Chapter 8: Opening Week

The first day of Charms was easy. Flitwick gave a lecture about the OWLs, then they spent an hour reviewing the Summoning Spell, which Harry had no need to review. He'd mastered it last year for the first task. He worked on doing it with minimized wand movements and at doing it silently, enjoying small success at the first and none at the second.

After a similar lecture from McGonagall in Transfiguration, they started on Vanishing Spells, and Harry was surprised to be the second student to make his snail disappear.

Hermione had done it on only her third try, collecting ten points for Gryffindor, and started trying to explain it to Ron, who mainly ignored her rhapsodies on theory.

Harry had never cared very much for theory. The Professors had stuffed plenty of it into his head over the years, and he'd even done a decent job regurgitating it in essays and exams, but he'd never applied it to his spellcasting before.

He'd just moved his wand the right way, said the incantation, and kept at it till the spell happened. An approach that failed least in defense, where the spells tended toward simple and the requisite intentions had more to do with results than the operations.

But if that was his approach, why had he read all those books over the summer?

He didn't just want the snail to disappear. He wanted it to fold into unbeing, to rejoin the underlying potentiality that underlaid all existence. That stuff that had been there before anything was. That's what vanishment was. The sound of one hand clapping.

He was thinking about that as he cast the spell, and feeling his own magic, because practicing magic detection over the summer had improved his ability to sense his own magic, and that was a lot to think about, the theory, the intention, the feel of his own magic, the incantation, the wand movement, and it was a struggle to keep paying attention to what he was doing instead of falling into mindless repetition.

Except all those different pieces of the spell were hooked together, weren't they?

They clicked together, and the snail vanished.

"Five points for Gryffindor," said McGonagall, but Harry hardly noticed. He was staring where the snail had been.

He'd done vastly flashier magic, and it was hardly his first time being the second to perform a spell. But the performance of the spell had felt different in some way that didn't seem important, but he knew it was.

He'd read about it. The Sense of the Spell.

He asked for another snail so he could try again, and Professor McGonagall gave him a handful of pebbles.

Oh.

Turning a pebble into a snail was an easy task, except the snail seemed a bit pebbly, so he undid and redid it, and undid and redid it again before feeling satisfied that it would be a snail he was vanishing.

It took four tries to manage the spell again, and six tries before he got that strange little feeling again. Like using magic was opening a door, and the top hinge had always been loose, but now he was tightening it.

Slowly, the pebbles were turned into snails, and the snails were released into unbeing.

Hermione, who'd been sitting there primly, assisting other students from time to time, looked at what he was doing, and looked at the other students, her gazing resting longest on Ron, and seeming quite nervous, asked McGonagall for her own handful of pebbles, and she quickly caught and surpassed Harry in the number vanished.

Harry said, "Hermione. You know every time when you told me about theory and I didn't listen because I thought it wasn't worth listening to?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you and sorry."

They did some potions homework in the library, hurried along by Harry having read a bit over the summer about the use of moonstones in potions.

Ron's joke about how his snail had at least turned paler was funny the first time, not so much the fourth, and Harry was getting a bit irritated at Ron by the time they got to Care of Magical Creatures.

Hagrid was there, with a bunch of little twiglike creatures and a magical chalkboard with large rubber wheels. It followed him around like a lost puppy, and it wasn't until Hagrid gestured for it to stay in place that Harry noticed Hagrid's wand.

If anyone had asked Harry what Hagrid's wand would be like, if he had one, Harry would've guessed a decent-sized truncheon. What Hagrid held was, in fact, the biggest wand Harry had ever seen, but still just a wand.

Hagrid went on for a bit about the exceptional fighting abilities of bowtruckles in defending their trees, and explained how to make nice with them, which was mostly about feeding wood lice to the bowtruckles (but without making it appear you were trying to infest the tree with wood lice) and watering or fertilizing the tree or some such.

It was a bit more information than Hagrid usually gave, and whenever he flicked his wand, a very nice chalk drawing appeared on the chalkboard, illustrating what he was saying. Then they were set to feeding feeding woodlice to the bowtruckles, in what Harry counted as one of the better Care classes he had had.

The three of them hung around once class had ended and approached Hagrid.

"Nice wand," said Harry, and Hermione gave the half-giant a hug.

