in the same compartment, a shy red-head sat, bored out of his mind; Harry ignored him and continued with his reading. A History of Magic was not the most engaging of reads, but it gave an excellent broad-spectrum account of Magical England's background, and Harry had not quite managed to finish it yet.
Over the course of the journey to Hogwarts, a shy boy in search of a toad, a bushy-haired girl interested in his reading material, and a blonde boy full of arrogance all stopped by the compartment. Harry pointedly ignored them all, refusing to respond to any of them. He knew very well that he was famous within the Wizarding world, and experience had long since taught him that remaining out of sight as much as possible was desirable. The arrogant blonde had been infuriated with his refusal to acknowledge him, and he sensed the girl probably would have driven him harder to respond if she had not already had a task in front of her, but he was eventually left in peace.
Rain was pouring out of the sky in heavy drops when they arrived at the Hogsmeade station; Harry retrieved an umbrella from his trunk before leaving it for the House-Elves to move for him. Strangely, not a single other member of the student body departing the train seemed to have employed a similar device, or even to have dressed in a raincoat. Harry tucked that fact away for further consideration, then heeded the calls of the enormous man herding the first years towards a dock. Once at the dock, Harry managed to procure for himself a boat without accompaniment, by the simple expedient of waiting until all the other students had boarded, then entering an empty one.
Castle Hogwarts, backed by a stormy night sky and lit by internal fires, cut an impressive silhouette over the lake as they crossed, and Harry was glad that there was no one in the boat with him to notice the slip brief in his composure revealing how impressed he was. The castle ghosts appearing in the atrium was startling, but he had expected to encounter them at some point or another, and managed to retain an impassive front. The Great Hall was impressive, but non-magical architecture had long since replicated and surpassed any of the displayed feats, save for the enchanted ceiling, which Harry did not consider all that far beyond glass.
The Sorting Hat, however, caught him completely off-guard, and unsettled him. The sorting mechanism had been specifically omitted from the literature he had been able to study, and he was not pleased with the idea of an intelligent magical artifact rooting around in his brain, nor with his name being openly called in front of the student population, placing him as the center of attention. As the other first year students began to pass through the sorting, he thought furiously, mind straining for a way to mitigate the consequences of both becoming the center of attention, and potentially having something rummaging through his mind.
He could try to resist having his mind read, but he couldn't come up with any method likely to be even vaguely effective at avoiding having the majority of the student population associate his appearance with his fame. He did not like that, but could see no way around it. Eventually, the Deputy Headmistress reading the roll reached the P's, and then...
"Potter, Harry."
The entire hall fell silent, and Harry felt the eyes of seven years of students, and five generations of teachers upon him. Every muscle in his body tensed, and he felt threatened from almost every conceivable direction simultaneously. His face, already an impassive mask, stiffened into a rock-hard countenance, and he strode purposefully across the room to where the Deputy Headmistress awaited with the Sorting Hat. Seating himself in a purposeful but unrushed manner, Harry warily prepared his mind to fend off magical intrusion.
"Not bad for someone with less than a month to the discipline, boy," The Sorting Hat whispered in his ear, "But it would take a true master of the mind to keep me out, and I haven't seen one of those in generations."
Harry cursed silently, and the Hat chuckled.
"Children like you try my patience lad," The Hat said, "The magic that enables and animates me also binds me; You are sorely abused and in desperate need of help, yet I cannot reveal anything of what I learn from within your mind. I tell you this to at least lay your fears that your secrets will become known at rest."
Harry remained silent.
"This is the part where you say 'thank you,' lad," The Hat said.
"...Thank you," Harry responded quietly after a few moment's thought.
"Right," The Hat said, "So then that brings us to our main purpose; sorting you. You could easily fit into Slytherin, you're more sneaky and subtle than any students I've sorted over there in years, but there'd be blood between you and the upper years by your second year, at the most. You could fit in Ravenclaw, you're certainly cerebral enough, but you seek knowledge as a means for an end, not for its own sake. You'd be wretched in Hufflepuff. You're gutsy enough for Gryffindor, but are far more likely to execute a discrete plan as an example of your courage, than an overt display of valor, which is not at all like the vast majority of that house these days; what am I to do with you?
Which house would I draw the least notice in? Harry silently asked the hat.
"You'll draw attention no matter what house you enter, though Slytherin would easily put the most focus on you."
Harry thought silently for several long minutes before he directed his thoughts towards the Sorting Hat again, and it allowed him the time.
Where would people see less of me as I actually am, and more fall into the trap of seeing what they expect?
The Hat laughed again, for quite some time, before it spoke to Harry again.
"A real shame I can't put you in Slytherin," The Hat said, "You would be more a credit to Salazar's house than any since Lucius or perhaps even old Tom, before he went mad. If that's what you want though, it'd better be GRYFFINDOR!"
The last was shouted aloud, and Harry calmly lifted the hat off his head, handed it to the waiting deputy headmistress, and walked to the raucously cheering red and gold table.
((()))
Harry spent the rest of the feast giving polite, but very brief answers to the many people clamoring for his attention. Due to the sheer number of people constantly attempting to gain his attention, he was able to avoid answering anything but the shallowest of questions, and by and large deemed his attempt to be courteous, but distant, successful. When they ascended to their dormitories at the end of the feast, Harry successfully matched his mental map, formed from illustrations in the books he had read, to real experiences within the castle's interior.
In the dormitory itself, he pleaded fatigue, and ensconced himself within the curtained four-poster bed his trunk lay next to. Privacy and time to gather his thoughts, was something he found himself unexpectedly thirsting for, but it made sense, when he compared his customary pattern of living to this day where he had been surrounded by other people since shortly before noon. Being around people so much had been unexpectedly tiring. Over the course of less than a quarter of an hour, what had originally begun as an excuse to have time to himself and gather his thoughts, turned into reality, and Harry slipped under the covers of his new bed to sleep.
((()))
Harry found the first week of classes fascinating. Charms, he quickly found, were ludicrously easy, when he was not attempting spells years above the level he was supposed to perform at (having already experimented with the Shielding Charm at home). Transfiguration was difficult, because it had a fairly steep power requirement, and his energy reserves, while still steadily improving, were still a fraction of what they had been. Defense Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic were both utter wastes of time; Harry focused on plowing his way through texts from the Hogwarts library during the otherwise-wasted periods, but sat in class so as not to draw attention by his absence. Herbology reminded him strongly of working in his Aunt's garden, except they were given a hands-on lesson in the properties and care requirements of the plants they were handling.
Most fascinating of all his lessons though, was the actual act of spellcasting. He could feel the words and movements shape his magic into a purpose, and how his wand functioned as a natural channel for his magic to flow out of his body through. After his years spent trying to shape his magic into a purpose with his blood runes, and distributing and directing it about his body with his defensive work, it was child's play to handle the simple first-year charms the class was taught. Transfiguration was even more educational, as when he concentrated, he could feel his magic permeating and changing the objects he worked with, something Harry very quickly set aside his more academic studies to spend time practicing and experimenting with out of class.
