AN: my apologies for not saying this earlier, but thank you all so much for reviewing. it means so much to me that people are reading and enjoying my fic. i love and appreciate everyone who reads my writing, and i hope you continue to read it.
on a secondary note, i've heard so many bad things about 'the cursed child' that i'm severely discouraged from reading it. at this point, anything in that play will not be implemented into this fic. if i do end up reading it and deciding to change it, i will let you all know, but right now i'm just disappointed in JKR for attempting to milk the franchise again.
just write something new, please.
The students had a day to get used to the castle, but Booker felt like it should be longer.
They were giving children a whole lot of responsibility in one day. He'd gotten a speech about 'house points' and such that morning from his Head of House, Professor Sprout, which had apparently already been given the night before, but he did not remember it at all. Students had to know their own way around the school. In some cases, they were still adjusting to the fact that magic exists!
Was Booker the only adult(?) who saw this? Perhaps it was from having a kid, and having continuous worries about said child's future.
He still worried about her, to this day, and instinctually rubbed the back of his hand for some comfort.
It wasn't there. The scar was...
Right. He shook himself before he got caught up in memory, and left the common room with the rest of his year.
The group had managed not to get lost by following any other students they saw in the halls to get to the hall they had been in the night before, which, as Booker found out, was dubbed the 'Great Hall'. Very creative.
Booker had thought the education of this school something of a joke when he saw the textbooks.
Herbology? Defense Against the Dark Arts? Potions? Sure, they had Astronomy for science but for all he knew it was going to be something ridiculous. He could only hope that any of the other school subjects simply didn't warrant a textbook.
He was proven wrong in one day.
It was the first day of classes, and Booker sighed after a fitful night of sleep, but made his way up to the Great Hall regardless.
As he ate a bagel and fought the urge to drink the coffee on the table, he received a timetable telling him his classes. He was immediately let down when he saw no sign of 'English' or 'Mathematics'. He hadn't gotten a proper education in his past life, managing to scrape by with a job as a newspaper boy paying for his meager schooling. At least he was learning something new, he supposed.
He followed his classmates to get to his classes, asking the strange, living paintings for directions when he was lost. There was no way he would remember the path.
Currently, he was following a blonde lady that highly reminded him of his former wife, except for the fact that she wore a much older styled dress and a large tiara. She was leading him to Transfiguration (the final class of the day) which seemed the most complex of the subjects and made him wonder why the hell they were teaching something like that to children. They were eleven, for crying out loud.
... since when did he become such a dad? He'd done a shit job a long time ago, what with, you know, selling his daughter. At times he could just imagine a time where she grew up and he raised her properly, almost as if it were real. Anna getting a college degree, finding a lover, getting married, being a nurse during World War I, so on so forth.
He ignored the sudden head pain at that. He didn't want to think about... he had failed. He had to accept that.
He entered the Transfiguration, wiping at the slight nosebleed with his sleeve, and took a seat next to the nearest person, a girl in Draven... uh, the blue house, if her robes were anything to go by.
He looked around for the teacher, finding it rather irresponsible that she wasn't around. Children misbehaved so easily - for all she knew they would start throwing around spells they hardly knew or something like that, or maybe even - god forbid it - get hurt. There was just an elderly looking cat seated on the desk at the front, tail flicking lazily as its gaze roamed across the room.
Just as the last few students finally arrived, the cat stood up, leaped from the table, and suddenly morphed into the teacher.
Well, at least she hadn't abandoned her students completely, even if fooling them on a very strange margin. He had no idea that people could transform into animals. Summon them, maybe, like he did with his crows, or maybe with bees. He had no idea where he got the idea of summoning bees, but it was viable, he supposed.
Derailing that train of thought, Booker settled in for an interesting class.
While he hardly understood most of it, the basics were... uh.
Okay, scratch that. He had no idea what he was working with. Turning a matchstick into a needle? What the hell! If he couldn't grasp the sciences behind the floating of Columbia, what would make anyone think he could understand magic? Hell, he had trouble with division in the best of times. This was a lost cause.
At dinner that evening, he was considering any possible way to figure this out. He would have asked McGonagall, but hadn't had the time, and honestly didn't like the way she looked at him. It was... weird.
"... such a menace! Honestly! Like anyone cares that she read through all of the textbooks four times!"
