Hogwarts, College of Witchcraft and Wizardry Ch. 1 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: Hey guys, as I said originally, I'm going to be trying to get all four of the story ideas in the original poll up in the next months. So here's the beginning of the Harry Potter one. I'll probably do another chapter of this next week, followed by the next RWBY chapter, followed by a third of this. 

After that, dunno what the schedule will look like. The ultimate plan with all four stories up and running is obviously to have each one updating once a month, with something new for one of them coming out every week on Wednesday. Whether that happens how I plan it or not is still up in the air.

As with the RWBY story, this first chapter is mostly prologue/set-up! Hope you all enjoy all the same.

Also the name of this fic is a work in progress. If someone wants to offer a better title for this story, feel free to put it in a comment down below, and if I like it enough, I may just use it!

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“Merlin, I almost wish I could go with you…”

Harry lets out a derisive snort at that, even as he turns to face his godfather.

“What you really mean is, you wish you could relive your own Hogwarts days, you old dog.”

Sirius Black, Lord of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, lets out a light gasp and places a hand against his chest as if mortally wounded by Harry’s words, fingers splayed out and everything.

“Me?! An old dog?! I’m in the prime of my life, Harry James Potter, and don’t you forget it!”

Grinning knowingly, Harry just nods, before going for the kill.

“I notice you didn’t deny the other thing though.”

For a moment, Sirius looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Then, they both laugh as the older wizard drags his godson in close, ruffling his untamable mass of raven black hair in the process.

“That’s because there’s no denying the truth, Harry! And besides, all of those nubile young witches at Hogwarts… it’s not like it’d be illegal! Heh, they’d learn or thing or two from me, and you know it.”

Harry just rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Merlin, you’re so much worse when Auntie Andromeda isn’t around to curtail your baser impulses, Sirius. I swear… what ARE you going to get up to with me gone for the rest of the year?”

They pull apart and Sirius makes a show of thinking about it, rubbing his goatee and humming as he looks off to the side. Then, a slow, perverse, and altogether lecherous smile spreads across his face. Harry just laughs and smacks his godfather upside the arm.

“Leave the wet day dreams for after I’m good and gone, thank you very much! Wouldn’t want your lipstick showing out here in front of everyone!”

That one actually hits home, but then, it would. Harry had been using it as ammunition, ever since the time he caught Sirius licking himself in his animagus form while the older wizard was waiting for Harry to come out of a muggle shop. Yeah, there was no way Harry was ever letting that one go, and Sirius knew it. Didn’t stop him from whining a bit.

“Haarrryy, c’mon, that’s not fair!”

Smirking, the young man just shakes his head and reaches down to grab his suitcase, lifting it up as he lets out a low sigh, signaling that he’s about ready to enter their goodbyes.

“I’ll miss you, Sirius. I promise to write.”

Sirius’s face softens into a much more honest smile as well, and he pulls Harry in close for one last hug.

“I’ll miss you too, my boy. I’ll miss you too.”

And then, because it wouldn’t be Sirius if he didn’t know how to use a seemingly serious moment to his advantage, the man holds Harry a few seconds longer than necessary, whispering into his godson’s ear.

“Now, do you have the map?”

Harry rolls his eyes, but nods slightly, speaking just as quietly as Sirius.

“Yeah, I have the map.”

“And your father’s invisibility cloak? Safely tucked away?”

“That it is, Sirius. That it is.”

Pulling back for just a moment, Sirius places his hands on either side of Harry’s head, pressing their foreheads together so he can look the younger man right in the eye.

“I’m looking forward to hearing about all of your exploits, my boy. But please do try and make sure that I’m hearing about them from you, rather than from the Headmistress or a Professor. Alright?”

Harry just grins.

“So, what, paint the castle red, just don’t get caught?”

“Exactly!”

Sirius’ answering grin is just as wide, even as they pull back and finally separate for good. Their goodbyes done, Harry makes his way out of small cube of Notice-Me-Not magic that Sirius had erected for them when they first arrived. As it turns out, there’s a pretty short path between them and the nearest entrance to the Hogwarts Express, and in the few scant seconds between Harry being hidden by magic and him stepping onto the train, not a single one of the myriads of fans, reporters, and sycophants notices him. Exactly as planned.

As Harry slips onto the train, he quickly finds an empty cabin and makes his way inside. Pulling his wand free of its holster, Harry flicks it at the door, locking it silently even before he stows his trunk up above the seats. Then, he sits down and finally relaxes, letting out a much louder sigh than before, now that he’s actually alone.

At seventeen years old, Harry James Potter is practically a full adult. Which means it’s time for him to go off to Hogwarts, College of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and get himself a bit of a magical education. Not that he really NEEDS it, but this was one of the few things that his godfather and Aunt Andromeda actually agreed on, even if it were for different reasons.

