On the bright side, that was a double potions lesson… so the single classes are only half the time… yay!
They had another class before lunch, astronomy. Harry actually knew a lot about astronomy given his non magical upbringing. He used to devour books from school. There was a large section devoted to astronomy since there was a small observatory in town.
The class itself was a letdown though. The wizarding world believed for some reason that the earth was still the center of the universe. And multiple other things that were just flat out proven to be wrong.
At some point he stopped paying attention altogether, Hermione was taking notes. He could duplicate them at the end of class secretly and just use them for reference when testing. Near perfect memory had its upsides.
“That was annoying.” Hermione grumbled.
“What?”
“Most of what she just said was flat out wrong! And she didn't even have any visual display for students to focus on!”
“What do you mean wrong” Neville was still unsure what Hermione was upset about.
“The non magical side knows that the sun is the center of our solar system, not the earth. Let alone the center of the universe. The moon doesn't have any creatures on it. People have looked. Heck the moon has the same side always facing the earth. And it's not impossible to travel to space. We've already landed a fully manned rocket there!” Hermione verbally accosted poor Neville at a speed that even Harry couldn't understand her nearing the end.
“Calm down, Hermione, Neville isn't the one you're annoyed at.” Harry finally stepped in, giving the overzealous girl a look.
“Besides, some of those things may be true on the magical side.”
“WHAT?! What do you mean? Surely you know-”
“Hermione” Harry again interrupted. This time in a more no nonsense voice.
“Let me speak. For all we know the earth could be the origin of magic, therefore making it the center of the magical universe. Does magic work properly in space? Maybe there were past wizards that tried to make it to the moon and their magic failed or something. I wish these things would be talked about too, but please don't discredit before knowing the full information.” even though that's what he just did…
Harry was pretty sure that was complete nonsense, but Harry was tired of hearing Hermione call the magical world barbaric or behind on the times or other similar things. And hoped that breaking things into ‘why things are the way they are’ will break her out of the habit.
Harry spent most of astronomy and lunch thinking about what he wanted to do. His Ravenclaw house book recommended finding a room on one of the higher floors near a painting with trolls. It was a surprise what the room was, but Harry had been internally debating on heading there, the library, or exploring the castle to find one of the inheritances the hat told him about.
“-rry!”
“Hm?”
“I said, what should we do after history class?”
“We?”
“Yes we, you, me, Neville. We.”
Welp… that threw a wrench into his plans. “Right… I was actually thinking something similar, but solo. I was debating between exploring and the library.”
Both his companions' eyes lit up, sadly, for entirely opposite reasons.
“Library.”-“Exploring.” They declared at the same time.
Neville immediately shrunk into his seat. “Umm.. we can go to the library. I don't mind…”
Hermione looked like she felt bad but obviously still wanted to go to the library.
“Actually, I was leaning more towards exploring as well. We have a free day tomorrow and the next day. I planned on going to the library tomorrow and I wanted to do something else Sunday. Today would be my best chance to explore shortcuts and stuff between classrooms.”
Hermione's face fell when she heard Harry voting against her, but quickly lit up thinking about spending an entire day in the library. Then fell once more when he mentioned doing something alone.
Neville just looked happy Harry sided with him.
One other thing of note that happened during lunch, was healthy foods appearing nearby harry. He appreciated whoever helped him, even if nobody else nearby did.
History of magic had to be some form of torture. Apparently the rumors of a ghost teaching were not an exaggeration. And Harry believed, after hearing him ‘teach’ that the rumors of how he died may be true as well. Waking up and continuing to the classroom as a ghost simply because he ‘forgot his body’.
Even the ever curious Hermione nearly fell asleep to the droning cadence of Binns voice.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Harry cast a silent, wandless muffling spell. Leaving him in peace. He then pulled out a book he borrowed from the library and finished it by the time class was over.
“That… that was torture.” Neville practically dove out of the classroom.
Ha! That's what I said!
“The history book covers the goblin rebellions for like three chapters, how could he talk nonstop for an hour and still not even be past the first?”
“You guys actually paid attention in class? As soon as he started with the goblin rebellion like the older years said, I pulled out a book to read. The rebellions are supposed to be covered near the end of first year.”
“Harry! What if he's just going in random order? How will you know what he taught?”
“I'll just read from the textbook, besides, I doubt the rebellions will even be on the exams. It's not even an important part of history if not for the establishment of Gringotts in England because of it.”
“You were reading a different book?!” Hermione looked at Harry as if he had just committed murder or something.
