Harry awoke from a nightmare and slowly opened his eyes to gaze at the sunlight penetrating the hospital wing and illuminating its sterility. He couldn't remember what he'd dreamt, only that he'd hated it. He lay there and stared at the arching ceiling for a while, before turning his head to the left to check up on Penny. He almost fell out of his bed as he noticed a bundle of messy blonde hair and blue eyes staring at him from his bedside.
"You're awake, finally! I'm Penny, who are you?" the girl exclaimed with a smile.
Harry looked at her sadly but frowned as she started laughing.
"Hah, I'm just yanking your chain," Penny said as she climbed onto his bed. They were still young, so both of them easily fit. "How are you feeling?"
Twix, hostage, boggart, old man, corpse, death. He looked up to the ceiling and considered the question. Twix was dead, never to bother him again. James Potter hadn't felt the need to obliviate him and had even saved him from being lobotomized by whatever artefact had been hidden in the chamber. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his toes, feeling, not rejuvenated, but alive, which was more than could have been said about him yesterday. All in all, yesterday had been the fourth most traumatic thing to have ever happened to him and overall he was quite happy with the fact that while it had been uniquely horrifying, it had only lasted one day and carried with it no seeming consequences. Hadn't the original Harry Potter brushed off situations much worse than those he'd experienced yesterday? Murders, monsters and dark lords. Maybe the Evans family was just built different.
"I actually feel quite good," Harry said as he swept his gaze downwards to look Penny in the eyes. The blue in them reflected oddly in the light and he flinched as the colour reminded him of the meteor. "More than fine, now that you're up. Do you remember?"
Penny nodded. "I remember everything, apparently the forgetfulness potion wasn't done yet so its effects were broad but shallow," she said as she looked him over. "I heard you dragged me out of the room?" she asked. Harry nodded and Penny crawled towards him to give him a hug, a full-body one. The boy closed his eyes and reciprocated. A few tears slipped from his eyes and he realised that he hadn't been getting as many hugs at Hogwarts as he was used to. Back home Aunt Petunia always gave him one a day and before that, he'd had…
"Are you crying?" Penny whispered gently in his ear, causing Harry to shake his head. "Alright," she whispered and one of her hands travelled up his head and started stroking his hair. They squeezed each other like that for a few minutes or so, for all intents and purposes two recently traumatised children locked away in a castle in Scotland with their only families far, far away.
"You know, I think I usually compliment you on your potion-making, but I think your tenderness is one of your greatest qualities, just wanted to let you know," Harry whispered as the two first-years untangled their bodies. Penny blushed and looked down.
"Thanks."
"I'm glad your memories are back," Harry said, causing Penny to suddenly perk up and turn around. She took something from his bedside table and handed it to him.
"This came by owl for you this morning!" she said suddenly as she pushed the letter into his hands. Harry tilted his head and took the parchment, opening the seal, which seemed to be the standard school emblem. The paper crinkled as he unrolled it and he read allowed for Penny's convenience.
"Dear Mr. Evans, if you wish to discuss the possibility of starting the arithmancy elective one year early, as you discussed with the headmaster, find me during my office hours before the end of term. Professor Vector," he read, causing the girl on his bed to giggle.
"Harry, did you really?" She began as she started laughing. "Did you really become even more of a nerd?" she finished and buried her face in her hands to stifle her laughs. The boy rolled his eyes at the gremlin.
"Excuse me, I seem to remember that you're way better at Potions than me, which technically makes you a bigger nerd," he retorted with a huff, wondering how come academic ambition was always so poorly regarded by other children, when in fact, after social competencies, it was the most important part of life. He took out his wand and cast a quick tempus, seeing that it was already noon. He'd slept for a long time, understandably, when you considered how shittily and how long his night had run. Thankfully it was a weekend, so he hadn't missed any classes, just study time that he didn't really need considering how far ahead he was in most subjects. Harry was too old to be stressed about exams.
"When are her office hours even?" he asked, "It's not like I've ever been to her class."
"It should be in the study hall, there's a big board with information about all the professors," Penny said. "You wanna go now?"
Harry tilted his head and tensed his body, not noticing any ache. He considered for a moment if he should inform Madame Pomfrey that he wanted to leave and ask for permission. "Are you cleared to go?" Harry, causing the girl to shake her head.
"Supposed to sleep here till tomorrow, but I feel fine, I swear," she exclaimed and jumped off the bed to prove her point, only to catch her foot on the side and fall on the floor face-first. She lay there for a bit as Harry peeked over the edge of the bed at her.
"You alright?" he asked the ungraceful starfish cleaning the floor with her robes.
Penny extended an arm upwards without changing her position and shot him a thumbs-up.
"Well it's obviously got nothing to do with your memory, falling on the floor like that," Harry proposed. "So I say we might as well go out and come back to sleep when curfew starts. Shant be missed I imagine," he said, trying to remember what Pomfrey had told him about leaving. Something about not even thinking about it until she checked him over again.
"Yeah, we'll be fine, we're not babies," Penny said with a snort as she slowly righted herself off from the floor into a sitting position, in which she cradled her red forehead and slightly teary eyes. Harry got up from the bed and cast a few repairing and cleaning charms at his robes.
"Off we trot then," he said to Penny as he gave her a hand in standing up. She clutched it as if it were a lifeline and Harry was sure that he contributed more energy to get the girl up right than she did.
They were definitely going to get yelled at when they came back, Harry decided when they left the hospital wing. But the smile Penny shot him as they did so convinced him that it was healthier to go than to stay. For a girl of Penny's age, being confined to bed for even a day was too long, and the terror of losing her memories needed to be fought as early as possible. If there indeed were any, magical children had an odd relationship to physical and mental trauma, he'd determined today. He guessed it made sense, in a world where one's parents might turn one into a toad as a punishment for not doing one's chores.