Hagrid grinned from ear-to-ear even as he was teary-eyed. "Took a long time, thought it might never happen for a bit, but Dumbledore leaned on 'em hard. He's got a lot of influence, Dumbledore. And with me bein' a Professor..."

Hermione said, "You must have passed an OWL, if you're being allowed to use a wand as an adult."

Hagrid said. "Passed me OWL and me NEWT for Care for Magical Creatures before yer third year. Got Os."

Hermione covered her broad grin with a hand, but Harry and Ron failed to conceal their surprise.

"What?" said Hagrid. "Yeh didn' think Dumbledore would let me teach without it, did yeh? Did Astronomy, History of Magic and Herbology OWLs and NEWTS this summer too. More Os. Well, E on my History of Magic Newt. End o' this year, I'll take my OWLs in the others."
Hermione said, "Hagrid that's wonderful."

The man beamed, but seemed to catch some of their surprise, because he added, defensively yet self-deprecatingly, "Kids pass those exams. And I've had a very long time to study. Damn shame if I couldn't get decent marks."

Harry thought of all the times he'd noticed school textbooks in Hagrid's hut. And all the times he'd seen Hagrid perform second, third and even fourth year spells with the snapped pieces of a broken wand. And how, the first time he'd ever met Hagrid, he'd used that broken wand to given Dudley a pig tail, and the Dursleys had had to get it surgically removed. Permanent partial human transfiguration, and the half giant had done it wordlessly, with a broken wand. And the years, the decades Hagrid had been socializing with Professors and reading school textbooks on the sly.

When they'd made their farewells, making for Herbology, Harry said, "Good luck with beating Hagrid on the exams, Hermione. You might need it."

Ron guffawed, but Hermione nodded. She said, "I'm not sure that Hagrid is the most academically gifted person in the world," Ron snorted, and Hermione glared at him as she continued, "but he is in his sixties. Maybe even seventies. He's in the prime of a wizard's intellectual and magical life. And he's had a lot of time to prepare. And this year, he's got fewer exams to take this year than we do. If we don't work hard, Hagrid will crush us."

Herbology went well enough, except for the smell of dragon dung, but matters got a little weird after dinner in the common room.

The twins were once more testing product on willing first-years. Hermione was outraged, but the firsties seemed to think it was fun and they were getting paid, so Harry thought it was fine so long as the twins were sure it was safe.

Hermione disagreed. Loudly. The twins weren't qualified to declare something safe.

Harry said, "What about Slughorn? He used to be the potions professor here. If you tell him you're planning to start a jokeshop and you'd like his advice on making sure your products are safe, he'd probably agree. If Slughorn signed off, that would be good enough, wouldn't it, Hermione?"

Hermione said, "Excellent idea, Harry. Fred, George, you're not testing another product on my first-years until you have Slughorn's sign off." Her smile made clear that she thought they had zero chance of getting that sign off.

The twins exchanged a long look, then sat on either side of Harry. Fred cast a couple of privacy spells, and George quietly said, "Can we tell him you're an investor?"
Harry said, "I told you that money was a gift."

"And we talked about it, and we don't feel right accepting it as a gift. And it might be very useful to say that Harry Potter is an investor. We wouldn't advertise it, but mentioning it in potential business meetings..."

Harry sighed. He'd had a second meeting with Macequill over the summer, and the goblin would not be happy with him refusing to accept shares in a business he'd provided start-up capital to. "What's my stake?"

"We were thinking 10 percent," said Fred.

Harry figured he ought to ask for more, but nodded instead.

George said, "As our investor, you should look over our plans,"

Fred said, "And you should come with us to talk to Slughorn."

Harry said, "In that case, I want 12 percent. But I'll let you test a product on me once a month."

"Deal," said the twins, and Harry shook their hands.

Harry relaxed into his chair, working on essays for Potions and History, and Hermione put two knit things on the table.

Harry picked one up. Pink wool, small, thick, and generally concave. "Knee pads?" said Harry.

"They're hats. For house-elves." Hermione took the one he'd grabbed from him and covered it with crumpled parchment and a quill. "I didn't have time to make any over the summer, what with our correspondence and putting together the revision book, but now that I'm here I can make them quickly enough with magic."

Ron said, "You're leaving out hats for the house-elves? And you're covering them up with rubbish first?"

"Yes," said Hermione.

"That's not on," said Ron. "You're trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You're setting them free when they might not want to be free."

"Of course they want to be free," said Hermione, though she was quite pink.