Potions, at the end of the week, was something else entirely. Severus Snape, the professor, was blatantly and aggressively antagonistic, making no attempt to conceal either his dislike for Harry, or his disdain for Gryffindor house in general. By the end of the single double-length class, Harry already hated the man. He despised bullies; some of the teachers in Surrey had been real hard cases, but none had been blatant bullies, they simply turned a blind eye to the predations of others. Severus Snape did both, and as Harry watched the man push around his 'students' Harry had already replaced the term with 'victims' in his mind.
By the end of his first Potions class he had already tooled his displayed personality around Snape's classroom as submissive, and eager to please, something that infuriated him to do. It kept the bully's attention focused on him rather than his classmates however, and Harry decided silently to count that as a personal victory. It would be one of very few he encountered that year.
((()))
"Up," Harry said, and watched as the broom beneath his hand did nothing. Acting upon a suspicion, he exercised one of the skills he had been developing since his first Transfiguration class, and extended a tendril of magic from his hand, something he never would have thought to do before his Hogwarts education began, and touched it to the broom.
"Up," He said again, willing the broom to his hand. It rose smartly to his hand. Testing his theory, he willed the broom to stay in place silently, then retracted his hand slightly, keeping a tendril of his magic in contact with the magical item, then willing the broom to move slightly on each of the three axes of three-dimensional space. It responded as he desired, albeit slightly sluggishly. Returning his hand to the broom, Harry refocused his attention on the instructor, Madam Hooch, who was correcting Draco Malfoy's grip on his broom. Harry carefully aped the grip she displayed.
"Now!" Hooch announced, turning to the class as a whole, "We will kick off the ground, rise slightly, then return to the ground. Carefully and slowly, this is intended as nothing more than to get a feel for your brooms, I will not tolerate tomfoolery or showing off for your friends!"
Hooch swept a baleful gaze across the students, before nodding sharply.
"Now," She said, "Mount your brooms, and then do as I have instructed on three! One! Two! Thre-"
Someone had jumped the gun. Harry watched quietly as Neville Longbottom unintentionally kicked off the ground early in a fit of nervousness, then lost control of his broom. A few seconds of altitude gaining and lost grip later, Harry closed his eyes in sympathy as he clearly heard Neville's right Ulna dislocate, while the Radius snapped, and the wrist was dislocated. Harry opened his eyes, and forcibly reminded himself that the boy was lucky; a fall of over twenty feet could easily be fatal, especially for a boy somewhat overweight like Longbottom.
Harry watched silently as Hooch threatened the class if they misbehaved while she was absent, then levitated the groaning boy, and carted him off to the hospital wing. Harry understood the kind of pain Longbottom was in; Vernon had very carefully never broken any of Harry's limbs, but he had suffered more than one broken toe or finger, and he was uncertain to this day whether his ribs had merely been cracked, or outright broken, on a number of occasions.
The instant that Hooch was out of sight, the other students broke out into excited gossiping and rumor-mongering, and Harry took advantage to take stock of the character of the first years from other houses, as well as their social power structures. Slytherin was simple; social status and physical power functioning in alliance, headed by Draco Malfoy. Ravenclaw was also simple; it was a collection of nerds with no sufficiently unifying factor to result in anything more than loose social associations. Gryffindor was tempermental, and experience and observation had already taught him that leadership amongst the crowd would pass to whoever appeared to have the most daring and force of will at a given moment.
Hufflepuff confused him; they clustered together speaking to each other in a friendly manner, none of them having a clear agenda or direction. Perhaps they had not yet fallen into a solidified social structure? He would have to observe them more in the future. Then Malfoy decided to attempt to assert dominance over his entire year, rather than simply his fellow Slytherins.
"Hey look," Malfoy said derisively, "It's Longbottom's Remembrall."
Dominance play, Harry silently thought, showing he is willing to flaunt authority and lord himself over his peers. If he is not stopped now, he will gain the upper hand in all power struggles until someone asserts dominance directly over him.
"So it is," Harry said firmly, striding with deliberately affected confidence over to Malfoy, "If you give it to me, I will return it to him the next time I see him."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed as he met Harry's gaze, and Harry stared back purposefully. Do not show weakness to a predator, Harry thought to himself, presenting an entirely calm and unaffected facade.
"No," Malfoy said, and Harry could see the boy calculating his perceived strength relative to Harry's, "I don't think I will. I think I'll hide it for Longbottom; perhaps see how good he is at climbing trees?"
With that, Malfoy hopped onto his broom, and, with some skill, rose up off the ground towards one of the nearby trees on the Hogwarts grounds. Harry closed his eyes for a second, suppressing the urge to sigh. He had hoped he would not need to do anything particularly demonstrative, but he was unwilling to allow a bully to set himself on the top of this school's social circle. Reaching backwards without looking, Harry extended a tendril of magic to where he had left his broom, and summoned it to his hand. Breaking into a run, and then leaping as it reached him, he landed squarely on the broom, and fed his magic into the object, willing himself towards Malfoy as swiftly as he could.
Harry was not aware of it, but brooms were designed to function upon the magic the enchantments already held within them, and only need sufficient contact with their rider's magic to be controlled. Harry was not a broom-crafter, nor an enchanter of any variety, and did not know appropriate ways to power the variants of flight, sticking, and control spells used in broom crafting, and as such the moderate amount of power he fed into the broom largely went to waste. Energy has to go somewhere, and magical energy, unlike wasted energy of more mundane varieties, tended to discharge itself in a manner reflecting the intent behind it. Harry desired thrust, and his self-education through primary school had included how jet and rocket engines work, thus a small portion of his power actually accelerated his broom, while the rest recoiled out of the back of his school-issued broom in the form of a pressure wave.
Harry rocketed up away from the ground, blasting loose earth and grass into the air behind him, several loose twigs off the tail of the broom breaking free and impaling themselves in the earth. Malfoy turned on his broom to see what the disturbance behind him was, eyes locking on Harry's focused and frighteningly calm expression as the Gryffindor drew almost half-again the speed out of his broom that Malfoy had managed from his own. Panicking slightly, the subconscious effects of Harry's intimidating approach warred with Malfoy's hunger to control the situation and lord himself over his peers. It took him less than a second to decide on a compromise.
"Catch," He said, pushing as much of a sneer into his voice as he could while he spoke, hurling the Remembrall towards the nearby castle wall. Sparing a moment to pointedly snort dismissively at Malfoy, Harry whipped his broom around, the backwash of his passage as he turned almost tumbling Malfoy off of his broom, and raced towards the Remembrall. Quickly determining both that it would fall short of the castle wall, and that he would be able to reach it before it struck the ground, Harry was forced to make a snap decision as to how to make the catch, and his years of deep-seated and restrained anger nudged him into choosing the more aggressive choice, in order to make a show of it and assert his superior strength over Malfoy.