“Relax. Like I said, I'm sure the textbook will be more useful in the exams… and Binns is impressively boring… I'm not gonna keep listening to him drone on and on unless he talks about something worthwhile.”
Neville quickly nodded his head, fast enough that Harry was worried for him.
They had a few hours to kill and Harry led the way around the first couple floors, avoiding the dungeons and the towers for now.
They actually found a couple useful shortcuts, and some not so useful shortcuts… yet (*Cough… Tunnel to a broom closet. No hallway or any other rooms. Just a single broom closet at the end of a long tunnel). There was a quick way down two floors you could use on any floor, a skip from the common room to the great hall, and a tunnel from the history classroom all the way to the quidditch pitch bleachers.
There were various other oddities, they found a couple older students tickling a pear in a painting and a doorway opened to a kitchen. They caught the Weasley twins sneaking into a passageway behind a suit of armor. And Hermione found a way to halt the moving stairs.
The trio was exhausted after their exploring and quickly ate dinner before going to bed. It was a good thing they had a free day tomorrow.
The following day Harry had to spend with Neville and Hermione. Hermione's expression when seeing the magical library was priceless. If she wasn't so embarrassed after everyone heard her stomach growl, Harry genuinely thought she would have stayed in there… forever.
Neville left them after lunch, he ‘had something else to do’
It was a decent day. If he were alone it may have been perfect.
Harry had to be careful what he read around his new acquaintance it seemed. He made the mistake of reading a book on curses and got an earful on how he shouldn't be interested in stuff like that. Curses are ‘dark’ magic, and only bad people use dark magic. She completely disregarded the fact that healers need to know what curse effects are to heal them, or how in a duel you need to know if a curse can bypass your shields.
Even safe topics like healing got her going. Reading a book on healing got her going on about her parents' dental practice, again ignoring that Harry already knew all of what she said…
He assumed it was a nervous habit. Hermione was rather docile when at her house, she could get worked up about a topic but she didn't have this preachy attitude then.
Harry vowed to only come back to the library with Hermione if he really needed something, or if he needed to bribe her later…
Harry managed to escape Hermione around dinner time, where she decided to stay in the library instead of joining him for food.
“Hermione didn't join you?”
“Nope she's still there” Harry stared at Neville, making the boy shrink back a bit. “And don't think I didn't notice your excuse. I can't believe you left me alone with her”
“W-well I did need to feed Trevor…. Besides Reading isn't really my thing.”
“*sigh* there wasn't much reading done after you left. “
“Why? Did something happen?”
“I got scolded on what I was reading. Then she kept talking, it was hard to keep reading after that.”
“S-sorry”
After dinner, Harry had free time before bed.
He really liked the library and would love to stay there… but he had this feeling like Hermione would be spending all of her free time there. He'd been debating on using the library or the room of requirement but it seemed his choice had been made for him.
Following the instructions from his book, he made it to the 7th floor and to a tapestry of trolls dancing… well they were trying to.
He paced in front of the tapestry thinking about needing a place to study and after three passes, a door materialized across from it.
The room was quite small. It had a desk and chair, a couch, and a … beanbag chair? Along with a bookshelf. There were no decorations, just grey brick walls and some torches for light.
Next time he would have to imagine something better.
Harry thought about his priorities, the primary book probably had all the books that the RoR could provide him, but just in case…
On the desk appeared three books, then four more, then another one.
Looking them over, Harry quickly dismissed the stack of three. He had already read those books on occlumency.
He then dismissed three other books from the pile of four. They were duds, he'd already seen them in the library…
The final two books were quite promising. 'What they don't want you to know about mind magics’ and ‘dear descendant’.
The first was a book on mind magics and different uses of it, the ministry apparently outlawed any books on this information and the author secretly published copies of this book, to try and fight against the ban. There were many detailed applications that Harry had not discovered yet. No other book on any mind magic has been half as helpful so far.
The second book… er… pamphlet, was from Rowena Ravenclaw herself. It detailed the uses of the room of requirement and told her descendants the location of the first clue to her inheritance. Along with guesses to the location of the other founders' inheritances. Finally ending with this.
Dear descendant.
There are two things I request of you.
First, if you uncover my lost diadem somehow, please return it to the family vault. It could also be very useful in your quest for knowledge.
Second, we… I have made our family grave enemies in my quest for knowledge and am afraid that it may cause my and maybe our entire families downfall. Beware of the shifters, they are everywhere. I know it's hypocritical of me but if our Ravenclaw clan is no more, BRING THEM HELL!
The notes from other Ravenclaws hadn't mentioned this… why not? Why now? Who are the shifters?
“Argh! This just brought more questions!”