"I don't think that will work," said Harry. "Where I stayed over the summer... had a house-elf. He did the laundry. It didn't make him free. Actually, house-elves do our laundry too, and they pick it up off the floor quite often. Again, it doesn't make them free."

Hermione said, "No, doing laundry doesn't, but these are intended as gifts. The intention matters."

Harry wondered how it was that Lucius Malfoy throwing a sock into the air had freed Dobby. Likely it had something to do with Dobby very much wanting to be free and pushing the boundaries of the magic. Harry said, "Even so. You're not their master. Can students free Hogwarts' house-elves? I'd think they'd need to get the clothes from Dumbledore."

Hermione looked glum. "I know. But maybe it will work. I'm going to find out."

Harry said, "I think you should go to the kitchen and talk to the house-elves about what they want."

"I have. I know. They say being slaves is just dandy. But if had been taken from my parents as a toddler and raised as a slave to purebloods and been brainwashed to think that was right and proper and how it was supposed to be, I'd probably defend that system too. And don't tell me that's far-fetched, don't say it couldn't happen, I know very well that there are purebloods out there who think that's exactly how it ought to be, and in times past many of them advocated for it publicly.

Hermione continued, "So yes, I know. The house-elves have been raised and bred to slavery, but that doesn't make it right, it just makes it worse."

Harry and Ron exchanged a look. It didn't take a genius to realize that she saw herself in them. Any disagreement would have to be managed carefully. And Harry, who'd been quite sure she was in the wrong, which had felt a little surreal, was suddenly much less sure, though it still did sit poorly with him.

Hermione said, "Don't you dare touch those hats!"

When she'd gone to her room, Ron cleared the rubbish off the hats. "They should at least see what they're picking up," he said.

#

#

Ancient Runes was awkward at first, being with third-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, but 'Divination was useless and I hated it' was an explanation everyone understood. Harry thought the class would be easy if he memorized what he was supposed to and impossible if he didn't.

His detention with Snape on Friday was an hour of mental assault that left him with a splitting headache, his greatest consolation only that Snape was rubbing his temples as well.

Returning to the dorm, he waved to Ron, who was crushing some poor third-year at chess, and took a seat next to Hermione. She cast a privacy spell, slipped him an aspirin and a mug of hot cocoa, and asked if it had gone as badly as he looked.

Harry said, "You know Snape, he doesn't really teach. It's sink or swim, with high standards and a dash of torture. But if I swim, I oughta be a ruddy good occlumens by the end of the year."

Hermione said, "I finished Mind's Mortar. I'm finding the meditation exercises quite challenging."

"It took me weeks to get used to them, and I'm still finding them challenging." Not to mention that he was finding himself short on time. "Any idea of what method you'll use?"

Hermione said, "I'm going to try all the methods and see which suits me best, bet I suspect I'll settle on Obsessive Thought, and I'll probably loop the thoughts eventually. Have you talked to Ron about this yet?"
Harry stood and called for Ron, who'd just won.

The red-head sat with them, and Harry said, "You know how I've been learning occlumency? I figure you might like to try it too. It's a lot of work, but-"

Ron said, "Bill can do it. If I learn, what do they call it, detect-and-hex oughta be enough, shouldn't it?"

Harry said, "Hermione and I are planning on learning the full version, but sure, detect-and-hex should be enough. And you can always take it further if you need to." Harry's understanding was that learning detect-and-hex when you were trying to learn the full version was like going north-east when you wanted to go true north. Not the most efficient use of time, but better than standing still.

Harry said, "I've got the book in my trunk, so you can start on that whenever you like."
Ron groaned, but nodded. "Since when did you turn into such a bookworm?"

"Reading a few books over the summer doesn't make me a bookworm." Had it been fifteen books, about? About one every four days? Hermione matched that even during the school year. "But as it turns out, there's stuff I want to know that's kept mainly in books, so there isn't much choice about reading them."

"I guess. Give it to me before you two go on your round."

When they stepped outside the portrait for their prefect rounds, Harry proceeded with Hermione to a spot even less well lit than the rest and tried to Disillusion himself. That failed, but the Shadow-Wrapping Charm was easy, as was silencing his shoes. "Let's go spook some firsties."

"If we find anyone out of bed we'll dock them points and send them back to their dorms."