"Have you ever been transfigured into anything as a punishment?" Harry asked his best friend as they both entered the mingle of the Hogwarts corridors on the weekend, quickly being lost in a sea of black robes and stressed students.
-/-
"Good day Professor Vector," Harry said as he entered the woman's office, which he'd found to be open today in the afternoon. He observed the strict-looking, but young woman with a messy brown bun who scribbled some notes on a parchment before looking up at him. She bid him to sit, which Harry did. The chair was comfortable, and he took the opportunity to look around the office, of which the predominant characteristic was the large number of blackboards scattered all throughout, containing different equations, most of which he didn't understand. To his surprise, some contained formulas of muggle maths, which he also didn't understand. He turned back to the professor, who had been observing him with keen yellow eyes and steepled fingers. "I've come to talk to you about taking arithmancy next year, instead of in my third year, I got your letter this morning," he explained.
"Yes, the headmaster contacted me regarding your request. An interesting spell you made, I've never seen the need for something similar, I guess that after you gain the competency to make such a spell, you've developed other strategies of finding books and have no need for it anymore," Vector said as she leaned back in her chair. "You're muggle-born, how far along were you in maths? Quirrell told me you finished your schooling already, precocious."
Harry blinked, surprised at the question and tilted his head thoughtfully. "You've asked around?" he concluded, assuming that someone not even set to potentially teach him for another two years would not have a reason to look up his school files. The woman raised an eyebrow at his question.
"Was I not supposed to?"
Harry shook his head. "No, I'm just surprised. The information you have is correct. I finished the first half of my muggle education before coming to Hogwarts, although most will correctly argue that actual learning only starts at university. Maths was never a particular strength, nor was it a weakness of mine. It's something one can get by on with enough practice, the requirement for creativity and intuition only comes later. I've done statistics, algebra, the beginnings of calculus and all the stuff leading to that. I passed it with a decent enough grade."
"From my understanding, being decent in topics almost a decade beyond one's reach can be referred to as talent," Vector pointed out. "Also, calculus is nothing to sneeze at. It's not a part of most curricula until university. But whatever, I don't care about your false modesty, I just wanted to know where you were at."
"I'm surprised at your in-depth knowledge of the muggle educational system, professor, my understanding was that the wizarding world disdained their non-magical counterparts," Harry said tentatively, causing Vector to snort.
"Numbers are numbers, different systems can all learn from each other," she pointed to what appeared to be a framed diploma on a wall that was almost obscured with blackboards. Harry unceremoniously stood up and walked closer to the wall, until he could distinguish the letters.
"A Master's degree in Mathematics," Harry said in surprise, before laughing, "at MIT." He wiped a stray tear from his eye and looked to Professor Vector, who was now leaning back in her chair with a small smirk, exposing the fact that she wore muggle clothing underneath her robe. A pair of jeans and a pullover that hid what must have been a very curvaceous body. "What about god, country and queen?" Harry asked.
Vector scoffed. "Cambridge was barely even dipping their toes into computer science when I went to university, MIT was the place to be when it came to computational mathematics and modelling."
"Are you muggle-born?" Harry asked and got a shake of the head for his trouble.
"Half-blood, but back to you," she retorted. "Why do you want to start arithmancy one year early, shouldn't you value your precious childhood while you can?" she asked, jokingly.
"Well, de-accelerating has obviously never been my strong suit. As for arithmancy, I'd be lying if I said I really cared for the field in itself;" Harry admitted, making the woman frown a bit for the first time since he'd entered the room, "however, I view it as a sort of meta-skill, to improve one's capacities for all other fields. I hardly could have made the charm I made without it, nor can a poitoneer properly modify a recipe without using some arithmancy.
Essentially, I guess you could say it's a useful piece of knowledge to have because it boosts one's success in all other fields. It also helps that I could stagger out my O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts a bit."
"Your motivation is crap for someone making the request you're making. Don't you know that teachers like to hear that students are passionate about their subjects?" the professor mocked as she idly twirled what Harry suddenly realised was a pen in her fingers. Harry locked eyes with the woman.
"While teachers like having the subjects be of interest, humans dislike being lied to," he said as he stepped back to the table, but instead of sitting down, he stayed standing and stared the professor down. "Also, I've always had the feeling that people in STEM liked directness. So I'll take this opportunity to be frank. While I haven't done arithmancy enough to see if it's a passion or not, I assume a negative, however, with the knowledge of it I will be able to work wonders in other fields. For this purpose, please help me, not just pass the exams, but also be the best arithmancer I can be," he said with an unwavering gaze, green on yellow.
"You know, I've met a bunch of wannabe geniuses, but you at least seem to have the maturity to go along with it. What are your plans for the summer?" the woman asked.
"Going to France, spending time with my family and calculating my ass off. Because of the trace arithmancy will have my undivided attention for the entirety of the vacation."
"I like the commitment," Vector said as she leaned forward on the table and propped her head up on her right arm while smiling at him. "I'll send you the syllabus for the first-year course after your other exams, don't want Flitwick or McGonagall on my ass for distracting you. I'll test you a week before Hogwarts starts, if you get an EE you get to join and I'll make arrangements, if not then tough luck. Sounds good to you?" she asked.
Harry nodded. "My issue has never been not being able to prove myself after being given the opportunity."
"Alright," Vector replied, "then that's it, now scram, I have work to do." She dismissed him and Harry left, slightly bitter about being referred to as a genius but mostly happy with how the conversation had gone. Getting something to work on for the summer was a good deal, sorcery was one thing, arithmancy was another, and it was good to have a balance. He left the room with one last glance at the professor.
A degree at MIT, he snorted as the door closed behind him. Who would have thought he'd meet a university graduate at a school for magical children.