Switched

Well, well, well... What have we here?

A talking hat, apparently. A mind-reading talking hat? Harry didn't think he'd actually heard that last bit with his ears...

Indeed you did not. Now...where shall I put you?

Harry sincerely hoped that was a rhetorical question, because he still had no idea which House he was best suited for. He was sort of thinking Hufflepuff, maybe? At the very least he had nothing against cooperation and working to achieve his goals. But he wasn't really a joiner. He didn't know how to be part of a group, and whenever he was part of one he was invariably shuffled off to one side, or ended up leading, if it was for a school project or the like. He could be friendly and charismatic when he wanted to be — people in Charing had been more than willing to talk to him, and he'd never had any trouble convincing people to do things like join the Edificeering Club, but he didn't actually have friends, or a group of them like Dudley...or most of the other kids at school for that matter. People could sense that he was a freak, he suspected. They knew he wasn't one of them. And given the discussion he'd had on the train with Blaise, Danny, and Theo, Harry was pretty sure that wasn't just because he was magic and the other students at Little Whinging Primary weren't.

Somehow, he suspected that if he was sorted into Hufflepuff on the word of a magic hat, he wouldn't fit in, and it would be worse than not fitting in in any other House because that was sort of what Hufflepuff was all about. Either their attempts to include him despite his loner tendencies would drive him mad, or he would be shunned when he rejected their overtures of friendship on the grounds that he invariably had no interests in common with anyone his age, or the first time he had a bad day and attempted to strangle someone who wouldn't leave him alone.

The Hat chuckled. I think you would be surprised how many lonely children who think they will never fit in anywhere find their first friends in Hufflepuff. But no, I suspect you are correct. Individualists never do fare well in that House.

As for the other three Houses, Harry thought Professor Snape might have been right, that Gryffindor suited him the best. He would certainly describe himself as bold, daring, and impulsive before cool, calculating, and ambitious, or open-minded and artistic. Art required a sort of creativity and appreciation of like...beauty, and stuff, that he was fairly certain he didn't have, and he didn't just want to know things for the sake of knowing things. He wanted to know useful things, to make himself better...though better to what end he had no idea. Whatever seemed cool at the time? There wasn't anything he particularly wanted to do with his life, so he was pretty sure that ruled out Slytherin, even if being able to take care of himself and wanting to improve himself were otherwise very Slytherin traits.

But he didn't really care about honour and nobility and all that shite. Honestly, he thought it seemed a bit silly. And he suspected that being surrounded by people who were self-righteous and competitive and would likely get bent out of shape being shown up (and he didn't really doubt he would be showing nearly everyone up without trying — he always did, and had no intention of playing dumb and holding himself back to keep with his classmates as far as learning spells went), would probably be a pain in the butt. Also, he wasn't entirely certain it was possible to be 'brave' or 'courageous' if he wasn't actually afraid of anything. (Realistically, he knew that he'd probably run into something he was afraid of at some point in his life, but he didn't think he really had yet. There was absolutely nothing scary in Little Whinging. Maybe Blaise would let Coco turn into his greatest fear so he could find out what it was...)

Ravenclaw, the Hat 'said' firmly.

Really? Why?

You're a smart boy. You'll figure it out, it 'said' unhelpfully, then announced "Ravenclaw!" to the Great Hall at large.

Professor McGonagall lifted the Hat off his head by the point, once again revealing the magnificent Hogwarts dining hall, with its four long student tables full of children excited to see who their newest house members were going to be. The first table to the left belonged to Ravenclaw. Most of them looked as surprised that Harry had been sorted into their House as he was that the Hat thought this was an obvious decision. There was a susurration of murmurs from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff as they discussed the matter amongst themselves over scattered applause. Slytherin was quieter, their commentary not audible over their polite clapping. The Ravenclaws' was more enthusiastic. He made his way over to them and took a seat a few places from the end on the Slytherin (left) side — Hufflepuff was on the right, between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor — between a couple of older kids who might have been third- or fourth-years. The girl gave him an odd look, but didn't say anything before Professor McGonagall called the next name on her list ("Rivers, Oliver!"), and when Danny was sorted into Ravenclaw as well a few minutes later he sat between them, forestalling whatever question or comment she might have made.

"Hey, budge up, Potter," he muttered, squeezing onto the bench.

Harry scooted a few inches closer to the bloke on his right, though he thought it bore mentioning that, "There are other seats, Danny."

"Yeah, but I don't know anyone else..." And Theo had been sorted into Slytherin, and Blaise had seemed fairly certain that was where he was going, too.

