FanFiction
Just In
Community
Forum

More
Harry Potter and the Hermetic Arts by HaikenEdge
 Books » Harry Potter Rated: M, English, Humor & Adventure, Harry P., Hermione G., Neville L., Fay D., Words: 121k+, Favs: 3k+, Follows: 3k+, Published: Mar 10, 2019 Updated: Dec 25, 2019 1,218Chapter 13: First Day
Harry Potter and the Hermetic Arts
Chapter 13: First Day
Harry had received an exceedingly warm welcome from the Hufflepuffs, the likes of which he had never experienced before, when he had been introduced as one of them. Apparently, his reputation had preceded him to the house of the badger, made obvious by the many awkward hugs and enthusiastic handshakes he received along with the dozens of inquisitive questions about his victory over You-Know-Who for which he only had the customary answer of being unable to remember due to his tender age at the time.
After the meet-and-greet where he had met more people than he could put names and faces to, Harry was finally been allowed retire to his room, which he shared with one Roger Malone, a stocky boy a not much taller than Harry. Having skipped the evening meal, Harry's stomach was twisted into tight knots, so he took the opportunity to set down his haversack by the bed he and his roommate had agreed was his and drop into the largest pocket, returning a few minutes later via the magic lift in his haversack with two cups of instant noodles, a fork and two pairs of disposable chopsticks to find his roommate unpacking.
"Hungry?" Harry asked, holding up the two cups.
"I could eat," Roger remarked, taking one cup and a fork. "Where did you get this?"
"Brought it with me," said Harry. "Didn't know what food they'd be serving, so I brought my own, in case anything happened."
His roommate nodded, running his fingers through his dirty blonde hair and pulling it backwards, remarking, "That's smart."
A silence hung between the two boys, interrupted by only the slurping of noodles.
Finally, Harry spoke up. "We're going to be roommates for a while, so we might well get to know each other.
"The reason I'm famous is He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, the big bad evil guy, the magic bogeyman, You-Know-Who came to my house, killed my parents, then tried to murder me with a magic death spell but failed and disappeared. That made people think I defeated him. When I was eighteen months old."
"That's just silly," said Roger. "Also, I don't know who."
"Me neither," said Harry. "And what's worse, nobody will tell me."
"Well, that can't be helpful," said Roger, finishing the last of his noodles and setting the cup down on his desk.
"It really isn't," Harry agreed, chuckling, and his roommate joined in.
"You mind if I unpack while we talk?" Roger asked.
"Go for it," said Harry. "What do your parents do?"
"Well, my mum is a production designer for the BBC," said Roger. "My father is a gaffer at Working Title Films."
"I've never heard of them."
"They haven't made many films."
"Well, that explains it," said The-Boy-Who-Lived. "So, you're from a normal family, then."
"Normal?"
"As opposed to magical," Harry explained. "I hate term 'muggle'; when magicals use it, it's always in a way that's insulting."
"But why normal?" Roger asked.
"If you read Ministry documents, you'll find they estimate there are only fifty thousand magicals in all of the United Kingdom."
"But there are millions of people living in just London," finished Roger, quickly realizing where his roommate was going. "Compared to the bulk of humanity, having magic is not normal."
"Well, yeah, but we shouldn't be like them in the language we use, either. With 'magical' instead of 'abnormal', nobody's feelings get hurt."
"How did you end up in Hufflepuff anyways?" Roger asked. "Almost everybody was expecting you'd be a Gryffindor."
"I'm not the bravest, I'm not the smartest, and I have no ambitions," Harry confessed, letting his voice drop a bit so it seemed like he was letting his roommate in on a secret. "The only thing I have going for me is that I'll put in more work than anybody else."
"You'll fit right in, then," Roger said, closing up his trunk and sitting down on his bed. "Who was your friend at Ravenclaw?"
"Hermione Granger," said Harry. "She's really smart. A lot smarter than me."
There was an uncomfortable pause as neither boy seemed to know what to say. Then:
"Do you need to use the bathroom?" asked Roger. "I want a shower before I sleep tonight."
"You do that," Harry said, cracking his neck and then his knuckles. "I need to do a few things before I shower and sleep."
As his roommate disappeared into the shower with a towel and a fresh change of clothes, Harry fell forward, catching himself on his hands before laying down flat, quickly switching his watch to its timer function. Setting the timer to 30 seconds, he started on his new, timer-assisted evening exercise regimen, beginning with press ups.
~ooOoo~
Harry awoke gently, but nearly panicked at the darkness and the stale air around him. Fumbling around in the dark, he reached under his haversack, which he was using as a pillow, and found his wristwatch, using the backlight to determine the time, which was just before five o'clock.
Standing his haversack up on the floor, he rolled out of bed and into the bag, catching himself on the gidgee rod hanging from the side of the main pocket and dropping lightly onto the magical goods lift he had created, riding it down to the floor of the interior.
It only took him a few minutes to get dressed, then a few more to have a breakfast of fruits he left out overnight to thaw, oatmeal and beef jerky and clean the implements he had used for the morning's meals before exiting his haversack.
