Hogwarts, College of Witchcraft and Wizardry Ch. 3 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: Here we are with Chapter 3 of HCWW (hey an acronym, that's handy :P)! In which Harry goes to Ravenclaw, meets Hermione, and you guys get to decide just how he... plays with this opportunity.

Anyways, next week will probably be the first chapter of the DxD story, followed by... I dunno yet. RWBY then this? Or maybe a second chapter of DxD, then RWBY, then this... I kind of need to sit down and decide on a schedule. As before though, intention is to eventually be updating each of these stories once a month, with something new and tasty every week.

Anyways, enjoy!

-x-X-x- 

“Potter, Harry!”

His name is called, and Harry jolts back to awareness, even as he straightens up and begins making his way to the front of the Great Hall. There are of course plenty of murmurings around him, and quite a lot of stares. Those who watch as he approached the archaic Sorting Hat are looking at him with any number of looks.

Some are upset, Harry knows this. Though, if they’re at all intelligent, they’ll try to avoid showing it. Still, the young man is no idiot. And he’s not been sent to Hogwarts, College of Witchcraft and Wizardry, unprepared. There’s no denying that Voldemort had a following. As powerful as the man was, he would not have become a Dark Lord and not been so dangerous without those that he called his Death Eaters.

Voldemort might be dead and gone, but those that followed him, the people that wanted to take their society back into the Dark Ages and keep it there because they feared losing their influence and power… they still existed. As did their offspring, plenty of which were around Harry’s age. Some starting this year, some a couple years older.

They might try something, but they wouldn’t try it now, not in front of so many witnesses. So Harry ignored them. He enjoyed the looks of awe and desire far more, as a matter of course. Having wizards gaze at him with wide eyes and mouths agape, while witches gave him saucy once-overs and batted their eyelashes… oh yeah, Harry was his godfather’s godson, through and through.

Still, when he finally sits down and places the Sorting Hat over his head, Harry has made his decision. And just like Sirius said, the hat listened, as it was enchanted to do. Harry’s confidence, his strength of will… it overrode anything else. In the end, the outdated and ancient tradition of the Sorting Hat was more about placing the indecisive and unsure. For those who knew where they wanted to be, there was no contest.

“RAVENCLAW!”

There’s a small moment of silence around the Great Hall as Harry takes the hat off and stands up, putting it back down again. Then, there’s clapping, starting within Ravenclaw, but slowly spreading to the rest of the Great Hall. No cheering though, from his new housemates. Harry got the impression, as he took his seat among them and gave a few smiles and nods, that his chosen house were not the most boisterous of people. It was not their intention nor desire to draw all that much attention to themselves, not say, like Gryffindor. 

He liked that. He could work with that, too. Though, glancing beyond his table, Harry could see a lot of disappointed faces among the female body of Hogwarts sitting at the other house tables. Nym was the most obvious, the Head Girl being in the middle of the Hufflepuff table, surrounded by what Harry assumed were her friends.

But there was also Angelina, over at Gryffindor, who for a moment caught his eye. She looked disappointed, but she was also licking her lips slightly as she stared at him. He had the idea that she probably wasn’t just going to back off even if Nym had staked her claim. But that was okay, because Harry was pretty sure he didn’t want her to.

Settling in as the sorting continues, Harry puts both Nym and Angelina in the back of his mind, deciding to focus on one of the things that had brought him over to Ravenclaw in the first place. Though, rather than being a ‘what’, it was more a case of ‘who’. Turning to the young woman he’d nonchalantly sat beside, Harry gives the studious-looking brunette an easy grin as he holds out a hand.

“Hi there. I’m Harry Potter.”

She looks at him and his hand for a moment, before snorting derisively and reaching out to take it.

“I know, they called your name like, less than thirty seconds ago.”

Harry blinks dumbly, not having expected the caustic wit… but also not in the least turned off by it. Chuckling a little, he has to cast his mind back, not having been paying that much attention when she was called… but he’s got a pretty good memory. Giving her a wink and a shrug, he pumps her hand once, twice, and then lets it go.

“You’re not wrong. And I believe they called you Hermione Granger, yes?”

Looking like she was reluctantly happy to be interacting with him, though not entirely sure what to think quite yet, the brunette ducks her head and nods.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“I suppose you’re not from around here then. Muggleborn?”

That immediately makes her defensive.

“So what?”

Harry can tell right off the bat that even though she’s only been a part of their world for a very short while, she’s already had the kind of interactions with the wrong kind of people that have turned so many muggleborns before her off to the wizarding world. Letting out a sigh, Harry leans a little closer.