It hadn’t always been Hogwarts, College of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as Harry understood it. Both not too long ago, and nearly out of living memory at this point, Hogwarts had been changed. This had been a result of the Second World War, from what Harry had read. It was decided by those in charge that teaching children magic too early was what was creating so many bad eggs.

Or that was the excuse made for why it was happening. Sirius had explained it more blatantly to Harry a few years back. Put bluntly, the atomic bomb had been a wake-up call for the wizarding world. The fact that the muggles had that technology and were willing to use it on each other, let alone what they might consider otherworldly and freaky… yeah, it’d terrified the magical world.

They’d mostly managed to hold back the conventional bombs that the German muggles had dropped on London during the Second World War, but that didn’t mean anything, not in the long run. An atomic bomb wasn’t something magic could defend against, and according to what Sirius had said, they’d actually tried, sneaking into a few tests just to see if they could shield against a nuke or two.

Of course, the way that the wizarding world had reacted was as dumb and reactionary as ever. They’d decided that it was of course, muggleborns that were the problem. And how to keep muggleborns out? Why, just turn the premier place of learning into a college and restrict learning magic until the age of seventeen!

… Yeah. Even Harry thought it was rather stupid. Also, blatantly unbalanced. He’d been taught magic by Sirius and Andromeda and even Uncle Ted since he was eleven, because as the Heir to an Ancient and Noble House, he had the right to buy his wand early. Effectively, people like him, born into the magical world, had everything given to them on a silver platter, to make sure they were ready for Hogwarts when the time came.

But muggleborns… muggleborns were still approached, of course. They weren’t approached until age seventeen though. When they were in the last year of THEIR education, asked to abandon the muggle world that they’d grown up in to join a magical world they had absolutely no understanding of. It was, needless to say, a depressingly effective way of cutting down on the number of muggleborns that joined the wizarding world.

It was, as Sirius put it, slowly killing them all, because they were just getting more and more inbred due to the lack of new blood infused into the population. Oh sure, once in a while a muggleborn chose to actually go to Hogwarts rather than refusing and getting obliviated of any memory of magic. But that was rare. The last one to truly succeed and actively join their world had been Harry’s mother, as a matter of fact. Uncle Ted had been a special case before her.

Would there be any muggleborns this year? Harry couldn’t help but wonder. It was entirely possible that one or two would give it a try, but if they stuck around for longer than a year, he’d be surprised. Who knew though, really? All Harry knew was that he was required to attend Hogwarts for at least two years. After that, it would be his choice if he stuck around for the full four.

Under the current laws, Harry couldn’t take up the mantle of Lord Potter until he’d had two years of Hogwarts Education, and passed his OWLS at least, if not his NEWTS. Of course, if a major Lord vouched for him instead and said the need was great, Harry could have skipped Hogwarts entirely. Which Sirius, being Lord Black, could have easily done. He’d chosen not to however, even before Andromeda had begun her campaign to convince him to table the idea.

As he’d told Harry, he wanted his godson to have the same experience that he and Harry’s father had. And that meant not just becoming an adult but becoming a man. Basically, Harry was being sent to Hogwarts to get laid. And from what Sirius had said, he wanted him to get laid a LOT. Heh, if Aunt Andromeda had known that, she probably would have been a little bit more… well, to be quite honest, Harry wasn’t sure how the woman would have reacted to the idea.

Andromeda knew how skilled Harry was with magic. SHE wanted him to go to Hogwarts half because his parents went, but also because she felt like it would be good for him to have some sort of social interaction outside of Sirius and the Tonks family. Whether she would be all that thrilled to learn that said social interaction was going to be with the fairer sex more than not… well, it wasn’t going to be a problem, because what Auntie didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

Not for the first time, Harry found himself glad to have been raised by Sirius Black, by his godfather. His life had been good and fair and kind, mostly because he’d had a good man, if a bit of a Lech, as a father figure. A smart man too, because Sirius had realized very early on in his tenure as Harry’s caregiver that he couldn’t go it alone, that he would just fuck everything up if he tried to raise Harry all on his own.

In had stepped the Tonks. From what Harry understood, Sirius had already reinstated his cousin Andromeda Tonks into the family before all of this happened. She’d originally been disowned for daring to love and then double daring to marry a muggleborn wizard. Of course, given his own parentage and the way he’d been raised, Harry had never understood bigotry based on blood. Uncle Ted Tonks was just as much a wizard as Sirius or he was, and visa versa as far as Harry was concerned.

Regardless, he’d grown up with his godfather and an ever-present aunt and uncle. Andromeda had not tried to be his mother, which was good because Sirius never stopped telling Harry about James and Lily, to the point that the young man almost felt like he knew them as well as he might have if they’d lived. But she was there for him in ways Sirius couldn’t be, in ways that Harry would always be thankful for.

