The train ride to Hogwarts was mostly uneventful. They caught Lee up on what they'd found out about the game system and brainstormed ways they could make use of it. Hermione bit back a few comments about not doing pranks—after all, she'd known what she was getting into when she joined the guild. As long as the targets were deserving and they didn't get caught, she was grudgingly okay with it.
It turned out that Hermione wasn't against pranking as much as she was scared of losing points.
Draco and his goons had come by in the afternoon to start something, but hadn't been able to open the door, and their eyes widened when they realized that they would be outnumbered anyway—including three fourth-years, no less.
After they left, the six kids had a laugh over how Crabbe and Goyle were still only first level. Slacking off in class as much as they did seemed to have repercussions.
As they piled out of the train and got to ride in the carriages like the other big kids, Harry blinked and said, "I think I'm glitching or something."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.
"There's a weird word floating in front of each of the carriages," he explained.
THESTRAL
"I'll add it to the research list," Hermione said. "There's Neville. Neville, you want to ride with us?"
Sighing in relief, Ron and Harry's roommate nodded and climbed aboard.
NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM
Mage, Level 2
[GRYFFINDOR]
"How was your summer, Nev?" Harry asked.
"Pretty good. Got some gardening done. You?" the chubby boy said.
"Got to spend some time at Hermione's and Ron's," Harry shrugged. "Pretty good summer overall. Thanks for the birthday card."
"It's easy to remember," Neville nodded. "Since it's the day after mine."
"Oh no!" Hermione said. "Neville, you never said! I'm sorry. We should have sent you a card, too."
"It's no big deal," the boy said, lowering his eyes but privately pleased that they hadn't deliberately skipped him. "I guess I didn't mention it."
"We should probably make sure everyone knows birthdays," she insisted. "Nobody knew about mine last year either. It's September 19th."
"That's less than three weeks from now!" Ron realized. "You should have said when we could get something for you from the market."
"Just acknowledging it will be fine," Hermione waved off, though privately hoping for presents. "With the size of the student body, on average every day or two is probably someone's birthday. Someone in Gryffindor every week, at least. It could get exhausting, making a big to-do."
Speaking of to-do, Harry concentrated, and his game system obliged with another reminder quest.
ONLY TURN THIRTEEN ONCE
Get Hermione a present for September 19th
Nodding to himself, he started people-watching out of the carriage. By and large, the names for the other students were pretty much what he expected. Everyone displayed their name, their level (usually the same as their year), and their house (as their only guild). Several of the upper-year students had multiclassed already, as Percy had. He waved at his quidditch captain, Oliver Wood, who was a Mage/Athlete. And that was really the only other upper-year he knew personally, though he might be interested in what the rival quidditch players had classed into.
No, what he was really interested in was the information on the professors.
He realized he was zoning out when someone asked him a question. "What were we talking about?" he asked.
Before Hermione could recount, another pane in the lower right of his vision opened, which seemed to be a transcript of the recent conversation. The last line said:
Ron Weasley: Reckon Lockhart's all he's cracked up to be, Harry?
His friend was obviously trying to set up informing Hermione of the reality of the new professor's low level, since they'd forgotten to mention it to her in private.
"Oh, no. I think he's just a novelist," Harry said, marveling at his new chat log. "If I had to rate him on, say, a scale of one to twenty," he said, stressing that range for Hermione's benefit, "he'd probably only be an eight."
Hermione's eyes widened as she got it. "But… he's done so much."
"He says he's done so much," Ron said, glad that his gambit had paid off. With his improved charisma, Hermione even seemed to believe him. "He must have made up most of that to sell books."
She frowned, a little more of her childhood naivete evaporating. "He should be forced to say that they're just novels," she finally declared.
Neville said, "Not a lot of rules on what you can say in wizarding books. Look at all the stories about what Harry got up to when he was little."
"Wait, what?" Harry blinked. "Oh, yeah. Ron, didn't you say Ginny had read a lot of stories about me? That's stupid."
"You wouldn't believe some of them, mate," Ron nodded. "One of Ginny's favorites is about how you stole a flying carpet and defeated the Genie King when you were only five."
"Crazy," Harry just shook his head.
Hermione, still annoyed that the handsome young professor was probably not actually a world-traveling monster hunter, managed, "Maybe you could let us know how the other professors rate on that same scale, at the feast."
"Right," Harry agreed, interested in the same thing. They were almost up to the front gate of the school, and he said, "That's a weird tree." Somehow, he'd never noticed it until it was backlit by the setting sun. The tall tree was mostly leafless, gnarled branches seeming to move in the fading red light.
"The Whomping Willow," Hermione explained. "It's talked about in Hogwarts: a History. They try to keep us from that part of the grounds because it's animate and has a bad attitude."
"Huh, alright," Harry said. He brought up his map and where the tree was, there was a mark very similar to the one where they'd found the gnome dungeon in Ron's yard. "I wonder if it's on top of some kind of secret passage," he said, stressing it for Ron and Hermione, whose eyes widened.