Diving rapidly, he then came up underneath the sphere, his backwash kicking up a cloud of dust as it blasted against the earth, then pulled up and caught the falling sphere, before flipping over backwards to break his collision course with the castle, pulling into a backwards and upside-down descent towards the other students, rolling over on his broom as he did so. Aligning himself carefully, he landed almost exactly where he had taken off from, in the middle of a still-settling dust cloud, then strode calmly back to his place in amongst the Gryffindors, not saying a word.
"Wicked, mate!" A red-headed Gryffindor Harry recognized as Ronald Weasley said, his words breaking the silence of the other students who began to speak excitedly amongst themselves as soon as the ice was broken, "Where'd you learn to fly?"
"That was my first time," Harry said simply.
Fortunately for Harry, only the Gryffindors were paying direct attention to him at this point heard him, and so only a half-dozen students stared at him in stupefied disbelief, rather than the entire class. The shocked stares of the Gryffindor's who had grown up in the magical community were interrupted by the appearance of their head of house, storming out of the castle.
"Mister Potter!" She bellowed in a voice that had taken on a strong hint of Scottish brogue, "Niver in all my years at Hogwarts!" She cut herself off, then began anew.
"Come with me at once!" She commanded, her voice shifting back into her more customary clear enunciation, "And bring that broom!"
"Excuse me," Harry said quietly to his classmates, and strode quickly after McGonagall, struggling to keep up with the rapid strides of her longer legs without scurrying.
McGonagall did not speak as she led him through the castle, the only sound that of their shoes striking the corridor floor, and as she did not initiate conversation, Harry did not speak either. After a couple of minutes, they reached an occupied classroom, and Harry stood quietly as the deputy headmistress interrupted the class.
"Excuse me Professor Vector," She said, "Could I borrow Wood for a few minutes?"
"Certainly," The young Arithmancy instructor said, "Just give him back when you're done with him."
A moment later, a heavily-built fifth-year Harry had only seen in passing stepped out of the class-room, and McGonagall closed the door behind him.
"Wood," She said with mostly-restrained excitement, "I have found you a Seeker."
Harry could hear the capital letter in the title, but did not know why the term raised such excitement in the older student.
"He's got the build," Wood said, looking Harry up and down excitedly, then inspecting the broom in his hand with some repugnance, "I hope that's not the broom you intend him to use though, school brooms are rubbish."
"Of course not," McGonagall said decisively, "We'll have to acquire a Cleansweep Seven, or perhaps a Nimbus 2000 for him," Redirecting her attention from Wood to Harry, she continued "Mister Potter, what did you do to pull such a performance from that broom? The brooms have not been replaced since I was a student here, and I am quite certain it should not have been able to move so swiftly.
Harry took a moment to consider his response, during which Wood indicated with a gesture he would like to inspect the broom, and Harry handed it to him. The moment the broom changed hands, and lost contact with his magic, it shuddered slightly, and more than half the bristles fell off, clattering to the floor between them.
"Oh my," McGonagall said, staring at the mess of twigs on the floor, before turning back to Harry, "Whatever did you do to that broom, mister Potter?"
Harry affected a surprised stare at the broom for a few moments to buy himself some time to think.
"I willed it to go faster," Harry said, deciding an incomplete truth was probably the most effective answer, "It was my first time on a broom, so I am unsure if I did something wrong."
Harry, in what he expected was a very rare occurrence, was privileged to see McGongall's face display genuine, open shock.
"You performed a loop, and a single-handed roll your first time on a broom mister Potter?" McGongall asked, disbelief coloring her voice.
"Yes," Harry said, somewhat timidly, deciding to reinforce his role as an average student, "I'm sorry, I know I wasn't supposed to use the broom while Madam Hooch was gone, but Malfoy was messing with Neville's Remembrall, and I don't like bullies, and..."
McGonagall cut off his accelerating rant with a gesture.
"Don't worry young man," She said kindly, "I quite understand, and am exceptionally happy to have discovered a skilled Seeker for Gryffindor."
Wood nodded emphatically, appearing to Harry too excited to manage a coherent word, which was fortunate, as Harry had an important question to ask.
"What is a Seeker?" He asked, affecting innocent curiosity in his tone and body language.
Wood's excitement changed to shocked horror, McGonagall's expression displayed surprise, and then humor after glancing at the sheer horror on Wood's face.
"You don't know what a Seeker is?" Wood demanded, horrified, "How can you not know the single most important role on a Quidditch team?"
"Well," Harry said simply, "It probably has to do with me not knowing what Quidditch is."
Wood's horrified expression changed to one of near-despair, and he began to stutter, struggling vainly for coherent speech.
"Quidditch," McGonagall said, her voice full of warm amusement, "Is the premier sport of magical Britain, and the Seeker is the most pivotal role in the game, as when they catch the Golden Snitch, their team receives one hundred and fifty points, and the game ends."
"And you'd only be the youngest Seeker to play in a recognized team in a hundred years!" Wood finally managed to burst out, "And if you can pull decent stunt-flying on your first time on a broom, you'll be a cracking good one too!"
"Oh," Harry said quietly, then after a moment's thought, "Is Quidditch a spectator sport?"
"Yes," Wood said, confused at the question.
"I'm afraid I'll have to decline then," Harry said courteously, "I wouldn't wish to draw attention to myself."
Wood had transcended horror and despair, moving into sheer disbelief as he stared in utter bewilderment at Harry, while McGonagall raised a hand to her mouth to hide her smile, fighting back giggles that would be most unbecoming for one of her age and position
"NOT PLAY?" Wood bellowed in shocked outrage, "HOW? What? WHY?"
The classroom door was thrown open, and a vastly un-amused Professor Vector glared out at Wood, who did not even notice her presence in his state of distress. Harry sighed, knowing that this encounter was going to be all over the school by the end of the day, and quickly came to the only conclusion he considered reasonable at this point.
"I suppose I could give it a try," He said reasonably, "If it's all that important. Is it very good for physical fitness?"
"Quite," McGonagall said, not bothering to keep the amusement from her tone, "Professional Quidditch players are probably the fittest of all wizards in Magical Britain."
"I suppose it's an acceptably productive use of time then, so long as it does not interfere with my studies overly much," Harry allowed, "Will there be anything else professor?"
McGonagall glanced at the gibbering Wood, and the irritated and confused Vector for a moment, her own smile coming back in full force.
"No mister Potter," She said, "You may return to your class."
"Thank you Professor," Harry said, nodding to her, and left.