"If you insist." He silenced her shoes. "But don't you remember how, as first-years, we ran from prefects at night as if we thought they'd eat us alive if they caught us out after curfew?"

"Or worse, expel us," said Hermione, smiling slightly. "Alright, I guess stealth might pay." She cast the disillusionment spell on herself-not well, but successfully-and then the supersensory charm.

Harry activated the Marauder's Map and looked quickly for anyone out of the dorms.

The map showed Mrs. Norris, Filch, and Draco Malfoy, a pair of Ravenclaws right outside the Ravenclaw dorm, and two Professors.

Professors Snape and Sinistra, together on top of the Astronomy tower.

Unable to resist finding out what the greasy git was up to, Harry led Hermione that way, and found the two Professors standing by Sinistra's new telescope.

Professor Sinistra had been very excited to tell them all about her new telescope, about how it captured all types of light and completely saw through the atmosphere, and best of all, despite appearing to have only a three foot diameter, had an effective aperture of 200 feet.

Harry didn't identify Astronomy as one of his favorite classes, but the 'looking through telescopes' part of the class had always been nice, and he'd been looking forward to trying out the new telescope.

Unfortunately, Professor Sinistra had put a guardrail up to keep any students from getting within five feet of it and had glared very fiercely when Neville had asked if he could try it.

Harry kept low, laying on the stairs, only his head sticking out above.

Professor Snape was looking through the eyepiece of the telescope, Professor Sinistra watching on anxiously.

Snape stood, and Harry caught a few words of their conversation.

"...magnificent clarity..."

"...long exposure..."

"...nebula..."

"...reduce aconite..."

"...highest apparent magnitude..."

"...simmer only during lunar eclipses..."

Snape consulting Professor Sinistra as to the Astronomical influences on a potion was of no particular interest to Harry, so Harry withdrew.

#

#

It was Saturday at 9:30 in the morning, and rather than sleeping in as Harry might've liked, he was helping Hermione round up the first-years and settle them at tables in the common room.

Eight at one table, eight at another.

Hermione raised her voice, sounding very much like a teacher. "I've spoken to all of your Professors and found out what your homework is and when it's due. I've got a parchment for each of you." She handed out the parchments, all identical except for the names at the top, detailing their homework, each item with a line to be signed by Harry or Hermione when they'd finished the first draft of their homework and a second line to be signed by Harry or Hermione after the students had made the revisions he and Hermione were apparently going to suggest.

The students stared at her with a mixture of worry, fear, and relief, the last reminding Harry of how lost he'd felt his first weeks at Hogwarts. He might've appreciated a firm hand.

Hermione said, "And I've got study plans for all of you. They're color coded." Sounding like a little girl about to get on the ride at an amusement park, Hermione said, "Now let's get to work!"

Harry stuck his fist in his mouth to stop from laughing.

Ben poked him and asked if Hermione was alright.

"She's how she's always been," said Harry. "Get out your homework." He pulled out his own homework and asked his group what they'd thought of the first week.

Artemis said, "Charms seems fun, I think I'll like Professor Flitwick a lot, Herbology, well, sort of okay, the plants might be interesting. Professor McGonagall is a little scary, but in a good way. Professor Moody is scary in a bad way, even though you can tell he's trying not to be scary at all, but he's still really scary. And I don't like Professor Snape."

"That's okay. I don't like him either."

That drew giggles.

Compelled by responsibility, Harry added, "But he is genuinely great at potions. You'll learn a lot if you pay attention to him."

Shelly said, "Is History of Magic always that boring?"

Harry said, "Was it the sort of boredom where your eyes glaze, your ears numb, and you drift involuntarily into a restless sleep?"

"That's it exactly," said Artemis.

"Then yes, it's always like that." He looked for Hermione, saw she was occupied with the other table, lowered his voice, and said, "Don't bother trying to listen. Between the sixteen of you, produce an auto-dictating quill and set it to Binns. Have it record the lecture while you read the textbook. Put earplugs in so you don't hear him too much. Later, bring the transcript of the lecture to me, and I'll make you all copies. Read those, because the lectures are actually fairly informative, even if he's a bit fixated on Goblin Wars, and you'll be set. Just don't tell Hermione about any of this."

The firsties nodded gravely, so Harry said, "Transfiguration homework. Get it done."

He worked on his History of Magic essay, and after just a few minutes, the firsties asked for help.

Artemis said, "We have to write six inches on why incantations matter."