"She just got lucky with the needle. Big deal."
"I know right? It's just a needle, getting it first try is nothing."
Booker perked his ears. The Giffin... Giffintour(?) table was adjacent to the Hufflepuff one, and he turned to the group of Grinningor... Gillinbor girls behind him.
"Excuse me, who are you talking about?" he asked, and the girls jumped.
"Um, Hermione Granger?" one of them answered. "The know it all over there." She gestured down the table at a small girl with dark bushy hair with her nose in a book, gently eating her mashed potatoes, but obviously far more interesting in her reading material.
"Thanks," he muttered. He would ask if she had any insight another time. The book was obviously rather interesting, and he wouldn't lie - he had a stubborn streak a mile wide. Asking help was a rarity for him. He would give it a week before he asked for help.
All the other classes were not really notable. Charms, while fun, was about as engaging as Herbology, and Booker had never cared much for plants. Astronomy was straight boring. The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was absolute shit, and Booker got a terrible headache every time he attended the class.
Potions had been only a little bit interesting. The teacher had seemed to have strange expectations of him, throwing question after question at Booker, who answered with simple shrugs.
"You are an utter imbecile, Potter," the man said, and Booker recognized him as the man who had helped stop his last runaway attempt. That dick. Booker felt a bit more on guard at the realization.
"Well, you see, I'm here to learn those things. So are you gonna teach us, or spend an unnecessary amount of time calling children, who have yet to learn anything, idiots?"
The man looked as though he had swallowed something particularly bitter. "Perhaps you should have studied your books before coming here, Potter."
"I did. None of the things you asked were even so much as mentioned in the book, so I don't know what you're playing at, but I think the whole class would appreciate it if you just started teaching us already."
The man left him alone, but made no move to hide his disdain for Booker.
Said student did not give a shit.
The final class Booker had to attend was a Flying class. Apparently all that mumbo jumbo about witches flying on broomsticks was true, and Booker felt truly scandalized. The implications... didn't these people know what it meant? These were children! Riding a broomstick was suppose to bed like riding the Devil's, well. You fill in the blanks.
Regardless, he shouted, "Up!" at a broomstick, watched it fly up into his hand, and mounted it.
He tried his best to fly, though, but felt too uncomfortable, and quickly dismounted. It was just too uncomfortable, and flying... if he was gonna fly it was gonna be in an airship. Why did wizards have to make everything so difficult? He was already having trouble using a quill and parchment, why use a damn broomstick?
"Potter! Why are you off your broom?" the teacher asked.
"I'm not good with flying, ma'am," he replied. "It just doesn't appeal to me."
She had a strangely disappointed look, but nodded. "I understand. It's not for everyone, but it's still good to know, as it is a highly common form of travel."
"Thank you for the advice, ma'am, but I would rather hike and swim to my destination than fly."
He, as well as a few of the other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, had opted out of the flying and were seated on the ground
By the end of the first week, he had no idea what to do about the Transfiguration problem. He was managing with other magic, but not with this. No matter how much magic he threw at it, it just didn't work. So, one lunch break, Booker took one look at the Gettinmor table and confirmed that Granger wasn't in the Great Hall. Maybe the library?
He asked the nearest painting for directions, and lo and behold, after dragging himself up several flights of stairs and around many corners, found her with a stack of books. He took a seat across from her, and she looked up in surprise.
"O-oh! Harry Potter! Can I help you?"
"Some of the girls were saying you got the matchstick into a needle thing down first try. Could you help me out with that?"
She giggled. "It wasn't the first try, but sure! Show me what you've got."
He took out a matchstick and his wand, and repeated the incantation. Just like the past two times, nothing happened.
"I have no idea what I'm doing wrong," he told her.
"Well, magic is all about intent. You have to want to make it turn into a needle."
"Why the hell would I want to turn a matchstick into a needle."
She had no response but to laugh. "You don't want to, you just intend for it to happen," she said, still giggling. "Have you managed the Wingardium Leviosa spell?"
"Yeah. But I actually have a use for levitating things. I don't have any use in turning a matchstick into a needle. I have no need of either of them."
She gave him a sorry look. "I really don't know how to help you. I guess you just have to force yourself to have the intent."