Harry dearly wanted to ask how he planned on ever getting to know anyone if he only sat with people he already knew, or point out that he hadn't known Harry this morning, but he didn't really object to Danny's company. He wasn't trying to drive him away, just pointing out that he didn't have to try to squeeze into that particular spot. It was a bit surreal to sit here thinking I'm living this kid's life, but compared to the experience of reaching Hogwarts in general — crossing the lake in a little flotilla with the other first-years, following a veritable giant up to the castle, its gothic proliferation of towers gold in the setting sun (and also perfect for edificeering, he was so excited to go exploring...), across darkening lawns and into a grand formal entrance hall where they were received by Professor McGonagall and prepared for the Sorting Ceremony — it barely registered.

When the Sorting finally concluded — with Molly's redheaded Ron (Weasley) going to Gryffindor, and Blaise to Slytherin as predicted — the Headmaster — the infamous Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, he of the many titles and excessive letters — stood to say a few words.

Honestly, it was all Harry could do to keep from laughing. There was a Forbidden Forest? and a Corridor of Very Painful Death? He was definitely going to explore both of those places, as soon as reasonably possible. Probably next weekend, he imagined he'd end up spending most of the week familiarising himself with the Castle and the routines of people whose job it was to keep him out of the fun places— Ooh, and the Library!

Odysseus had said he should try to befriend Irma Pince, the Head Librarian. She controlled access to the Restricted Books, which meant she was probably the most important adult in the Castle. It technically also made her one of the people whose job it was to keep him out of fun places, but in much the same way he figured an auror who practised fighting at Morgenstern's wouldn't care about breaking little laws in ways that didn't really hurt anyone, like reading restricted books when he was about six years too young — according to people who had never met Harry personally, and had no good reason to think he couldn't be trusted with healing spells or books about horrendous curses that killed people more interestingly than a Severing Charm to the neck, but no more effectively — he also figured that a librarian who was friends with Odysseus could probably be convinced to bend the rules now and again, for a charming, responsible young man like Harry.

And there would be classes and things of course. Now that he was actually here, he should probably go back and learn all of the spells he was supposed to be learning this year — the ones he'd skipped over on his own because they were a bit useless. Not for learning concepts and building theoretical understanding (the course textbooks for Charms and Transfiguration did say as much), but just from a using magic to do things perspective. He knew the first exercise in the second chapter of the Introductory Transfiguration book was meant to get him used to the idea of turning one small, inanimate object into another small, inanimate object with a similar mass, made of a material from a different class, but really. When would he ever need to turn a matchstick into a needle? Why would he even have a match when he could light fires with magic?

And then, after he satisfied his curiosity about the Corridor of Very Painful Death and learned exactly why the Forbidden Forest was Forbidden, there was a town down on the other side of the lake — Hogsmeade, their train had stopped there — which he definitely wanted to explore, and—

Oh, hey, where did the food come from?

It had just appeared in the heavy brass and pewter serving dishes, clearly by magic. It couldn't actually be magic, though. The books had been very clear that consuming more than the tiniest amount of conjured food could be catastrophically dangerous — enough conjured pepper to flavour a dish or something was okay, but when the conjuration vanished the, cells and organs it had become a part of after it was eaten would be damaged, so eating more than just a tiny bit of conjured flavouring was a Bad Idea. Transfigured food, too, if its mass had been supplemented, or one macro-nutrient transformed into another — using transfiguration to make a fatty steak leaner, for example, would not go well. Even transforming one kind of protein into another could have awful consequences, especially if you screwed it up. It was fine to eat something that had been shaped with transfiguration, but why would you bother transfiguring your food into a different shape when there were charms for that?

Maybe a Switching Spell? Those were okay to use on food, he thought.

And in any case, none of the older students seemed to think there was anything amiss. People up and down the table were serving themselves, using levitation charms to snag dishes that were too far away. It had seemed reasonable enough to draw his wand and do the same rather than leaning across two people and half of the table when Danny said, "Pass the mashed potatoes, Harry?"

Apparently it wasn't, a little bubble of quiet staring expanded outward from those nearest to him, as their neighbours looked to see what had gotten their attention: Harry, helping himself to a scoop of peas as the potato platter slowly floated toward him. (Slowly because he didn't want to hit any of the other floating serving dishes or lose the spoon someone had left balanced precariously on top of the food instead of digging into it.) Harry didn't notice for several seconds, helping Danny shift other dishes around so there was actually space for the potatoes on the table. When he did, he had no idea what he was supposed to do about it, so he just levitated a pork chop to himself as well and started eating, pretending he hadn't noticed at all.

"Er...Harry?"

"Hmm?"