((()))
At Harry's first Quidditch practice, he spent his first half hour on the pitch, first locating the Snitch, then trying to discern the pattern of its movements. He was unable to come to any solid conclusions about what governed it, but it reacted noticeably whenever one of the other players spotted it, zipping away from them in a flurry of evasive maneuvers. After the first half hour, Wood insisted he practice actually chasing the Snitch, which he cautiously did, not wanting to destroy the broom that Wood had convinced one of the other fifth years to lend him. He very quickly discovered that brooms simply required contact with his power for guidance, and nothing more, though he only got marginally better speed than most others when he actually channeled his own power into a broom.
He wished he had the ability to set up a regimented series of experiments, but he would need an array of brooms to accomplish such, something he lacked. Several more practices passed in a similar matter, Wood apparently believing in a minimum of three practices a week, each as long as he could convince McGonagall to book the pitch for, usually three or four hours. His status as a new player on the Quidditch team, much as he had expected, resulted in him becoming something of a hero amongst the Gryffindors, ruining any chance of safe anonymity he had hoped for. He had recognized that being able to recede into anonymity after being a mysterious celebrity for ten years had been unlikely, but he was now being forced to recognize he would not defeat the long odds.
Instead, he attempted a misinformation campaign, rather than the lack-of-information campaign he had hoped to execute to conceal his abilities. Harry quickly determined that the straight-laced nerd image would suit him best, something he would not have thought a believable front with him in Gryffindor house, save for the presence of Hermione Granger, and her already-infamous obsessive study habits. Most seemed irritated, rather than impressed by her prodigious abilities, but he was certain her abrasive personality was a large part of that. By the end of the second week of classes, and his first on the Quidditch team, he had determined that he would display academic performance roughly mid-way between that of Granger and most of the other Gryffindors, and excel in control at practical magic, but display little in the way of power.
Between his status as the 'Boy-Who-Lived,' and apparent Quidditch prodigy, he knew he would be expected to show some degree of higher-than-normal ability, and figured that a marginally-powerful intellectual would be the least threatening way of fulfilling such expectations he could present. At the end of his second week, just as Harry was beginning his process of incrementally raising his grades from 'mediocre,' to 'outstanding,' that McGonagall asked for him to speak with her in her office after dinner.
((()))
"Mister Potter," McGonagall said kindly, gesturing to a seat across from her desk, "Please have a seat. I asked you here today for three reasons."
Harry calmly seated himself across from the elderly educator.
"The first," She said, frowning slightly, "Is that as much as it would pain me to lose such a talented player for our Quidditch team, I wish to ensure that you are not simply joining the team due to peer pressure."
Harry blinked in surprise; it had not even occurred to him that a teacher would be concerned with such things.
"No," He replied promptly, "My initial reluctance was, as I said, a lack of desire to draw attention to myself. There are, no doubt, many talented young witches and wizards amongst my contemporaries, and I already draw far too much attention for what happened ten years ago. It would be far too easy for me to unintentionally over-shadow their deserving achievements with lesser accomplishments of my own."
McGonagall's eyes widened with surprise.
"That's surprisingly well-thought out and mature of you," She said after a moment, "Who taught you to think of such things?"
"I studied psychology, and the part of it dealing with social attitudes towards celebrities," Harry said simply, and McGonagall nodded, having some conceptual familiarity with the muggle discipline.
"Well," McGonagall said happily, "That resolves the first issue nicely. The second is that I am somewhat concerned with your grades," Her tone became more stiff as she continued, "They have been improving, but are still somewhat sub-standard."
"I am accustomed to taking the scientific approach to my studies," Harry replied calmly, "Due to inexperience with the subject matter, I am not yet performing very well. I believe you can expect consistent, gradual improvement until I am fully familiar with the basics of each subject."
Minerva nodded slowly, "The other professors have informed me that you have a more-than-adequate proficiency with applied magic, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt on this. If your grades do not continue to improve, however, we will have to speak of this again. Do you understand?"
Harry met her gaze evenly, and nodded.
"Very well then. The last thing, Mister Potter," McGonagall said with a smile, "Is this."
Reaching behind her desk, McGonagall withdrew a sleek new broom, with gold engraving across the handle reading 'Nimbus 2000.'
"I waited until Wood informed me that you had whatever it was that damaged the school broom under control before investing with this," She said with a smile, "At this point I am fairly certain that it was largely the inferior nature of the current school brooms that caused it to fail."
She handed the broom across the desk to him, and indicated that he could leave.
"Do Gryffindor proud, Mister Potter," She said as he left.
((()))
His third week in Hogwarts, Harry discovered not through field experience, but from the library, how Snitches functioned; they were enchanted to be sensitive to magical auras. Magic was intent-based, Harry learned, and Snitches fled (or evaded, or any number of varieties depending on how the individual enchanter crafted the Snitch) from any magical intent that focused on them. The discovery that magic was intent-based both intrigued and frustrated Harry, he would have thought it would have been mentioned in his 'basic' text-books, considering it was such a critical aspect of the basics of wielding one's magic.
After sifting through library's shelves for a few hours, Harry ended up with a pair of books on 'accidental' magic, and from them he learned more about the fundaments of magic than all the other texts he had read so far combined. The first was actually about the dangers of accidental magic, it described the 'magical core', described the basics of just what spells were, a shaped, controlled, and directed channeling of magic via somatic, verbal, and focal components, in order to describe the un-ordered, purely intention-based magic of 'accidental' magic by comparison. It described how accidental magic could be dangerous, the general causes of such, and mentioned in passing its similarity to wandless and silent magic.
The second book was a specific comparison and contrast between accidental magic, 'conventional' magic, and magic without wand, gesture, words, or any combination thereof. It was written with a blatantly partisan attitude by an Auror in the 1860's, disdaining the over-reliance upon wands that had developed within the British culture, and advocating that education mandate each student master at least one of the core magical subjects wandlessly, and a focus on developing silent casting as a whole. The author also spent almost half of a chapter on arguing, in excruciating detail, why 'Finite Incantem,' should be taught wandlessly, silently, and motionlessly, to every Auror or Hit Wizard candidate, as it allowed escape from almost all common magical restraints. He further detailed that while the wand was the hardest part of conventional spellcasting to do without, it was also the most vulnerable, as wands could be, and often were, snapped in combat situations. The difficulties involved in removing the various common components of casting spells, was that one was, in essence, shaping their magic through pure force of will, a task requiring far more focus and control when even a single element was removed. On the flip side, spells that a wizard cast with a great deal of repetition, they often subconsciously mastered enough to cast at least silently, if not without a gesture or wand either, simply because they became so accustomed to shaping the magic. It was extremely rare for such informal mastery to progress to needing none of the three elements, but not unheard of.
Harry decided that the author to be a very, very sore loser, but for good reason. He had never been in a magical fight, but could already see how valid many of the author's points were, and that they would save lives. In the end, it was all about control; the wand served as the primary focus, the motions and words served as further focii, all to shape the magic into the pattern necessary for the desired spell. Ultimately, though, it was the Wizard's magic, and the greater their personal control, the less dependent (or to Harry's thinking vulnerable) they were. It didn't even require a conscious decision on his part, to attempt to build fine enough control to no longer need a wand; someone else could take a wand from him, and thus, hold power over him, and that made wand-dependence unacceptable.