Booker sighed and stood up. "Sorry for wasting your time, Granger. I'll figure something out," he said in a dismayed tone, completely missing her disappointed look at his leaving.
He gave up by the end of the month, moving on to the other spells. McGonagall had been disappointed to see he couldn't do it, but Booker didn't care much. The lady tried her best but she couldn't change his stance on useless things like that.
Intent. Ridiculous. If it was something useful, he would probably be able to do this much easier, but it was a needle. He had experience with sewing but why make a needle out of a matchstick when he could just get a sewing needle, and vice versa? There was just no point. 'Basics' and whatnot were so weird.
October finally arrived with little fanfare. Classes went on, and Booker found that there was something strange happening.
There was no tears around.
Back at the Dursleys he almost couldn't go through a door without one popping up. Hogwarts had nothing.
Had he any knowledge of magic, perhaps he would have made a theory. Instead he just considered it something weird and moved on. Much stranger had happened, after all. Of course, that didn't stop him from wondering.
He figured if the Luteces were around they would tell him in a very complicated manner, but it was better than nothing.
"It is a matter of the amount of magic in the area."
Unsurprised, Booker looked up at the two from his seat on the floor in an empty corridor somewhere on the third floor.
"Elaborate, please."
"You are used to being the only magical being in the area for almost miles, with no outlet. You would continuously release magic in the form of tears," Rosalind said.
"In Hogwarts, magic is everywhere. You aren't the only one with magic anymore, and you are continuously using spells in class. Even the castle itself has magic, sustained by the students presence, and much of your continuously released magic is going into the castle," Robert continued.
"Wait." Booker quirked his head. "The castle is... alive?"
"In a way, yes."
"Due to your ridiculous amount of magical power-"
"-it has become rather fond of you."
"The paintings normally keep to themselves, but you have found numerous friends among them."
Booker scratched his head. "So. I am constantly letting out magic, and it normally comes out in the form of tears, but at Hogwarts the castle soaks it up to fuel itself and has bonded with me? Did I get that all right?"
Robert nodded. Rosalind did nothing.
"... magic is fucking weird."
"Quite."
October passed with hardly any events. Apparently some Gibbinsyor and Slishbin students (he could not remember the names, for the love of god, it was just so much gibberish) had gotten into a fight at some point, and the house point hourglasses were considerably lower for both houses in the morning, and shame was all around at the tables.
Booker had also learned of the presence of a pair of redheads in the red house, who apparently enjoyed pranks and nearly got him three times before he got too bitter and told them to leave him alone. He didn't like pranks, not when he was already so on guard about traps. The old man (Dung... Dungledor?) was the headmaster of the school, and Booker needed to be on his guard at all times, especially with his hook-nosed lackey.
Being the last day of October, All Hallow's Eve, there were 'spooky' decorations up. Ghosts were more active, pumpkins where everywhere, and children were chattering consistently about the supposed 'candy feast' in the evening.
Booker shrugged and went about his business. He'd never been able to enjoy All Hallow's Eve, or, well, as kids call it these days, 'Halloween', and wasn't in the mood to see any more pumpkins, so after class just went to the library and tried to understand Transfiguration again.
He was not trying the matchstick-needle spell again. Just the whole thing behind intent. As dangerous as he felt, toying with magic and forces he didn't know, it was necessary if he needed to get his vigors under control.
Finally, he gave up, and decided he might as well show up for the end of the feast to grab something to eat. Hopefully the cake was good.
"Dear! You have to hurry to the girls lavatory! There's a troll in the school headed her way and she doesn't know!"
Booker looked up. It was that painting that looked like his dead wife.
"Me?" he asked, dubiously. He may have been a soldier in a past life but right now he was just a child.
"Yes! Grab her and run! I'll lead the way!"
Booker had no time to respond before she began to lead the way, and he quickly followed, seeing no reason not to. It was a child, after all, and he felt something of a hero instinct in him.
Finally, many corridors later and almost out of breath, they arrived at the bathroom, only to see the troll walking in.
"Shit," the man said, ignoring the offended look on the blonde painting woman, and dashing over to the nearest suit of armor and grabbed the sword it held. "I need to borrow this."
And he dashed into the bathroom with vigor.
Hermione crouched in a corner, feeling tears well up in her eyes. This was it. This was how she was going to die.