Harry nodded and said, "Dobby, attend."

With a pop, the house-elf appeared, some of the students gasping or drawing back. Dobby said, "What is great master Harry Potter wanting?"

"Dobby here is a house-elf. He works here with other house-elves, cooking your food and cleaning the castle. Most of them like it, but they could do more, if the world were different. Dobby, a small demonstration of your magic, if you would."

Dobby crooked a finger, and Harry's textbook rose.

"See that?" said Harry. "No wand, and no words. I hope to be able to do such a thing in another year or two, but Dobby can do quite a lot more than that. Tell me, Dobby, do you not speak when you perform magic?"

Dobby said, "Sometimes. But house-elves are needing gestures, not words."
Harry said, "Hmm. Interesting. Goblins don't have much use for words either. Clearly, words aren't fundamental to magic. But for us, magic without words is difficult. You see adults wizards casting silently all the time, non-verbal casting, but they're still thinking the incantation, they've just gotten to the point where they don't have to say it. True alinguistic casting, where you don't think of the incantation at all, is rare for wizards. Dobby here, on the other hand, was born to alinguistic casting.

"Humans process magic through the same parts of our brains that we process language through. House-elves and goblins don't. That makes it seem awfully simple, as if the words are a necessary placebo, but it's more than that. Words are fundamental to how we perform magic, and there's rules to them. If I taught you a spell and told you the wrong incantation, it wouldn't work. But the incantations we teach aren't some natural, godly language. They're bad Latin. And in other parts of the world, they use different incantations. Not Latin at all.

"Word structure matters. The number of syllables, whether the word starts or ends with a vowel, stops, fricatives, and so forth-so we see analogous patterns for the same spell cast in different languages. I could take the incantation 'Wingardium Leviosa,' and create a different incantation with the same pattern, and it while it would work, it wouldn't work as well as the 'true' incantation. Which is partially because 'wingardium leviosa' sounds to us English speakers like it ought to make stuff levitate, and partially because Magic is 'used to' Wingardium Leviosa."

Some of the firsties were taking notes.

Harry added, "As for what it means that Magic can be 'used to' an incantation? That'd take a lot more than six inches to explain. And I don't get it, honestly." He wasn't sure he truly understood what he'd already said, but it'd been in The Character of Magic.

Harry said goodbye to Dobby,and the homework session continued until lunch, after which Harry found Ron in their dorm room, reading Mind's Mortar with a grim determination Harry didn't understand but wasn't going to question.

"Quidditch?" said Harry.

Ron dropped the book with a sigh of relief, grabbed his broom, and shouted for Ginny.

While Hermione did homework in the stands, Harry, Ginny and Ron spent a couple hours playing Quidditch together, Harry flying with his left hand, right hand on the Quaffle, doing his best chaser imitation.

Ron wasn't as good as Oliver had been, but Harry thought he had a good chance of making the team as a Keeper, and Ginny was a good enough Chaser to be on a house team-but not good enough to displace Alicia, Angelina, or Katie.

He decided not to say so, but Ginny asked him if the Quidditch team would want back-ups.

"We should. We've lost games because we were down a player." Usually him. Or was it always him? "Can you play seeker?"
"Just catch the little gold ball, right?"
"Pretty much," said Harry. "Even first-years who've never seen a proper game can do it." There could be more to it of course, but there didn't have to be.

#

#

The first meeting of the Hogwarts Defense Association was that evening. Fourth-year and up, only. Looking around the hall Moody had claimed, Harry saw a lot of Gryffindors, a fair smattering of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and just a few Slytherins.

"No Malfoy," said Harry, with some relief.

Ron lowered his voice and said, "I'd keep away too if I thought the Professor had turned me into a ferret the other year. It'd be like you coming to a club run by Snape."

Moody called them order, put them in rows, and said, "There's a lot we ought to work on, but we'll begin with fitness. Jog in place for three minutes. Start."

Following a bit of confusion, the students began to jog in place, Moody keeping his normal eye on his watch, his Mad Eye raking around the room.

"Get your knees higher," he said. Then, "Two and a half minutes."

Harry finished the jog quite easily, but some of the students, including Hermione, were breathing quite hard by the end.

"Good," said Moody. "Who knows what a push-up is?"

