HP: The Crazy One

“C-Can I sit here?” A vaguely familiar boy was standing across from the table, nervously stroking their wand as he asked to sit down. He was avoiding eye contact and seemed to be lightly sweating.

I lightly nod, still filling my mouth with the breakfast that the house-elves took their time preparing. The hashbrowns were perfect, and eggs heavenly. I don’t really want to share, but there is too much for me alone to eat.

The boy lets out his held breath, maybe out of relief.

“T-Thanks,” he thanked me. After he sat down, he mustered up the courage to speak again.

“Th-thanks for your help,” He started.

I was confused as to what he was talking about, I don’t remember doing anything particularly helpful to anyone aside from myself.

“Those Slytherin students have stopped picking on me since you stepped in...” He continued to explain, telling me about how ever since he came to Hogwarts, he was a target since he was seemingly smarter than the Slytherin students.

“They can't accept it, since I am a mud-blood.” He continued.

“A what?” I asked.

“Oh, it's what they call students who don’t come from the old magic families. You can think of it as a medieval noble system,” He went on to explain the concept of the ancient families and the history surrounding them.

‘How stupid…’ I thought to myself.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I tend to start ranting about things...” He looked downcast, as if disappointed with himself.  He mumbled something to himself before looking directly at me.

“My name is Harris, thank you for your help!” He said his piece, then got up from the table and left the Great Hall, leaving me somewhat dumbfounded at how abrupt this all was.

“He was weird.” Luna said, seemingly appearing next to me again. I couldn’t help but agree, as he didn’t even have breakfast before leaving. I turned to Luna, who was happily eating breakfast.

“What classes do we have today?” I asked.

She seemed slightly stunned, and quickly took out a note from her pockets, flipping it open before showing me Monday’s schedule.

“Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms and Magical Theory...” She trailed off.

“A busy day then,” I mutter.

Frankly, I want more time in the library, but have made a promise to Professor Flitwick to attend my classes. He is someone who helped me without any questions with Pinky, and I don’t want to abuse his goodwill.

 

///

 

The breakfast served was more tasty than usual, I can tell the house elves took great care in preparing it, though I can notice the rest of the dishes are the ‘normal standard’ of what they usually make. It seems the house elves like me quite a bit.

I attended my first class, Defense Against the Dark Arts, with some questions prepared for Lockheart. In some of his books, he details the fights he had with dark wizards. I want to see why he cast specific spells and chained weird combinations of  spells together such as Stupefy and Lumos after a Bombarda.

Wouldn’t the force of Bombarda stun the target anyways? However I was disappointed when I walked into his class and saw Professor Snape. He stood there with a cold glare at the front of the classroom, standing behind a lectern that seemed too small for him.

“Professor Lockhart is sick today and as a result I will be teaching you all for this lesson,” He stated.

I heard some of the Ravenclaw students release a heavy sigh, and Hufflepuff students let out a whimper.

It seems his reputation isn’t the greatest, though I am not sure why. Disregarding this, I put my hand up to ask him the questions I was going to ask Professor Lockheart.

“Oh?” Professor Snape seemed surprised.

“What is it, Ravenclaw.” I heard directed at me, it seemed as if he was mad, that I even dared to ask him a question.

“In some of the books Lockheart released, there are some questions I have regarding why he-“

“You should not take such works of fiction as fact.” He coldly cut me off. 

‘Works of fiction?’ I thought.

His words seemed to have affected some Hufflepuff students who almost seem to have exploded in anger, though the man himself had a smile on his face.

///

The lesson itself was uneventful and mostly theory on what types of creatures were dangerous and how the danger class was rated. Something most Ravenclaws already knew, as when Snape would call on a Ravenclaw, he would receive a textbook answer, yet Hufflepuffs struggled to answer coherently, or only half answered the question.

Interesting that a magical hat can sort people into houses like this and be somewhat accurate, or maybe the students are influenced by their surroundings?

The rest of the day’s lessons were also uneventful, with Charms revising the levitation charm and Magical Theory being somewhat boring.

Sometimes I cant help but think of the power these wands hold, and the fact that they are handed out to literal kids like candy.