Friendless, alone, at the hands of a troll, of all things.
The troll lifted its club, and Hermione's heart almost stopped.
"Hey!"
The club was lowered gently as the monster turned to look at the newcomer.
It was... Harry Potter, red in the face and out of breath, wielding a sword.
"Yeah, that's right you big fucker. Just look at me."
Too frightened to stand, the young girl watched the boy lure the monster away.
"Granger, get out of here," Potter barked. "I'll hold it off a bit, you go get a teacher."
Her eyes widened. "But-"
"You're a bit more important than I am, Granger! Now, go!"
She swallowed her fear, paused, and then ran for it.
The troll noticed at the last second, taking a slow swing at her.
"Duck!"
Hermione fell to the floor, feeling the club graze the air above her. She looked back and saw that Potter had used the sword to slice into one of the troll's legs to get its attention back, and he nodded at her to leave.
Guilt built up inside her as she dashed down the corridor hoping that someone, anyone would come and help.
Back in the bathroom, Booker rolled out of the way. He had no idea how to use a sword. It was strangely off in his hand. He was far more used to heavy guns and his skyhook.
The club came down right next to him, and Booker, out of instinct, stabbed it. He cursed himself, attempting to pry it off, only to for the troll to lift its weapon, and Booker held onto the sword like an idiot.
Confused, the troll lifted the club to look at the new addition to his weapon, lifting Booker with it. He held it above his head to the light, lifting a hand to poke at it, unwittingly giving Booker an opening.
He pried his sword free with some effort and much more grunting, and dropped down onto the troll's face, plunging the sword into its eye. A spurt of blood hit Booker right in the face, but he did not let up, shoving the sword in further.
The monster roared in pain, fell over, and landed on the floor in a heap, Booker standing atop it triumphantly.
"Mr. Potter!"
He looked to the door to see Hermione, eyes still full of fear, gripping Professor McGonagall's robes. A couple of other teacher could be seen crowding near the door.
"Hi," he replied.
About an hour and a half later, Booker and Hermione were in the Hospital Wing, being tended to by the nurse for their meager injuries. The worst was a particularly bad scrape on Hermione's arm.
Regardless, Madam Pomfrey, the doctor on call, did not let the two out and said they could go to class in the morning.
Soon, it was just Hermione and Booker in the Wing, sitting quietly.
Hermione almost spoke up several times, but got too shy to do so, so Booker spoke instead.
"Do you wanna sit with me at lunch?"
She jumped, not expecting a conversation to spring, then looked over at him in confusion. "I'm not sure that's allowed, we're supposed to sit with our houses."
"I doubt there's a rule for it. Besides, the teachers are always talking about 'house unity' so why should they stop us?"
Hermione went over the school rules several times, but found that he was right. "I-I guess, but it's just... embarrassing."
"Then I'll sit with you. It doesn't matter much to me." Booker shrugged.
"O-okay. I guess, I see no problem with it," Hermione replied, a little astounded.
The room went silent again for a bit before Booker said, "I guess this makes you my first friend."
Hermione, though shocked to hear that, smiled. "And you mine."
AN: good day, its pastry again, how are all of you? (doing well and in good health, i hope)
i hope you are all enjoying the fic so far. we hit a little more than 1000 views and i won't lie, anytime the stats on this fic go up a number, i feel a thrill of joy. thank you all so much.
i have changed the summary to be a bit more fitting. booker won't be changing everything, just a lot; however, it wont really show until later on in the fic. i have a lot of ideas and plot twists i can't wait to spring on all of you. here i am, rubbing my little hands together, forgetting to do anything else because i'm so excited about writing this fic.
also, just to clarify, i will DEFINITELY not be pairing booker with any of the characters he interacts with, especially not hermione. he's an old man, she's eleven. that's disgusting. i do have an idea of possibly bringing back to the siren and pairing him with her, but he will not be paired with any of the harry potter characters.
i mean, if you tilt your head the right way, he's almost 100 years old (going off of birth year instead of age when he died) so this old man in a kid's body is going to stick to himself.
also yes, riding a broomstick was an implication of riding the devil's dick. booker, being somewhat formerly religious, finds it a little horrifying around children, but i doubt the magical community knows or even cares.
anyways, i hope you all have a nice day! leave a review if you would like!