Much of the semester continued in a simple pattern; classes, practicing his magical control, Quidditch practice, tactfully rebuffing the occasional attempt by the various Gryffindors to get close to their celebrity, and keeping an eye on Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, unsurprisingly after being completely shown up, kept a baleful eye on Harry Potter, and Harry in return kept a calmly watchful eye on the Slytherin. It was less than a week before the blond was verbally asserting himself over his classmates, but Harry would simply stare at him when he verged upon physical or magical assault, and the boy's nerve to go beyond verbal abuse would disappear. Malfoy repeatedly challenged Harry to duels, but Harry refused, calmly citing that it would violate school rules, and left it at that.
It was also during this time that Harry began attempting to use the 'tendril' of magic he had learned to extend from his body to pick active spells apart when he studied them, something he initially attempted purely as a study aid, but quickly realized was incredibly useful in and of itself. First he worked on charms he had cast on objects, which were fairly simple to pick apart and sense the components as they disintegrated, but did not teach him too terribly much. He only attempted to deconstruct a Transfiguration once, and spent five minutes picking slivers of toothpick out from underneath his fingernails. This also taught him that while his magical barrier would prevent him from being injured to any real degree, some physical sensations were still incredibly distracting, even if they didn't technically 'hurt.'.
It was considerably more difficult to pick apart charms by other students, partly because he could not sense their magic at all clearly, where he had years of experience working with his own. A few times he got his hands on something Flitwick had charmed, and found he simply lacked the power to have any appreciable effect on the teacher's magic, unless it had time to fade or he worked at it for hours. For a few weeks, Harry was able to enjoy himself with puzzling out the various spells they used, and enjoying discovery for its own sake, as what he was studying was not immediately essential to his continued survival.
Harry also updated his list of things to do with magic, adding 'learn all spells Wandlessly,' 'Add flight to mobility,' and 'learn why I can't teleport in Hogwarts.' His inability to manage even short range teleportation had come as a great source of aggravation, he had been late to class once due to depending on it to allow him to cut down his travel time, and tardiness did not suit the reputation he was trying to build. Still, it was early enough in the year that 'not realizing how long it would take to cross that part of the castle' was still a valid excuse, and life overall fell into a reliable pattern of activity.
Everything changed on Halloween.
((()))
Harry had been keeping an eye on Ronald Weasley as a potential bully, but thus far he had not strayed beyond verbal abuse, and it was only directed against those that played on his obvious insecurities, primarily Hermione Granger. Harry did not hear the remark that resulted in it, but it was hard to miss the bushy-haired girl bursting into tears and running off alone into the castle. When the feast was later interrupted by Quirrel's entrance and faint, Harry immediately surveyed the Gryffindors to discover that the Granger girl had not yet returned.
"Miss Brown," He immediately said, turning to Lavender Brown, "Do you know where Miss Granger is?"
Courtesy and over-formality established a polite but distant front. Harry used it as the weapon it was.
"Oh, she's off crying her eyes out in the second floor bathroom..." Lavender said, her voice trailing off and eyes widening.
"Thank you Miss Brown," Harry said, then broke into a sprint towards the stairs.
He had, over the preceding two months, thoroughly mentally mapped out the castle, and it took him barely more than a minute to reach the second floor bathroom, which, as he recalled, was haunted. Setting aside the slight instinctive aversion to entering the ladies room, he rushed into the bathroom, and quickly located Hermione by the sound of her sniffling within one of the stalls.
"Excuse me Miss Granger," Harry said, knocking on the stall door, "But a Troll has broken into the school, and it is not safe here. Are you decent?"
"Whu-what?" He heard her stutter through a clearly worn throat, and Harry quickly guesstimated that she would not be indecently exposed, and pulled the stall door open.
Within sat Hermione Granger, the top of her robes damp from copious tears, her face red and swollen, looking utterly miserable.
"Pardon me," Harry said, taking hold of both her hands, pulling her to her feet, and hurriedly directing her towards the bathroom's exit.
"Hey!" An ethereal voice called from by the sinks as they moved, "Boys aren't allowed in-"
She was cut off by a loud grunt and crack, as a massive, eight foot tall beast forced its way through a doorframe slightly too small for it by sheer strength.
"Please open a window and jump out, Miss Granger," Harry said, rapidly back-pedaling as he eyed the monster in front of him, "You may break an ankle, but serious injury is unlikely. A troll will probably kill you."
They pressed back against the far bathroom wall, and Harry glanced over his shoulder to see that Hermione was staring at the Troll in dumbfounded shock. Harry slapped her smartly across the cheek.
"Please flee," He said assertively, "I will distract it."
By this point the Troll, dim-witted though it was, had managed to identify the two possible targets within the bathroom, which were conveniently right next to each other, and lurched towards them. Harry cursed his lack of power and functional spells; if he was stronger he could have levitated the troll, or if he had a greater spell selection he could have banished his knife at it, but thus far he was capable of neither, making offensive magic effectively useless. Deliberately directing his magical energies into his internal reinforcement, Harry rushed the Troll.
"Hey!" He shouted, "Pay attention to me!"
He succeeded in distracting it from Hermione, and hurled himself to the ground as it swung its club at him. The clumsy blow swept over him, powerful enough that merely the wind of its passage pushed him a couple of inches across the wet bathroom floor. Lurching back to his feet, he lunged towards the Troll, getting within effective range of its club, then twisting around its flank to kick it in the back of the knee, hoping to knock it off balance.
Stepping back and turning, the Troll swung its club around at Harry again, who jumped towards the Troll to move inside the arc of its swing, ducking under the arm holding the club as he did so. As the knee-kick had failed, Harry tried stomping down on the creature's instep with his entire weight, then slammed his fist into the Troll's loincloth. Neither had any noticeable effect, and Harry concluded the divergence between his physical size and power, and the Troll's durability, were simply too great for him to have a chance at accomplishing anything like this, no matter where he hit it.
Then he pushed back the anger he had not even noticed was rising within him as he attacked the Troll, and reminded himself his purpose here was to serve as a distraction, not kill the Troll. Glancing over, he saw Hermione still petrified by shock and fear.
"Get out of here!" He barked, and lunged in towards the Troll as it backed up and tried to smack him with its club again.
His words, unfortunately, had no effect on the stunned girl, and the Troll, while of minimal intelligence, did apply what intelligence it had to a fight, and determined that if its club wasn't working, it should punch out its' lunch. A short jab delivered to the crown of Harry's head smashed him into the floor so hard he bounced, before sliding across the bathroom floor. Hermione screamed in horror, but Harry just shook his head to throw off the light dazing he'd received, and rolled to his feet.