Roger was still asleep when Harry left the room and made his way up to the ground floor; it was still dark outside, but Harry found a flat patch of dirt and grass and laid a long vinyl mat down in preparation of his morning exercise.
His morning exercise routine was much more thorough than his evening one; while he could complete his entire evening regimen in ten minutes, his morning routine contained thirty minutes of calisthenics—squats, pull ups, star jumps, mountain climbers, press ups, planks, burpees, muscle ups and reverse crunches—in thirty second intervals, then a ten minute run followed by another five minutes of calisthenics to warm down.
He walked back to the Hufflepuff dormitories in the basement to quickly take a cold shower, the rising morning sun gently warming his back as he entered the building. Toweling his hair dry as he exited the bathroom, Harry heard his roommate stir in his sleep and quietly went into his bag, retrieving a maths textbook, a corresponding workbook, a battery-powered table lamp, pencils and a notebook, before sitting himself down at his desk, lighting the lamp and beginning to study the material in the textbook by himself.
Harry was about halfway through the workbook assignment for the chapter he had just read when Roger sat up with a yawn and a stretch. "What time is it?"
Harry checked his wristwatch. "A little past eight."
"What're you doing?"
"Homework."
"We haven't had lessons yet."
"It's maths."
"Why? It's not taught here."
"Precisely the reason."
"I'm going to brush my teeth, then have breakfast."
"You do that, chummer."
"What?"
"Chummer, chum, friend."
"Oh."
A momentary pause followed.
"You are coming to breakfast, right?"
"Already ate, and I still need to finish these workbooks."
~ooOoo~
"I've got something for you, Harry," said Roger, as he returned from breakfast. He was carrying two packages, one small and one large, and he dropped them unceremoniously onto Harry's neatly-made bed. "No classes today for first year students; we're meant to spend the day learning the layout of the castle."
"We at least get class schedules?" asked Harry, looking up from the workbook in front of him, the second such workbook of the morning that accompanied a similar maths textbook.
"Here," said Roger, dropping a sheaf of parchment onto Harry's desk. "Still doing maths?"
"Yeah," said The-Boy-Who-Lived as he scanned the parchment in front of him. "Is it just me, or is this schedule mad?"
"What do you mean?"
"We have lessons for about sixteens hours a week, less than half the hours at St. Grogory's. Even if there are three fewer subjects, that still doesn't account for discrepancy in the hours for lessons of first year students."
"I hadn't thought about that," Roger admitted. "What'd you get?"
Harry sighed as he rose from his chair, digging his switchblade out of his pocket and flicking it open, causing his roommate to scramble back in surprise. Quickly, he cut the twine binding the packages before folding the knife closed and pocketing it, then ripped the brown paper wrapped around the smaller package, revealing a black box. When he opened it, he was greeted by the sight of a wax-sealed envelope addressed to him, and opened the envelope to find a letter from Garrick Ollivander, writing of the wand made for him.
Pine and phoenix feather, eight and three quarter inches, very flexible.
Harry gave the wand a wave, like he had been told to do at the wandmaker's shop, and once again felt nothing. With a shrug, he pocketed it, then tore open second package to reveal a cardboard shipping container, which he opened to reveal a dozen smaller boxes.
"What are those?"
Harry opened one of the smaller boxes to reveal twelve decks of playing cards, one of which he immediately pulled free and unsealed. "Nice," he said. "Jason sent me twelve bricks."
Roger watched as Harry fanned out the cards before him as if to show them off, pulling the jokers and tossing them onto his desk before quickly shuffling and cutting the cards together a few times with practiced ease. Then, The-Boy-Who-Lived fanned out the cards again, revealing them to still be in the same order as before.
"How did you do that?" Roger asked, amazed.
"Didn't you hear? I'm magical," Harry joked, shuffling and cutting the cards repeatedly as he surveyed the discarded packaging on his bed. Squaring the cards and setting them down on his desk, he extracted the remaining cases of playing cards from the large box while pocketing two more packs and stacked them on a corner of his desk before he piled the shredded paper into the box and put it on the floor next to his desk.
Closing the books on his desk, Harry dropped them into his haversack, then took his hooded jumper from where it hung from the side of his bed and pulled it on before pulling on a ball cap. He hefted his haversack onto his shoulder before picking up the deck of cards again, absentmindedly shuffling and cutting them.
"I best get going, or I'll never learn the layout of the castle," said Harry.
"Do you want some company?" Roger asked.
"I think I'd rather do this at my own pace," Harry said, and Roger nodded his understanding. "I'll be seeing you."
~ooOoo~
As he had expected, Harry found Hermione in the school library, in awe at the extensive collection on tomes on just about every magical subject imaginable. So enthralled was she by the archive as she wandered through the stacks that she didn't even notice Harry until he was only a few feet away behind her, and even then, only after he had cleared his throat.
The bushy-haired brunette squeaked in surprise, spinning around. "Harry! Didn't see you there!" she whispered.
"Well, yeah, I was behind you," Harry whispered back.