Honestly, he was probably going to have to read the rest of their year-mates into the secret sooner or later, just so he didn't have to come up with ways to explain what he was seeing around them. The only problem would be that Lavender and Parvati—Hermione's roommates—couldn't keep a secret. Maybe just the boys' dorm could know about it.
With his map up, Harry was seeing all kinds of extra details. Most of them weren't too surprising, since the game map's translucent geometry lined up with the line art on the Marauders' Map and his own memory of the school's layout. But he could already see quite a few exclamation marks to indicate quests, mostly in the great hall or in the carts around them.
It seemed Hogwarts would be as busy with quests as they'd hoped.
Not seeing anything immediately unexpected on the map, he closed it as the carriages stopped and the students filed into the front door, across the entry hall, and into the great hall, taking their spaces at their tables. It was less stressful than their first-year boat ride, but less magical, too.
As he walked in, his main quest updated in a way that was annoyingly vague:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (MAIN QUEST)
Dark conspiracies are afoot at Hogwarts.
* Get to Hogwarts
O Overhear a Strange Whispering
Harry resolved to worry about that later. Finally, as they took their places at the long Gryffindor table on the left of the hall, Harry got to scope out the professors at the high table, for all that the ghost that taught history, Binns, was missing, and the assistant headmistress was still outside assembling the first-years.
CHARITY BURBAGE
Mage/Teacher, Level 9
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
RAVENCLAW]
BATHSHEDA BABBLING
Magister/Runecrafter, Level 11
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
LAMPLIGHTERS,
HUFFLEPUFF]
FILUS FLITWICK
Magister/Duelist, Level 14
[ORDER OF THE PHOENIX,
HOGWARTS STAFF,
RAVENCLAW (HEAD),
EUROPEAN DUELING SOCIETY]
ROLANDA HOOCH
Broomrider, Level 17
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
HUFFLEPUFF]
SILVANUS KETTLEBURN
Mage/Ranger, Level 17
[HOGWARTS STAFF]
RUBEUS HAGRID
Ranger, Level 16
[ORDER OF THE PHOENIX,
HOGWARTS STAFF,
GRYFFINDOR]
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
Archmage, Level 20
[ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (LEADER),
HOGWARTS STAFF (HEADMASTER),
WIZENGAMOT (CHIEF WARLOCK),
INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF WIZARDS (SUPREME MUGWUMP),
EUROPEAN ALCHEMISTS,
GRYFFINDOR]
SEVERUS SNAPE
Potioneer/UNKNOWN, Level 14
[UNKNOWN,
UNKNOWN,
HOGWARTS STAFF,
EUROPEAN POTIONEERS,
SLYTHERIN (HEAD)]
GILDEROY LOCKHART
Mage/Entertainer, Level 8
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
RAVENCLAW]
POMONA SPROUT
Magister/Druid, Level 12
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
HUFFLEPUFF (HEAD)]
AURORA SINISTRA
Cosmologist, Level 10
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
INTERNATIONAL SKYWATCHERS]
SEPTIMA VECTOR
Arithmancer, Level 12
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
MUNTER]
SIBYLL TRELAWNEY
Seer, Level 9
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
RAVENCLAW]
IRMA PINCE
Bibliomancer, Level 11
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
RAVENCLAW]
That was… a lot of information. Harry whispered the high points to Ron and Hermione. "I don't know why Snape has so much marked as 'unknown,'" he grumbled. As he peered at Snape, the potions professor seemed to sense him paying attention. His least-favorite teacher frowned, and suddenly his title changed.
SEVERUS SNAPE
Potioneer, Level 14
[HOGWARTS STAFF,
EUROPEAN POTIONEERS,
SLYTHERIN (HEAD)]
"Woah. Snape made the unknown entries go away," Harry whispered. Hermione's eyes widened as she took that information in, adding it to her theories about the game system. Harry shrugged and continued, "And I'll be able to see Dumbledore from a mile away for all his guilds, and I guess we really can figure that twenty is the maximum. And Flitwick is also part of the Order. Oh, and so is McGonagall," he said, noticing their head of house entering the room.
MINERVA MCGONAGALL
Magister/Transmuter, Level 15
[ORDER OF THE PHOENIX,
HOGWARTS STAFF (ASSISTANT HEADMISTRESS),
GRYFFINDOR (HEAD)]
Behind her, at the back of the hall, he spotted the school's elderly caretaker slipping in the back.
ARGUS FILCH
Conservator, Level 11
[HOGWARTS STAFF]
"So many new classes," Harry said, checking his codex. "Huh. Flich might be into art." To his surprise, a Conservator was a class for art maintenance and restoration. Maybe the disagreeable old squib was mostly there to take care of all the magical paintings? Most of the other professors' classes were just a hybrid of mage and something else that was obvious from their specialization.