My shield is a lot stronger than it used to be, He thought to himself, eying the Troll, which had turned its attention away from him, towards the screaming girl again. Anger rising within him once more, Harry growled low in his throat, his eyes tightening, jaw clenching as he pulled a Bowie knife with a 6-inch blade from his robes, and charged the Troll from behind. Harry was never entirely sure why the dim-witted creature spun to face him, but it moved faster than he expected, and whipped its club around as it turned, smashing the weapon, literally larger than Harry's entire body, into the boy, and smashing him through two of the sinks, into the bathroom wall. The stone cracked slightly, one of the large blocks the wall was built out of being driven back by the tremendous impact, leaving Harry stuck partially into the wall.
Grunting off the intense full-body shock, Harry noticed that his internal shields had noticeably diminished after absorbing the blow, something he had never experienced before. Pushing off from the wall, Harry lurched towards the Troll, but it was waiting for him, and brought its club down in a powerful overhand blow, attempting to smash him into the bathroom's tile floor. Harry side-stepped, avoiding most of the blow, but still caught part of it on his shoulder, which even through his shielding, felt like it was almost torn out of its socket as the blow smashed him to the floor, his head landing on top of the club.
Partially stunned by the blow, Harry reacted purely on instinct, attempting to grapple with and stab his attacker, wrapping his arms around the club, and digging his knife into it. Howling in frustration, the Troll began whipping its club around the bathroom, smashing it into walls, stalls, the floor, toilets, the ceiling, sinks, mirrors, all the while Hermione Granger screamed, and Harry grimly clutched the club, forcing as much magic into his defenses as he could. Eventually, the Troll snorted in frustration, and brought its club up to its face, trying to see why the creature on it wouldn't bleed or break when struck.
Due to its low intelligence, it was a long inspection; due to the length of the inspection, Harry was able to regain his senses, and realize where he was. Snarling wordlessly, Harry lunged off the club, ramming his knife through the Troll's eye-socket, burying his arm up to the elbow in the creature's skull as he skewered it's brain. The troll gurgled, eyes rolling back in its head, and fell forward onto the ground, trapping Harry beneath its bulk.
Hermione's mouth was still working to scream, but she had no breath to do so, and collapsed backwards, landing on her butt, the shock jarring her back into breathing, and tears, once more. When Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick arrived upon the scene, they found a dead troll with a growing pool of blood, a thoroughly destroyed bathroom, and an utterly incoherent first-year Gryffindor.
"What in Merlin's name has happened here?" She gasped, but Hermione didn't even seem to recognize that she was present, much less respond to her question.
For a few moments there was silence, as the pair of professors took in the scene before them.
"If you could get this Troll off of me," Came the muffled voice of Harry Potter, "I would be happy to answer you, professor."
Minerva McGonagall, for the second time in the presence of Harry Potter, was utterly bewildered; this time, however, he was unable to see it. Standing beside her Filius Flitwick, Charms Master that he was, used the simple levitation charm he had recently been teaching his students to lift the Troll corpse, revealing an extremely bloody Harry Potter beneath.
"Good heavens!" McGonagall breathed, immediately vanishing the blood on Harry and searching for the places it was emerging from, and finding, to her shock, none. Then she looked at the knife in his hand, and the bloody ruins that remained of the Troll's right eye socket.
"Oh my," She said.
((()))
Ten minutes later, McGonagall, Hermione and Harry were in the hospital wing, the two students under the stern eyes of Madam Pomfrey, the school healer, who was force-feeding Hermione a Calming Draught. McGonagall was keeping a firm hand on Harry's shoulder, as she watched Pomfrey see to Hermione's health. It took a little over a minute for the calming draught to take full effect on the distraught Gryffindor girl, and when it did, she lapsed into silence, and huddled under the blanket on her bed.
Unfortunately for Harry, that left him the primary focus of attention for both Madame Pomfrey, and Professor McGonagall.
"Mister Potter," McGonagall said firmly, but not unkindly, as Pomfrey began her inspection of him, "While I do not recall seeing Miss Granger at the feast before I left, I distinctly do recall you being present, and I would like to know what you were doing in a girl's bathroom of all places, when you should have returned to the Gryffindor dormitories."
"I was concerned myself at Miss Granger's lack of presence," Harry replied calmly, "I asked Miss Brown, and she informed me that she had been in the bathroom on the second floor all afternoon. By the time I learned this, the teachers had left, and I deemed the prefects unlikely to listen to me, and thus proceeded to warn her myself."
"While your concern for Miss Granger is admirable," McGonagall said, "It is not appropriate for you to put yourself in such a dangerous position."
Anger rose in Harry, years of anger at every figure of authority he had ever known, given focus as another authority figure informed him he should not have saved a life. Fatigue and the flux of adrenaline into and out of his system from the fight with the Troll inspired him to be impetuous, and his face tilted up to pin McGonagall with a harsh glare.
"Excuse me, Professor," Harry ground out, "But what course of action would you have preferred for me to take?"
McGonagall was startled by the sudden bite to Harry's tone, but she had dealt with students challenging her authority for years.
"You should have informed a prefect or teacher," McGonagall said firmly staring down at the much-younger student.
"And you honestly believe that they would have handled the situation better than I would have?" Harry asked, not giving an inch.
"Of course," McGonagall said firmly, "They are selected as the most mature and responsible members of their classes, and are all five or more years older and more experienced than you."
"And you think they would have listened to me?" Harry asked, a faint note of sarcasm coloring his tone.
"Of course," McGonagall said, and Harry promptly turned away.
It was a moment before he spoke again, and when he did, his tone was cool and courteous again.
"In that case," Harry said, "My apologies for exercising poor judgment, Professor. I will submit to whatever punishment you see fit to level."
Though he had acknowledged her authority and submitted to punishment, somehow McGonagall still felt she had lost the argument that day.
((()))
Aside from deflecting rumors about him fighting a Troll with the insistence that though he had seen the Troll, he would have died without the teachers showing up, Harry's life continued in a set pattern that he became comfortable with. Until Christmas, the only change from how it had been before was Hermione Granger following him around like a puppy looking for adoption. He paid her no direct attention, though was always aware of her presence, and she would frequently open her mouth, clearly intending to say something, but would lose the nerve to speak.
In fact, she hardly spoke at all anymore, never volunteering to answer in classes anymore, though answering thoroughly, if quietly, when a professor called on her unsolicited. She became obsessive in her studies, silently asking, and receiving from Harry, permission to look over what he was studying in the library, and tearing through the material, while still taking detailed notes, far faster than he was able to. As Harry practiced making basic healing potions, casting the banishing and summoning charms, as well as the fundaments of Transfiguration and the Animagus Transfiguration, she would often blitz through the stacks in the library, working furiously through tomes Harry had not yet had the time to study, and then silently offer him detailed, cross-referenced notes on additional material she had found.