A number of students raised their hands, and though wasn't among them, Moody said, "Potter, demonstrate."
Harry dropped and reeled off a few, finding it awkward in his wizarding robes, and Moody said, "See? Like that. Notice his toes are on the ground. All of you, get on the ground and do ten."

To Harry, ten push-ups were half of a set, and some of the others seemed to think the same, but others struggled, Hermione's muscles cried Uncle after two, and some couldn't do any push-ups at all. Moody had those students try push-ups with their knees on the ground instead.

Moody cast a powerful softening charm on the floor and said, "Who knows what a sit-up is?"

When the exercises were over, Moody took them through some stretches, and after having them stretch out their arms as they could go, aiming for the distant ceiling, said, "Sound magic in a sound body, as the ancients said. But now it's time for actual magic. We'll begin with the three Ps. Protego, protego, protego."

#

#

Sunday afternoon, Hermione ventured to the boys' dorm to pull Harry and Ron out of bed.

"You have homework to finish," said Hermione.

"No," said Harry, and stuffed a pillow on his head.

"Yes."
Harry said, "I've worked hard all week. Between my classes, the special project, HDA, and my prefect duties, there isn't enough time. And you're going to make me attend every extra-curricular, aren't you?"
"You really should."

"I know I should. If you didn't make me do it, I'd make myself do it, so thanks for taking the blame. Merlin, what am I going to do when Quidditch starts back up?"

"You're going to improve your time-management skills. And you're going to start by getting out of bed and finishing your homework."

Harry rolled out of bed and chased Hermione out of the room by the simple expedient of taking his night shirt off.

He cast an envious glance at Ron, who had somehow slept through that, and twenty minutes later rolled out of the common room.

He stopped at the kitchens for a light lunch then made his way to the library.

He waved to Hermione, who seated at their usual table, and headed straight for the Charms section.

It took him over an hour to find spells suited to his purpose, by which time Ron had joined her and Hermione had built up a stack of books.

Harry took his seat, set a parchment before himself, put an inkwell next to it for easy access, and cast the first charm.

And cast it again. And again.

Ron said, "What are you doing?"

"Saving myself time. I hope." If he could get the charms to work.

After an hour of struggle, the words Harry Potter appeared at the top left of the parchment.

Then, on the top line, indented, "Moonstones have six primary uses in potions. Moonstones are formed...

No, how moonstones were formed should go before the statement of the uses, shouldn't it?

Suddenly the paper read, Moonstones are formed by the accretion of moonlight in areas with strong magical auras, usually in the wilderness. Moonstones have six primary uses in potions, varying dependent upon the moon's cycle and the accretion environment of the moonstones.

Hermione said, "Thought to paper?"

"Yes, though I have to intentionally maintain the connection. But with this, I can produce a sentence in a single second. Much faster than missing around with quills."

Hermione was frowning, so Harry said, "It's not cheating. It's embracing magic."

"Why wouldn't everyone do this?"

Harry shrugged. "It requires basic mind control and tough charm work. But I saw a seventh-year Ravenclaw doing it and asked a few questions."

Harry filled the first parchment, then spent 15 minutes recasting the charms on a second parchment.

Hermione said, "Not as efficient as you thought."

"I'll get quicker with it."

Ron looked on as the new parchment quickly filled. "I'll have to learn that."

"Occlumency first. Just a tad, so the parchment doesn't record every stray thought that shoots through your head."

:::

I'm trying to write this Hermione according to canon, and this Harry as a semi-plausible answer to the question, "What if, instead of spending the summer before his fifth year brooding over Cedric, Voldemort, and the Ministry, canon Harry spent that time reviewing memories in a pensieve, reading books, and being parented by Sirius and Lupin?"

I think I'm doing a decent job at that, and, so far, that Hermione and that Harry have, in my view, zero romantic chemistry. Which is, uh, not the plan. Thoughts? It may just be that I suck at writing romance. Never really tried before.

There is no reason why people with magic should not be absolutely dope at the science of Astronomy with fairly minimal effort. So yeah. Hogwarts has a dope ass telescope that knocks the socks off the James Webb telescope and the Very Large Array put together.

Not to mention space exploration. They literally have propulsionless motion. And if Wizards can't find a way to terraform Mars, something's wrong. And they've quite possibly already invented instantaneous travel. I'm not going to write "Harry Potter and the Exo-Planets" but someone totally should. Just take a bunch of wizards and put them in a hard sci-fi novel. It'll be great.