"Where were you? I didn't see you this morning."
"I'm apparently a Hufflepuff."
"Oh… Have you seen the collection in this library?"
"I've had a look. Doesn't seem to be organized in a way following rhyme or reason."
"Still, it's an amazing library."
"I don't see a card catalog or anything similar, though. Might make finding anything specific extremely and unnecessarily difficult."
"Still, so many books."
"I think, if I really need books on a specific subject, I'll probably be better off ordering them from Flourish & Blotts or another vendor than wasting time searching for them here."
"Not everyone can buy books whenever they want!"
"What I don't understand is why it isn't properly organized," Harry whispered. "I was able to organize my entire collection from Flourish & Blotts, which was about a hundred books, in a single afternoon, so if they had started organizing the books when they had gotten them, they… You know what, I'm going to go ask. You want to come?"
Hermione followed Harry back to the front of the library, where he stopped at the desk with an engraved name plate reading "Madam Irma Pince, Librarian". Pausing for a moment when he saw the "No Talking. No Whispering. No Laughing." sign on the wall behind the desk, he went into his haversack to retrieve a notebook and a pen, quickly writing something into it before turning the notepad around and placing it on the desk before the very thin woman seated there.
Madam Pince read what was written on the paper before her, then quickly took a quill from an inkwell and wrote a long answer in a flowing script before turning the notebook back around. Reading it quickly, Harry's brow furrowed and he scrawled a couple of words onto the page, turning it around to face the librarian and only withdrawing it after receiving a nod.
Nudging Hermione with an elbow, Harry turned his thumb towards the door, indicating he wanted to go outside, and Hermione nodded reluctantly, obviously wanting to spend more time with the books. Once outside, she gave Harry an expectant look. "Well?"
"The library is organized," said the boy, showing Hermione the answer Madam Pince had wrote. "It's organized with the most used books in the front, and the least used books in the back."
"That doesn't seem like a good system," said Hermione. "It might be easier to find books that people use often, but there's no easy to way find anything about a subject because they're not grouped together in that way."
"You're right," Harry agreed. "Do you want to tour the rest of Hogwarts with me? This is the first place I came, because I figured I'd find you here, but we're supposed to spend the day getting to know the layout of the castle."
Hermione's nose crinkled at the idea; she obviously wanted to spend more time in the library, exploring and reading. Nonetheless, she could not deny Harry's logic, as she herself had come to the library first thing after breakfast.
"We can make this quick so you can get back to the library," said Harry amiably, reading her obvious desire, and Hermione nodded in consent.
And so, they were off.
~ooOoo~
Exploring Hogwarts ended up taking far longer than either Harry or Hermione had anticipated. Between the ever-moving staircases, the winding labyrinth that was the dungeons and the expansive grounds, it took the pair just over four hours to complete a circuit of the campus barring the restricted areas, mainly the Forbidden Forest and third-floor corridor on the right-hand side, and even then, most of what they had done was locate the classrooms where they would be studying during the year. Nonetheless, both had noticed the castle had numerous abandoned classrooms in various states of disrepair, and Harry had wondered why such a large castle would be both badly maintained and in such disuse.
After saying their goodbyes, Harry watched as Hermione made her way towards the Great Hall; she had invited him to join her for lunch, but he had other plans.
Now, he just needed to find an out-of-the-way abandoned classroom to have a quick meal before he started experimenting with his own magic. There were so many spells he wanted to master, and he was going to try all of them, starting with alter self; sure, he could already grow wings, but the way the spell had been described, Harry was sure it would be capable of so much more, if only he could find the correct visualizations.
Author's Notes: Another transitional chapter. While I am avoiding the use of original characters as Hogwarts students, I do have an array of students with no characterization who were documented in Harry Potter and Me and Pottermore at my disposal, so I intend to take advantage of that list of names to produce pseudo-original characters who were originally documented to be in the series, though those characters will be primarily in supporting or cameo roles.
As a former library staff member, I've always hated Rowling's characterization of Madam Pince as a bitch; if the students would have followed any semblance of proper conduct befitting of being in a library, she would have a much easier time with her job, which is to be a librarian in a library, not a babysitter in a social club.
Class schedules in this version of Hogwarts are very different than those in the books and movie, in that I have concrete class schedules for all the first year students, and I intend to stick to these schedules going forward instead of trying to hand-wave everything. As it stands, though, each first year student has exactly two-and-a-quarter hours of each subject each week , which, honestly, is a very small amount given how much time they should be in school. The only exception to the schedule is Flying lessons, which are only a 90 minute block, once per week.
The usual with reviews. Write one. Don't write one. Can't make you do anything.
Thanks to Shinshikaizer for the original story treatment, and goalie12345 for copy-editing.
« First « Prev Ch 13 of 31 Next »
 Review
Jump:Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31
Share: Email . Facebook . Twitter
Story: Follow FavoriteAuthor: Follow FavoriteContrast: Dark . Light
Font: Small . Medium . Large . XL
Desktop Mode . Twitter . Help . Sign Up . Cookies . Privacy . Terms of Service