Danny didn't seem to be able to bring himself to point out that everyone was staring at him, as though Harry really hadn't noticed and wasn't obviously intentionally ignoring them. "Nothing, never mind."

"Hover Charms are a first-year spell, I know they are," he muttered under his breath to the other boy, as people slowly returned to their own meals and conversations, watching Harry out of the corners of their eyes like Dudley hoping to catch him doing cool magic. They were one of the few spells in their textbook that looked useful, so consequently one of the few he'd actually bothered with.

"Not silent Hover Charms." Oh, right, oops. "And Hover Charms only have one directional force, directly opposing gravity. Adding directional forces to a Hover Charm to move something is a second-year spell, and omnidirectional variable acceleration is really bloody difficult. Speeding up or slowing down or dodging that turkey leg," Danny explained, when Harry just raised an eyebrow at him.

"I know what variable acceleration is, that's just the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Are you seriously telling me that the spell in the book was only supposed to hover in place?"

Danny looked at him like he was being dumb. "It's called a Hover Charm. What did you think it was supposed to do?"

Well, he'd thought it was supposed to be more or less the equivalent of his wandless telekinesis trick, but... "What good is that? Aren't wand spells supposed to be more versatile than wandless spells? I thought I was doing it wrong."

He'd actually gone and looked up a bunch of other flying and anti-gravity charms in Spelman's to see if he could figure out why he couldn't move his hovering object around. It had taken all afternoon to realise, oh, of course, he was thinking about it all wrong. He shouldn't be thinking like he was holding up the book he was practising on with a hand he could move around, like he did when he was taking dishes off too-high shelves or whatever. Clearly, he should be thinking about it as though he was changing its relationship with gravity, sort of putting it in a state of freefall. Obviously if he wanted to move it he needed to push it around from multiple angles, like putting booster rockets on a spaceship.

And then, if he was already pushing it around from multiple directions, he'd realised he didn't really need to do the freefall thing at all, he could just lift the book, balancing six forces on three different axes, and move it wherever he wanted, like a three-dimensional etch-a-sketch.

And at that point, he'd realised that the Hover Charm the way he'd been doing it at first was sort of like just having one booster-rocket on the bottom of his book that was equal and opposite to gravity (because true anti-gravity charms were really bloody complicated — he'd found a curse in one of the more advanced books that changed the direction gravity worked on an object by ninety degrees, which was just so cool, but he didn't have the slightest hope of casting it at the moment), and figured yes, he had been doing it wrong, because he'd just been thinking of it as lifting the book with a hand, obviously he was meant to be doing it like this, and just not using the x- and y-axis forces at first, because what was the point of just making an object hover and nothing else, that couldn't be right, and the Standard Book of Spells could do a better job of explaining all that, Jesus Christ... Though he supposed they didn't have space ships or booster rockets. They did have flying brooms, though, they had to work on the same principles.

And it turned out he'd just been overthinking it?!

"And if you're going to eventually teach people to move things around anyway, why wouldn't you start with a three-dimensional field and just not use the other axes? That's basically exactly what the Hover Charm does."

"...Because freely-variable, omni-directional fields of physical force are really bloody difficult — didn't I just say that?"

"So...learning how to do it wrong and then having to learn how to do it right in a few years makes more sense? And it's not omni-directional, just three-dimensional. Six forces pushing the thing around, that's it. I'm not doing any weird spinny shite."

Danny stared at him for a long moment, a bite of potatoes suspended on his fork, as though considering the problem in a way he never had before, and decided, "Yes."

"Bullcrap."

"I want to say 'no', but I also don't think I can do a multi-directional field, even if I'm just applying force to one axis, and besides, if you're maintaining it so you can adjust the force ratios on the fly, that makes it a completely different spell than just casting it and letting the magic go do its thing like with a normal Hover Charm. Freely variable charms are like taking a freeform spell and turning it into a wand spell, totally different."

Harry huffed, because...well, he might have a point. "I think the word you're looking for is better." Better than both the normal, useless Hover Charm and telekinesis, because he could do it at a much greater distance with a wand and had much finer control over the maneuvering. It was a little weird having to think of it as pushing the object around against gravity than just visualising how he wanted it to move and reaching out to do that, sort of like trying to pick something up in one of those stupid prize-grabbing claw games at the arcade — Dudley had wasted almost twenty pounds on one once, trying to get some stupid toy — versus just grabbing it by hand, but he'd gotten used to it pretty quickly. (He'd also gotten used to the claw game pretty quickly. Dudley had accused him of cheating, even though the only reason he'd even bothered trying was so Dudley could have his little alien toy and they could go do literally anything else.)