Her behavior confused Harry, but she looked so desperate he could not bring himself to drive her away, and her assistance was incredibly useful. It also highlighted to Harry just how much more intelligent than him she was. Harry had some idea how IQ was measured and suspected that if tested, she would score well into the genius range, if not beyond. Harry was not entirely comfortable with her knowing in such detail what he was studying, as such knowledge gave a great deal of insight into his developing abilities, but considered it ultimately worth the risk for the acceleration it provided his studies, and apparent comfort it offered her. Harry also heard whispers about how the 'Gryffindor bookworms' were burying themselves in the library together from other students, and was happy with how it reinforced his self-applied image; it did not even occur to him that spending fourteen out of sixteen waking hours in a day studying, practicing magic, and engaging in basic physical fitness routines, was unusual behavior; he simply did not see any purpose in spending time on something that would not contribute to his objectives.
The first Quidditch game of the season was the only significant interruption to his studies and practice, and it only took up a single day. With his advantages in speed, agility, general talent, and understanding of how the Snitch functioned, Harry was able to collect it relatively easily, and won Gryffindor the match, not that he cared much. He did wish he'd been able to spend the night after studying, rather than being mired in arbitrary social functions.
Christmas break changed everything all over again.
((()))
Securely secluded within the curtains of his four-poster bed, Harry examined the translucent silky bundle of fabric in his hands. It did not take long to determine, by the dimensions, that it was an adult-sized cloak. Setting it aside, he inspected the note that had come with it, which was unsigned. Extremely suspicious. He would have to do some research, and recover a list of people affiliated with his father, and then search for samples of their hand-writing. It also couldn't hurt to send the note in for chemical testing, to see where it had been. Harry wished he knew how to test the thing for unpleasant magical surprises, but unfortunately he was unlikely to be able to anonymously mail-order testing services in the magical world, meaning he would have to do the leg-work himself, and his ability to detect other's magic on an already-magical object was not yet dependable.
Setting aside both the cloak and the note, he turned the next of his four unexpected, and four total, Christmas presents. It was wrapped precisely in a tartan pattern, and its generally precise manner suggested to Harry that it had been sent by Hermione. Removing and opening the card attached to it confirmed his suspicion, a simple note of modest length lay within.
Dear Harry,
Thank you for saving my life. After hearing about the Troll, my parents have decided to withdraw me from Hogwarts, something I objected to, but I suppose I couldn't really win that argument. Thanks to your studies into Accidental Magic, I was able to persuade them that it would be downright unhealthy for my magical education to be stopped short, but as they are very successful dentists, they simply hired me a tutor, and are looking for another to educate me in conventional subjects as well. I'm sorry I can't help you with your research so easily any more, but if you mail me the subjects you're studying, and a list of the materials you already have access to, I'll see what other materials I can find for you. Please let me help.
I'm not entirely sure what your other studies were ultimately leading to, but this book should help with your studies of Animagi. It's a direct translation from the original Latin. Thank you again for saving my life.
-Hermione Granger.
Harry opened the package, and found a sizeable tome within. Animagus, the title simply read, and Harry opened it to look over the table of contents and skim the first few pages. It quickly became apparent why it was so thick; each pair of pages contained both the original Latin, and the English translation. Harry was deeply impressed with what he found, it was a simple, direct summation of all the abilities that one must master prior to attempting to become and Animagus, and then detailed instructions as to the transformation ritual, the supporting skills required to undertake the ritual itself, and how to master the process of transformation after the ritual. Harry set the book aside, already intending to spend the rest of the day reading the book.
The third package, unexpectedly, was from the Gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid; it contained a short note and a photo album.
Harry, the note read,
I got a bunch of old pictures of your mum and dad from their school days, thought you might like it. Come visit me some time if you want to hear more about them.
-Hagrid.
Something in Harry's chest twisted violently within him as he stared at the unopened photo album, evoking a deep, sickening sense of pain that he didn't understand, and did not like. He reached out to open the album, and the sensation intensified, so he sat back, frowning in irritation and upset. Anger rose within him to fight the pain, and Harry used it to bear down on the unwelcome sensations within him and drive them out. Purposefully and swiftly reaching for his own writing utensils, Harry jotted off a note to Hermione, taking her up on her offer to research for him. Harry asked her to see if she could find what had become of his parents associates; enclosing a portion of the note sent to him, and asked her to see if she could identify the handwriting from among them.
Moving quickly and decisively, Harry slipped the note and the album into a large envelope, and strode off to the Owlery. Twenty minutes later, he was back, and one of the school owls was winging its way to the Granger residence. The only other first year male Gryffindor who had remained in school, Ronald Weasley, was still sleeping, so Harry was not interrupted as he proceeded to his final package. It was, surprisingly, from his Aunt Petunia.
Harry, the attached note said,
I'm sorry.
-Petunia.
Harry sat back, his jaw clenching tightly as anger and other emotions he chose not to pay attention to rose within him. Closing his eyes, he spent nearly a minute using deep breaths to manage his emotions, before opening the package itself. It contained a half-dozen home-baked cupcakes, a high-quality pocket-knife, and a pocket guide to plants in the United Kingdom and Europe that were edible, poisonous, or had medicinal values. Harry had not realized that his Aunt had paid that much attention to the theme of his studies, but approved of the utility of the gifts she had given him.
Slipping both the knife and the pocket-book into his pockets, Harry set out fulfill his morning exercise regimen, and then eat breakfast. By the time Ronald Weasley woke up, he had returned to his bed, and was working his way through the book on the Animagus transformation.
((()))
It took Hermione less than a week to identify the hand-writing as belonging to Albus Dumbledore, by which point Harry had identified the garment that came with the note as an invisibility cloak. Harry thanked her for her assistance, and considering Dumbledore's considerable reputation, determined that the cloak was as likely to be safe as he could trust without learning the appropriate detection spells to study it himself. He had already begun to study detection spells, but simply lacked the power and control for most of them as yet.
Donning the cloak in improbably early hours one morning in January, Harry set off to explore the barred portions of the castle. First he pin-pointed the various other house dormitories by tracking students, but seeing no need as yet, did not attempt to enter them. Over the course of the rest of the week, he located all of the teacher's offices, browsed the titles in the restricted section of the library, and eventually came to the forbidden portion of the third floor corridor in the west wing. A simple unlocking charm opened the door, and within he found a Cerberus.
It was one of the few things that year to stun him motionless even for a brief moment. He recognized the creature from Greek mythology, of course, but had not realized that they actually existed. The dog's attention was drawn to the open door, and it began sniffing about, peering warily at the empty doorway. Harry carefully examined the dog and its surroundings, noticing the chain and collar keeping it to a certain area, and the trap-door within that area, then retreated.
