Common Room
Upon arriving in the Ravenclaw common room, Harry made the quick decision that it was too busy there for them to have a comfortable chat. He also had to see Padma, after all he had already agreed to meet her.
He considered his friend's loneliness. Maybe Penny could be a sister figure for Padma, to help her with not having Pav with her all time. After all, he was a guy, not exactly the best option for girly talks, or outpouring of emotions.
Turning towards Penny he said "Too busy in here for a good chat, follow me," leading her up the stairs like a doll, not waiting for her reply or her agreement. Before going to his room, he knocked on Padma's door and told her what was going on, so she could join them if she was interested.
Padma just waved him off, saying she would be there in a while, after she finished her chapter.
They quickly made themselves comfortable; as Penny went and transfigured the desk chair into something a little more comfortable, similar to the chairs in the common room. The conversation started slow as they were just getting more familiar with each other's presence. Harry took a laid-back approach and allowed Penny to lead the chat.
They discussed most things, while Harry avoided taking too much about his childhood. Penny, however, revealed that she had an older half-brother, five years her senior, who she rarely saw anymore. He was a non-magical like her mother and step-father were, making her the odd one out in the family.
"I understand, it was same with my relatives, they knew I was magical even before I did, they were scared of me, or envious," sharing a little about himself, thereby encouraging her to connect and open up with him.
His efforts were rewarded with a sad smile, one that often appeared when individuals had the common ground of being odd balls. Penny went on and let slip she wanted to work for the Ministry of Magic for a while, but was reconsidering her options.
Revealing a little more about himself, he explained how he wanted to travel the world, and see its many wonders, because he had always been trapped at his aunt's, and had only ever read of the wonders of world. Now he had a chance to see them and more, and he was going to take his chance.
Penny agreed that it was something she was interested in as well. As the chat went on, Harry gave Penny a display of his current skills and abilities, only holding a little back. He could tell Penny was rather impressed at his knowledge considering he was only a first year. By the time Penny was fully aware of his talent; it was time for her scheduled patrol of the halls.
When their chat ended, Harry invited her to join him and Padma, whenever she wanted. He knew it would help build-up trust and influence, as they had many things in common at first glance.
After giving a final goodbye, Harry went to talk to Padma since she had failed to show up.
While walking to his friend's room he couldn't help but smile, he had already made a good impression he could tell. Maybe it was due to his advancing skills in the mind arts. He knew being empathic was one of the many benefits of training.
As he got to know her better in the future he would be able to sense her emotions clearer, before being able to easily view her surface thoughts. He couldn't wait until that asshole Percy saw them together. He would be forced to be civil, especially if he wanted to continue to court Penny without looking like a giant ass and jerk to him in front of Penny.
He liked Penny, but the additional incentive of pissing Percy off was so worth the time and effort to encourage their friendship.
Knocking on Padma's door, but getting no response, he tried the door handle only to reveal the sleeping first year comfortably lounging on her bed. He decided to leave her to her dreams, but not before covering her with her bed sheet and putting her books on the table rather letting them get damaged should she roll on top of them or get knocked off the bed.
Silently closing the door, Harry made his way back to his room to read up on magical dogs. He was curious as to what was on the third floor. Now he added two more missions alongside getting ranked number one in end-of-year exams, first, was to find out about the third floor. The second was befriending Penny just to piss Percy off.
Thinking about Penny and Percy's relationship, he couldn't understand why she kept the ass around; they were opposites from what he saw of them. He knew he was being a bit of an ass by using Penny to get at Percy, but he came to a simple conclusion: Percy had started this, with his childish abuse of his position and its powers.
Besides, as far as he was concerned he was a better person than his carrot-haired foe, so why shouldn't he play for keeps with Penny being the prize for the winner? Smiling, he was sure he would win; after all, it was clear Penny was already annoyed with Percy at the moment for whatever reason; he just had to exploit that.
Now it was time to read about Hagrid's three-headed dog and hopefully get an idea of what's really going on.
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Next Morning
The next morning Harry woke and did his normal routine before preparing for the day ahead. He was managing to do more push ups and sit ups than before. He also noticed in the mirror that he was starting to look less thin, as he put on weight and muscle. A couple months of good eating and several powerful potions were doing wonders for him and his malnourished and abused body.
Noticing it was still rather early, he decided to spend some time in his mind's codex, and organize his most recent memories as well as adding additional defences to his primitive mindscape that he picked up the last couple of weeks.
He even added a magical chess set connected to the door defending his codex. Instead of just having a simple locking charm on the door, he connected it to the chess set. One had to win a game of chess against Harry's mind, before they could see Harry's memories.
He also picked up his book on the mind arts, deciding to reread the section on empathy, wondering just how much this ability was going to develop in the upcoming years. After all, the skill was rather useful in a myriad number of situations, but he would much prefer to be able to consciously control it, rather than having it turn on and off at random, because several times he had been caught off guard by the impressions it provided.
Thinking over everything that had transpired in the last couple of days, he noticed that this was the fifth day in a row that he had woken up early in the morning, after only having about six hours rest. Surely he should be exhausted from waking up early all those days, most of the students weren't even up before seven, but Harry was going to bed between 10 to 12 in the evening and waking up between 4 and 6 the next morning.
Maybe he should talk to someone about this. He had also been feeling increasingly restless of late, but he would wait and see before he went to the school nurse. No point in drawing additional attention to himself at this early juncture.
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