He also didn't think there was a reason he couldn't cast the charm to exert a constant upward force and let it go, just like the hover charm in their textbook, while still initially conceptualising it as one of six directional forces when he cast it, and leaving the option open to reach out and activate one or more of the other booster rockets to move the object around. Before he could say as much, though, the bloke on Harry's right sniggered, obviously eavesdropping.

"Something to add, Mister...?"

"Grey. Call me Luke. And no. Just...where have you been the last ten years, that they were teaching you NEWT-level shite and saying it was basic?"

NEWTs were Magic A-Levels. How can that possibly be an A-level charm? "Um, nowhere? I mean, I've been living with muggles — my mother's sister and her family. No one's taught me anything, really. I've just been messing around..."

"Uh-huh," Luke said, positively bleeding scepticism.

Harry glowered at him. "Believe me or don't, I don't care."

The boy on the other side of Luke said, "I believe you," then to the boy between them, "This is the Boy Who Lived we're talking about. He blocked a Killing Curse with accidental magic, you really think he couldn't figure out basic flight mechanics on his own?"

"I didn't block a Killing Curse," Harry objected. "Lily obviously did something — I was just a baby, I probably didn't even know what was happening." It wasn't like he actually remembered (or as though it had actually happened to him), but he was pretty sure one-year-olds weren't that aware of their surroundings, and definitely didn't recognise that people were being murdered when it happened right in front of them. (Which reminded him, when was his actual birthday? Maybe he looked like a midget because he was actually eight or nine months younger than he thought...)

"You did take an A.M.R.S. team hostage over the summer, though, didn't you?" said the girl on the other side of Danny. "My father was in a meeting with Madam Bones when they came to get her..."

And then Harry was under siege, a flood of questions coming at him from every direction, which was awful, because it was overwhelming, he couldn't possibly answer them all, but at the same time very much a good thing, because it meant he didn't have to explain how he could possibly have taken a Reversal Squad prisoner in the middle of muggle suburbia.

Since that was apparently "not the sort of thing humans could do", and all. Though if a Hover Charm that he could use to move things around was apparently A-level magic, maybe he had even less idea of what was 'normal' than he thought.

Looking around at the castle, he had to believe magic could do everything he thought it could, every inch of the place positively tingled with power — he absolutely realised what the Weasley twins had meant, now, when they said if he thought Diagon Alley was magical he should wait until he got here. It was positively dazzling, even after spending weeks practising ignoring the magic all around him. If he hadn't run into Zoë and taken her advice on the occlumency thing, he might have actually passed out walking into the entrance hall where the Deputy Head had met them — the magic holding it together was so bright it had taken his breath away. This room was only slightly less bright, and Harry was pretty sure that was just because there was more open space. The bloody ceiling was enchanted. He thought it was showing the sky above them, but he couldn't quite focus on it well enough through the magic to say for sure.

But...maybe modern wizards had forgotten how to do things like this? They did tend to talk about the Founders of Hogwarts as larger-than-life figures, almost as mythical as Merlin and Morgen (who had apparently actually been fae — Harry had been very disappointed to learn that there weren't Fair Folk around anymore, they'd picked up and moved to a different dimension centuries ago). The way magic moved around the Headmaster, and several of the other mages at the Professors' table — Professor Snape, and a woman maybe in her thirties (or fifties, he guessed, if what the boys had told him on the train about magical aging was true), and another witch who might've been the oldest at the table (out of the witches, Dumbledore was clearly the oldest period), and a tiny...half-goblin? wizard who was using magic to levitate his chair to reach the table, because he was apparently even shorter than Harry — leaning toward them even more than most people, like it was just waiting for them to do something, he couldn't imagine they couldn't do what he liked to think of as big magic. If they couldn't just...do things like he could, he was betting it was one-hundred per cent just because they thought they couldn't.

All the magic around was sort of starting to give him a headache, though, its natural currents completely lost in the waves created by all the people in here, and the enchantments and wards and other active magics, swirling and dancing between them in a way it would have been very relaxing to just...sit and watch, like a kaleidoscope, letting his mind drift into an almost-sleeping thoughtless trance, but was sort of overwhelming to try to pick one detail or another out of to interpret, like trying to pick a detail out of the blur of motion at the edge of the road when he was in the car, or a single voice out of the endless chorus of questions from the people surrounding him.