He continued to give a running, quiet summary of the classes and levels he was seeing as the new first-years entered. The sorting process seemed to take a lot longer when you weren't nervously waiting for your own turn, but you were waiting for the food to show up. He barely paid attention to who was going where, or their names, since he'd have that information easily to hand. Midway through, Ron pointed out Luna Lovegood, the girl he'd been talking about that was Ginny's friend and might have the Fey perk. She went to Ravenclaw. Finally, Ginny got sorted into Gryffindor to her relief, and it was all done.
Dumbledore stood, his mountain of guild tags looming over the great hall, and said, "Welcome to another year at Hogwarts. Before we eat, I'd like to introduce our new professor for defense against the dark arts, Gilderoy Lockhart." The man in question smiled and waved at the crowd, who seemed pretty excited by him. Maybe at least he would be fun in class, even if he was a bit of a fraud, Harry hoped. "And I think that's enough for before the meal. Let's eat!"
The feast was as excellent as it had been the previous year, though Harry wasn't quite as starved as he'd been as a first-year. He consequently got to enjoy the food more, in contrast to Ron who was packing it away as if he'd never gotten a square meal in his life. Harry still surreptitiously slid some of the tastier items into his inventory, just in case he wanted a snack later. What growing adolescent boy wouldn't want a personal refrigerator full of snacks accessible at all times?
In the noisy hall with lots of conversations going on around him, Harry was finding his new chat transcript very helpful for keeping up with what everyone was saying. He absently willed it to scroll upwards, and it seemed to contain every bit of speech he'd said or heard for at least the past week. That might make taking notes in class a lot easier, since he could just pay attention during the class and then make a copy after. He knew Hermione was going to be annoyed again when he explained that feature.
"You're Harry Potter!" he was distracted from his musing by the mouse-haired boy wearing a large camera that had shoved into the bench across from him.
"You're Colin Creevey!" he said in return.
"How'd you… oh, right, they said our names before the hat," Colin said, giving Harry more credit than he'd earned, since he just read the name above his new first-level housemate's head. "That was brilliant. Can I get a picture of you? Will you sign it?"
"I'd prefer if you didn't," Harry told him, something about the boy's mannerisms rubbing him the wrong way on top of his aversion to celebrity. "You should go get pictures of Professor Lockhart. He's even more famous than me. And he loves signing stuff."
The boy's face fell, and he looked like he was considering a counter argument. Harry kind of wished he could silently send out a chat message to everyone in the Marauders to help get this kid away from him. He may have even muttered, "Help," under his breath so Colin didn't hear. But they all seemed distracted by their own conversations.
Well, they did right up until he made the near-silent request. In his chat log, in a different color, a new line had appeared:
[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: HELP
Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, and Lee all broke off their conversations to stare confusedly at him. Harry's own eyes widened and he subvocalized again.
[Marauders: Active] Harry Potter: This kid is really annoying
Lee adjusted first and said, "Harry, we need you down here to talk about quidditch stuff."
"Sorry Colin, quidditch business," Harry told the boy, getting up and moving down to sit with the fourth-years. Ron and Hermione managed to extricate themselves as well to go sit with him. Colin probably didn't know that they weren't on the quidditch team.
"What was that?" Hermione hissed. "I heard you asking for help in my head."
"I… uh… I think I figured out one thing guilds are good for," Harry explained. "I guess I can talk to everyone in the group. Privately, probably. It says only the active guild members got it."
Hermione squinted like she was concentrating, but nothing happened. "Did anyone get that?" They all shook their heads, and she tried again.
Hermione Granger replies: Test
"I saw that you said 'Test' as a reply," Harry explained. "I didn't really hear it, though."
Everyone else shook their heads that they hadn't heard anything at all from Hermione. "Try just replying to Harry," she explained.
Ron Weasley replies: Harry, do you need help?
"I got that, too," Harry nodded.
"Well, that's less useful than if we could all communicate," Hermione frowned. "But Harry could pass messages to the group, at least. And send out a quick alert if there's trouble."
"And share test answers in class…" Ron suggested.
"Ronald. No!" Hermione corrected, though from her face she'd already also come to that realization.
Ron asked, "Wait, did your dad's friends hear that? Oh, no, you said only active members got it. But if you could talk to the inactive ones, you could talk to them, too!"
"They'd think they were going mad," Harry shrugged, but considered it.
"You're not thinking big enough," Hermione said, looking furtively down the entire table. "If you needed to, and could explain how you did it… you could talk to everyone in Gryffindor."
Harry's mouth dropped wide open. Had his game system suddenly made a quarter of the school effectively psychic, with him as the relay?
The worst part of writing a video game story is how much FFnet hates certain types of punctuation because it thinks I'm trying to hack it or something. For reference, Snape's UNKNOWNS were supposed to be double question marks, and every chapter title that's lowercase is supposed to be a slash command (e.g., /duel). I await the next weird sanitizing constraint I find unexpectedly.