“So, it’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Hermione Granger. Not everyone wants to chase you out, just so you’re aware.”

And then he promptly proceeds to turn away and ignore her, returning his attention to the last of the Sorting, as it came to a close. He watches the last student walk to the Slytherin table, and then he watches as the Headmistress stands up and addresses them all. Harry can’t lie… Minerva McGonagall is as much a smoking hot cougar as Sirius had claimed she was back in his day. Even now, as old as she was, the Scottish Witch really wasn’t showing her aging. No wrinkles to speak of, with a complexion to die for… and yet, she carried herself with a confidence and a sternness that truly gave voice to her age, making it clear that she was In Charge with a capital I and a capital C.

“I will not take up too much of your time. Another year at Hogwarts is beginning, and all of you are here to study the arts of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Whether you’re preparing for graduation, just starting out, or anything in between, know that you are in the right place. This is where all minds with a passion for learning about magic and all its secrets belong. Thank you and dig in!”

As the Headmistress sits back down, Harry turns back, more than a little excited, and altogether famished. He hears a slight gasp of surprise from his side when the food starts appearing on the table before him, but he’s already resolved to back off from Granger until she comes to him. They share a House, after all, and whether or not she actually wants anything to do with him will be her choice. There’s plenty of other witches in the proverbial sea, after all.

Hermione doesn’t say another word to him the entire feast, but that doesn’t mean Harry is left alone by any stretch of the imagination. He can only imagine how it must seem to the muggleborn, watching from the sidelines as he’s harassed on all sides. Not that Harry minds all that much, or gives any indication of FEELING harassed. He’s spent his entire life getting rather good at the whole ‘PR’ thing as Aunt Andromeda had described it. Keeping himself as the darling Boy-Who-Lived in the eyes of the people was the best way to avoid having them decide he was evil or something stupid like that.

Harry makes small talk with anyone who wants to make small talk. He meets a bevy of beautiful witches, and just as many wizards who all want a piece of his time, to say that they rubbed elbows with THE Harry Potter. And that’s just at the Ravenclaw Table. Harry can only imagine what it’ll be like in the halls, but then, that’s one of the primary reasons Sirius had made sure that he had his dad’s old invisibility cloak. Among other things, of course.

Eventually though, the feast does come to a close, and Harry finds himself ushered through Hogwarts along with all the other new Ravenclaws, all the way to their dorm. On the way there, the Prefect assigned to escort them all, was all too happy to blather on about this and that. Still, it was interesting enough that Harry left one ear listening to the man.

“There used to be magical locks of all sorts guarding the entrances to the House Common Rooms. Slytherin had snake walls, Gryffindor had a portrait portcullis, and Hufflepuff had a stack of inconspicuous barrels. Of course, all of their secret entrances were protected by simple passwords that you could essentially buy off of just about anyone from one of the three houses at any time. Horrid security, to be perfectly honest. OUR house, on the other hand, had no secret entrance. Instead…”

They come up to a large door, with a bronze eagel-shaped knocker sitting in the center. The Prefect gestures to it.

“Instead, you would simply use the knocker, and it would give a logical riddle that you then had to solve. Obviously, it gave us the best security in the castle.”

“… But wouldn’t anyone have a chance at getting the riddle right then?”

That was Hermione who had spoken up there, and while Harry silently agreed with her, he also had an idea of just what the older wizard was going to say in response. The Prefect gives Hermione a snooty sort of smirk.

“If they were smart enough to get the riddle right, then they would have already been sorted into Ravenclaw, my dear. Obviously.”

Then, he reaches out and clacks the knocker against the large door. A moment later, it swings open, admitting them all into the tight spiral stairwell that led up into the Ravenclaw Common Room.

“Alas, the time of House Rivalries is long behind us. We’re not children, after all, nor are we here to constantly compete with each other for the adults’ approval. We are students of magic, of witchcraft and wizardry, and most of us are adults as well. It has become easier to simply leave the common rooms unlocked… the Headmistress and her advisors have long preferred tearing down the boundaries between the four Houses, rather than building them up.”

Whether the older wizard like this or not, Harry honestly can’t quite tell. He’s keeping his cards close to his chest, but the fact that he doesn’t sound thrilled is in and of itself a clear sign that perhaps he’s not all too happy about the change from tradition. Harry likes it though. He likes it a lot. Why wouldn’t he? After all, it would be much easier to visit the other houses without having to sneak around like a common criminal.