And of course, because of the Tonks Family always being around, Harry practically had an older sister. Nymphadora Tonks was a good witch. She was a good person, as far as Harry was concerned. Maybe it was because they weren’t siblings by blood, but he’d never had any sort of antagonistic relationship with the older girl. Well, unless one counted pranks, but Nymphadora always gave as good as she got there. One did not grow up in Sirius Black’s household without developing a thick skin and a love for getting revenge in the cleverest of ways.

Harry grins at that, looking forward to Sirius’ reaction to the little gift that Harry had left behind back home for the older wizard. THAT would be fun. Though, he’d have to be wary of retaliation all the same. Just because he was away at Hogwarts for the next several months didn’t mean he was safe, Harry wasn’t nearly as foolish as to believe that. Luckily, he’d spent the last several years screening his mail for much worse things than Sirius’ revenge.

But then, his godfather would know that and would try to find another way to retaliate. Hah, knowing Sirius, the wily old dog might just decide to wait until Harry has completely dropped his guard, perhaps come one of the holiday breaks when of course, he’ll be going home to spend the time with his family. That’s when Sirius will most likely strike.

That’s alright though. Harry is looking forward to it. And to be perfectly honest, he’ll deserve it, if his latest prank goes off properly. Oh, but he hopes that the magical recording device he’s set up to capture the moment it happens will work properly, and more importantly, remain hidden until he can retrieve it. Merlin, that would be just stellar…

Harry is abruptly startled from his thoughts by the sudden sensation of the train starting up and beginning to move. He looks out the window and watches as they slowly start to leave the station. Letting out a breath he hadn’t even really known he was still holding in, Harry smiles in relief. The reporters were behind him, if all had gone to plan.

Oh sure, one or two might have snuck on board, but then they’d be breaking the law, and Harry would gladly see them raked over the coals if it meant some of their colleagues learned to better respect his privacy. And of course, there would still be plenty of fans of his among the student populace, but that was to be expected. He was after all, somewhat famous.

The young man chuckles at his own self-deprecation. In truth, Harry James Potter was probably the most famous wizard of his generation. Hard not to be, when you’re credited with destroying a Dark Lord at the age of one. Lord Voldemort, also known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and You-Know-Who. Fucking hyphenated fucking titles, Harry swore if he ever had the chance, he would ban the damn things. And not least of which because he felt like he’d outgrown his own years ago.

The Boy-Who-Lived. Ah, but the wizarding world did so love its heroes, as Sirius liked to remind him. And with the death of Albus Dumbledore a few years back, Harry found himself at the center of everyone’s focus. ESPECIALLY now that he was going off to Hogwarts, going off to get an education he really didn’t need. The same question was on everyone’s mind. Would he be the next Albus Dumbledore? Would their Savior save them from the next Dark Lord?

Oh, it was peaceful now, sure. But while the wizarding world could be somewhat dense, it wasn’t necessarily stupid. At least, most of the people around Harry weren’t. They could read between the lines well enough. There was always going to be another Dark Lord. Just like there would always be parts of the wizarding world that flocked to power, and parts that stood against it.

Everyone expected him to stand up to the next ‘Force of Evil’ that showed its hand. The thing was, Harry didn’t know what the fuck he wanted. He was just a wizard trying to figure out his place in the world. But the problem was, much of it had already decided what his place in it was going to be. Letting out a sigh, the green-eyed young man lifts a hand and rubs the bridge of his nose.

Alright, enough about that, time to decide what he was planning on doing with his first ride on the Hogwarts Express. As Sirius would say, you only get one first time for anything you do, so try to make it fucking spectacular. Grinning slightly as he hears the words in Sirius’ voice in his head, Harry looks to the door. 

As far as he sees it, he’s got options before him. The first and easiest option is to stay put. Unlock his cabin door of course so that the trolley lady can come by and see who else might come knocking in the meantime. But was that too boring? Sirius would tell him to get off his ass and go exploring. Uncle Ted would suggest staying put, but Harry respected Uncle Ted’s advice too.

Aunt Andromeda would… well, Aunt Andromeda would suggest he look for Tonks. Though, if Auntie knew how Harry had begun to feel about his surrogate sister over these last few years, as he grew up and she grew into the beautiful womanly shape that was to be her ‘default form’, well, Andromeda might have suggested differently. 

That didn’t change the fact that Nymphadora was somewhere on the train though. Still, she was probably busy in her capacity as Head Girl, as this was her last year at Hogwarts. And yet, he imagined she would still have time for him. He could just tell. Regardless, those were his options, as far as he could tell.

Stay put. Go exploring. Go find Nym.

So… what was he going to do?