Three days later Hermione informed him that Cerberus' were frequently chosen for guardian creatures, but never alone by intelligent wizards, due to their vulnerability to music, and that she was still tracking down the various persons in the album. Keeping this in mind, Harry equipped himself for an expedition with multiple obstacles, which mostly meant he brought his knife, his wand, his broom, his cloak, and the quartet of simple healing potions he had managed to brew with him.
The last weekend in January, Harry used a mechanically powered music box he'd mail-ordered to put the Cerberus to sleep, and flew down the trap door it guarded. He flew over a devil's snare plant, collected a flying key, passed a sleeping Troll, flew over a human-sized animated chess board, solved a logic puzzle, and arrived in a room that appeared to be entirely empty. Seating himself near the door, but still beneath his cloak, he carefully extended a tendril of his magic from his hand, and spent an hour systematically probing the room, discovering no other magical auras within. Then he used the Lumos charm to search the room visually, and found a portion of the earthen floor that was slightly awry, dug it up, and found an enchanted steel strongbox with a combination lock on it a foot down. It was heavy, but he managed to balance it on his broom and return the way he had entered.
On his way to the owlery, Harry probed the box with his magic, systematically disrupting every charm on it, something paranoia drove him to, despite how difficult he found it to be. The strong box was then taken, carried in an improvised rope harness, to Number 4 Privet Drive via 6 school owls working in concert. Harry was never more aware of how much physically stronger magical animals such as mail owls appeared to be than conventional breeds.
((()))
Aside from an occasional jaunt to the library forbidden section to try to find books that were not charmed with alarms, Harry did nothing else of particular note that year. He continued both his studies for his classes, as well as his personal studies. He determined that at his rate of power growth, he would not be able to attempt the Animagus transformation until his body properly entered puberty, and set that aside as a less immediate goal. He solidly mastered the summoning, banishing, and vanishing charms with his wand, and silently, but could not yet perform them without gestures or his wand. He found it incredibly difficult to extend his magic beyond the limits of his body for any purpose beyond simply feeling magic within other things, or picking apart spells, without his wand to shape it.
After his experience with the strong box, he had discovered that it was quite easy to unravel most charms that were not permanent once you discovered their 'weak points', and that any spell cast upon an object by one of the other students, save for Susan Bones, Neville Longbottom, Lily Moon, or Tracy Davis, he could readily remove. The teacher's spells he could only remove after some time had passed, the length of time depending on the teacher. It did not take much research to discover that the duration a non-permanent spell lasted for depended upon the power of a witch or wizard, but he still referred the subject to Hermione for research, although she was slower in responding now that she had both a magical and mundane tutor educating her full-time.
Harry was consistently able to produce healing and blood-restorative potions by the end of the year, as well as those required by the class syllabus, and due to the amount of time he had spent focusing on it, was vastly above the rest of the class in Transfiguration, his superior control also put him at the top of the class in Charms. His grades were abysmal in History of Magic, and barely acceptable in Potions, but considering the teachers, Harry could not bring himself to care. He performed solidly in Herbology, which he considered acceptable both for the image he was projecting for others to observe, and the usefulness, but not critical nature, of the subject.
Most importantly for his peace of mind, he discovered Legilimency and Occlumency, and was able to begin working on the beginnings of more organized mental defense, as well as some mental offense, though lack of ability to practice on another crippled his ability to develop that skill. Combined with the strengthening of his magical defenses, and the field-test of them with the Troll in October, before they were strengthened even more, Harry was quite satisfied with the development of his abilities.
The only other matter that demanded his attention before the end of the year was Draco Malfoy. The blond Slytherin aristocrat returned from Christmas break much more confident, and rather than glaring balefully at Harry, he smirked at him. Harry prepared himself for another round of dominance struggle from the boy, but otherwise ignored him and continued with his studies. When the Slytherin eventually made his move, it came as a moderate surprise to Harry that the boy actually had the brains to lay an ambush, rather than just directly confront him again.
"Stupefy," Harry heard the Malfoy boy's voice from behind and immediately dove to the floor.
Not waiting to see what else was to follow, Harry rolled to the edge of the corridor, and crabbed himself upright, reaching for the door he had rolled to with his left hand while he drew his wand with his right.
"Stupefy," Malfoy said again, and Harry summoned one of Hogwarts many suits of armor into the path of the second spell, reached the doorknob, and left the hallway.
Examining the room he entered, he found himself in a dusty and abandoned classroom; there were no footprints or other disturbances in the dust, so he concluded he was alone, and took a moment to consider his options while he recovered from summoning so heavy an object.
"Running away, Potter?" Malfoy taunted from the corridor, but Harry ignored him.
Malfoy never went anywhere without his bodyguards, but Harry had not seen them yet. Crabbe and Goyle were not even marginally competent spellcasters, but they were exceedingly physically powerful for their age, and Harry did not want to get taken unawares by them. They were also very slow, and loud, at least every time he'd run into them before, but he didn't want to get ambushed due to making foolish assumptions. Surveying the second-floor classroom, again, Harry focused on the windows. Eighty seconds and two windows later, he was in the next room over, and Malfoy was becoming impatient in his taunting.
Carefully easing the door open a bare inch, Harry twisted around until he could see Malfoy through the narrow gap. He was perhaps a half-dozen feet from the Slytherin, who was wholly focused on taunting the now-empty classroom Harry had been in. Rolling his eyes in disgust at the obliviousness of his would-be attacker, Harry took a moment to vanish the dust in classroom he was now in, then donned his invisibility cloak, and slowly cracked the door farther open until a solid twelve inch gap was visible. One silent summoning charm later, Harry had Draco's wand, and left via the window again.
Harry moved out through the classroom he had originally entered, vanishing the dust as he went to remove his tracks to this window as well, then quietly left the infuriated Malfoy to search for his wand. It would be found later that afternoon in the entry hall, snapped into three distinct pieces. That conflict, in the middle of February, marked Malfoy's only other power play that year, and the fact that Harry did not speak of the encounter seemed to only give him an even greater appearance of strength to the other first years, something he did not mind in the least, so long as it was restricted solely to the first years.
By the end of the year, he was firmly established as a courteous, if distant, loner, who was simply too busy studying to socialize much, and had the grades to prove it. On the whole, Harry determined his ten months at Hogwarts to be eminently satisfactory in his progressing plans for developing his independence and capabilities. There was, however, one fly in the ointment, on the train ride back to London that June.
The notification that magic was forbidden to under-age students during the Summer Harry found quite displeasing.
((()))
"All warfare is based upon deception."
-Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chapter 1, Section 18.
End Chapter 1.
((()))
Revised AN: Wow. I had forgotten that I had written the first parts of this story after an authoral dry spell, something like six or eight months before I wrote the rest of it. The earlier parts of this story are a lot rougher than I consider acceptable for myself these days, especially in how awkward some of the wording is; I've smoothed out a fair bit of it, but the less developed work still shows. I'm also rather appalled by the number of grammar and spelling errors I had to fix on this revision.