Not that he wouldn’t mind using his invisibility cloak to have fun with a witch or two in a semi-public place. Regardless, they’re stepping into the common room proper now, and Harry finds himself distracted for a moment, his eyes taking in the sight. The Ravenclaw Common Room was a wide, circular sort of thing. It had large arched windows that looked out on the castle grounds, and the walls were half-covered in blue and bronze curtains.

The ceiling itself was domed and painted with stars, and the floor echoed that with it’s midnight-blue carpet. Tables, chairs, bookcases galore covered the expanse of the floor, but the most eye-catching thing of all had to be the marble statue of what could only be Rowena Ravenclaw across from the common room entrance, sitting next to a door Harry assumed led up to the dormitories.

“Ladies, you’re on the left. Gentlemen, you’re on the right. Another bit of history, actually… it’s only in the last few decades that Hogwarts has received a bit of a magical upgrade. Used to be that everyone had to dorm with the others from their year, but with the changes and what not, enchanters were called in, and some extra work was done so that everyone can have their own room. Just… don’t fiddle around with the magic. If you break anything, you might end up stuck in a pocket dimension.”

And with that, the Prefect left them. Bit of a downer to end on, in Harry’s humble opinion, but at the same time, he was eager to get set up. Hell, he was also a bit tired. Moving towards the staircase, Harry reaches for the bannister just as a hand closes around his other wrist.

“Ah, can we talk?”

Blinking, the young man looks back, only to find one Hermione Granger looking nervous as she bites her lower lip. She lets go of him when he looks down at where she’s grabbing him, as if she’s been caught doing something particularly naughty. Harry considers for a moment, but in the end, decides that she is making the effort he was looking for. A quick glance about shows that the majority of Ravenclaws are either talking amongst themselves or exploring the common room and the books that lay within the bookcases, rather than heading for the stairs right away.

No one had said anything about NOT being allowed to have girls in his room… Harry finally gives Hermione a grin and a nod.

“Sure. Come on.”

For a moment, she looks unsure about that, but when he starts up the stairs, she has to either follow or be left behind, and in the end, she follows. The way the magic seems to work, the door at the top of the stairs always leads to your room. So when he reaches it and opens up, he’s not all that surprised to find his trunk and things waiting for him. Stepping into the sparse and somewhat small but functional dorm room, Harry holds the door open for Hermione, and then closes it behind her once she’s inside.

The muggleborn witch gazes around in wonder for a moment.

“Do you think we’re really in a pocket dimension?”

Harry just chuckles and shrugs.

“Possibly… but you’ll be doing any experiments to find out in your own room, not mine.”

For a moment, she looks embarrassed, going bright red. But then she sees the smile on Harry’s face and seems to understand he’s only messing with her, because a small smile spreads across her face as well, as she ducks her head.

“So… what’s up?”

“R-Right. I, uh… I wanted to apologize, for earlier. I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat like that. I understand if you want nothing to do with me, but I had to get that off my chest.”

Well now, that opened up possibilities, didn’t it? There were a number of ways Harry figured he could handle this. It all depended on how fast or slow Harry wanted to move with this young woman. His experience with Nym was still fresh in the wizard’s mind as he gazed upon Hermione’s expectant face, trying to decide how to respond.

He could be cold with her. Acknowledge her apology, and then tell her to leave. Giving the muggleborn the cold shoulder would probably be a bit cruel… and yet, looking at her as she stood in front of him, it wasn’t just expectation he saw in her face. There was just a small hint of desperation. What would she do, if he went that route? How would she respond? He might alienate her, he might drive her away… but if she truly is desperate for someone to lean on, she might just offer more than an apology in exchange for his companionship.

On the other hand, he could take her apology and accept it entirely, offering her his hand in friendship. It’d been his initial intention, before she’d reacted as she had at the Ravenclaw Table in the Great Hall. Becoming friends with Hermione Granger wouldn’t hurt him in any way, and it would almost certainly make things easier down the road. But it also felt very… middle of the road. It was the most solid option, but also the most boring.

Then, there was leaning into all of this even more than just that. Take her apology, and go a step further than just friendship. Offer her his mentorship in all things wizardly, and see just what he could get out of such a relationship. He would have control over their relationship, and rather than simply a friend, Hermione would become an asset to be nurtured and utilized. 

Most muggleborns who actually stuck it out in the wizarding world these days ended up in such a position. Harry could step in and take over before a wizard or witch with less than kind intentions slid into the spot. Though that came with some risk. If Hermione outshone him, there could potentially be problems.

Decisions, decisions…