One thing out of the ordinary today was Luna. She didn’t magically disappear when I looked away, or surprise me by randomly showing up without me noticing or attract any weird situations when I turn corners and find her plastered to the ceiling. We were sitting in the library across from each other when I decided to ask her a question.

“Have you seen Meowser?”

She gives me a blank stare, before slightly smiling.

“Yes.”

At least I know Meowser is around, though I haven’t seen her for a while which was making me slightly worried.

I just need to think about my next steps. The top of my list is to learn magic that can make me stronger. To protect my treasures. I think it would be worth it to try to learn Occlumency, since it will be more than useful in the long run. Being able to catalogue information away like that is invaluable towards my studies, basically my internal Wikipedia.

However, whilst there are books on the subject, there is anything of substance that I can work off. I know what Occlumency is but not how it works if that makes sense. There aren’t many references it outside of very specific books either.

“Hey Luna,” I said, and she looked up at me.

“Do you know what Occlumency is?” She gives me a blank, almost confused stare.

“You don’t know it?” She asked, audibly baffled.

“No?” I asked back in the same tone.

She gets closer and looks into my eyes, before leaning back into the chair.

“You can’t learn it,” she sounded exhausted while speaking.

“Why?” I asked, but she shook her head and didn’t explain.

‘Huh?’ I thought to myself.

For the time being I return my attention to the random book I grabbed from the shelves. It wasn’t a specifically interesting book, but it was enough for me to immerse myself in knowledge.

 

///

 

By the time I reached the end of my book, the sun was no longer visible. There was a good chance I missed dinner and Luna was nowhere in sight. Sometimes I wonder what she ends up doing.

“Tempus,”

[19:50]

‘Ah, great, that’s enough time to grab dinner,’

I make my way towards the kitchen, dodging some students here and there and ignoring the Hufflepuffs weird looks as I enter the kitchen. The kitchen itself was weirdly empty, however there was a plate of hot food placed on the table that I usually end up eating at.

‘How thoughtful,’ I thought to myself as I ate.

The house elves never fail to make good food, this is the conclusion that I have reached after extensive testing. Finishing my meal, I made my way back towards the Ravenclaw Common room. It was meant to be uneventful, but a painting caught my attention, literally.

“Hey, kid!” It shout-whispered at me. I curiously walked up to it, and it opened to reveal a passage.

“Go through,” It didn’t offer much explanation, and I looked at it in suspicion.

“Just trust me, didn’t I help you out last time?” It explained, but it felt increasingly like a trick.

 “Who are you?” I asked.

“That’s not important,” it said.

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion, but ultimately got in. My gut feeling was that nothing bad would happen, and I decided to trust it this once. However, once I got in, the ground quickly turned slippery, and I fell to the floor.

“You F-“ I started sliding down a dark passage.

“Good luck,” I heard the painting say as I got further away from the well-lit corridor, my speed increasing.

I grabbed the corners of my robes as the turns got sharper and the speed increased, bracing myself for impact. The impact came, but not from where I was expecting. I landed my feet first onto grass and slid until coming to a complete stop next to the black lake.

“… Wow,” I couldn’t help but utter. Looking around, I couldn’t see where I was launched from, or how I managed to land like this, or why I am at the black lake. The moon was lightly reflecting off the lake, creating a somewhat impressive view of two moons. The lake itself was undisturbed, and not a lick of wind in sight to disturb it either.

I take a quick check of myself and notice my robes are stuck as if I am still falling, however everything remained in my pockets throughout the entire experience. I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful or not, but my thoughts were interrupted by a Thestral approaching me.

 

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Author Corner:

Yo, I'm uhh... not dead surprisingly. About 10 days ago was the 'anniversary' of this book and I genuinely didn't think id get this far. I will explain why this chapter took so long to finish:

I fell into a logical deadlock. In an attempt to stay somewhat lore-accurate I kept contradicting my ideas for this book... I wanted to do X but Y meant that X was not possible, repeat ad Infinium. So I'm just gonna say, fuck it. This novel is AU and I no longer care for J.K. Rowlings weird ass rules regarding spells and how they interact with nature.

Anyways. See you next time.