"No, I've never been to bloody Nepal, I've hardly ever left Surrey!" he snapped at another first-year who'd shouted the question at him from across the table and a few places down — away from the professors' table, he meant. "Okay, that's enough," he decided. He had a headache, and they were all being stupid, and he was done answering questions. He'd barely eaten anything and hadn't gotten to talk about anything other than himself at all between their constant interruptions, and he was tired of this shite. He just wanted to enjoy his pudding — an absolutely delicious custard with candied violets on top — and get up to his dorm room and...probably not actually sleep, it was still exciting to be here, but be away from people for a while, at least. If they didn't knock it off he was going to lose his temper, and that never ended well for anyone. "Shut up! Leave me alone! I'm done answering questions!"

"But what about—" the girl on the other side of Danny, whose question about the Reversal Squad he never had answered, began.

He cut her off with his most forbidding glare. Not very impressive, he knew, since he looked like a nine-year-old girl (all the more so in the very dress-like wizards' robes which were their uniform), but the firmness of his, "No," seemed to intimidate her into wary silence nevertheless.

"Thank you," he added, as the bombardment finally subsided. They were still staring at him, but that was fine, staring didn't require anything from him.

Still, a few minutes later, when Danny scrambled off the bench and asked, "Could someone tell me where the loo is?" Harry stood up as well and followed him out of the hall, as much because he needed a break from so many people as because he needed the toilet...though he could legitimately use a bathroom break.

The other boy didn't seem surprised to realise that he'd been followed. "Did you know your eyes flash when you're angry?" he asked, leading the way down the corridor which lay beyond "the first left" after taking a right out of the doors on the Slytherin side of the hall. It really was inconvenient having four very long tables, Harry thought. They'd had to walk up to the front of the room then all the way back down to the doors, because there were no breaks in the tables.

"I'm not angry," Harry said, almost automatically. "Just...out of patience for that little interrogation. But, no?" Honestly, he wasn't sure what Danny was talking about. "I can't say I spend a lot of time looking in mirrors while very seriously warning people to leave me alone."

Danny let out a little heh of laughter. "Well, what did you expect? You're mysterious. They're Ravenclaws. Ooh, found it!"

Danny (unlike Dudley) was not one of those heathens who liked to talk while relieving himself, so there was a conversational lull until they returned to the corridor. It gave Harry plenty of time to decide he actually did want to know, "What do you mean, my eyes flash?" enough to ask.

"Er...it's one of those external aura manifestation things, like soulfire." Harry had no idea what that was, either. "Basically just a little flare of magic lighting up your eyes when you're upset, sort of like the hair on a dog's back standing up. Some people can do it on purpose. Dora can. I think Mum can too, but she always tells Dora that it shows a severe lack of self-control to allow your magic to betray the state of your emotions — which is of course a thing that a young lady or gentleman never does — and I've never actually seen Mum deliberately trying to be scary. Yours is a sort of electric blue, so light it's almost white. Like this," he added, drawing his wand. He, like Harry, had one of the neat arm-holster things. "Imago."

A slightly translucent image appeared in the air before them — Harry, as he must have looked earlier, turning to face the girl behind Danny (and incidentally Danny himself) more quickly and suddenly than it felt like he had moved. His face looked like it could be carved from marble, stoney and uncompromising. His eyes, still obviously green, even narrowed in annoyance, briefly turned a colour Harry would probably call silver as the illusion mouthed the single word no. It happened so quickly that if he'd blinked he might have missed it, but it was undeniably intimidating.

Something in his gut knew, seeing it, that that was an expression of power, a threat, like go on, try me, which held weight even coming from a tiny, delicate-looking thing like him. (Weirdly, even though he knew this was just an illusion, and even if it were real it was Harry himself, there was still a part of him that wanted to respond to that go on, try me expression by throwing a hex at it or tackling it to the ground.) He did look, he would admit, pretty angry, even though he knew he hadn't been. Powerful, dangerous, and slightly more inhuman than usual — glowing, magical eyes were even more unnatural than cat eyes. (Like a challenge— Or, someone to play with? He needed to know which of them was better— What the hell, Harry? Stop acting like a crazy person and/or a dog that doesn't understand what a bloody mirror is, Christ...)

It had struck him as sort of weird that a bunch of grown men, presumably war-hardened warlocks, would have followed a witch who looked like she could still be in school into battle, but if the Dark Lady looked anything like Harry in that moment (and Odysseus said he did look like her — not surprising, he guessed, since she was his mother, apparently), he absolutely understood why they would. Harry looked like he might be about to kill someone, and he didn't have a reputation for murdering people at the drop of a hat.

"I was going to say that it makes you look even more like Sirius Black — his eyes were silver just normally — but then realised you might not have any idea what I was talking about, so." Danny shrugged, dropping the illusion. It dissolved into a thousand pin-pricks of light and faded away, which was probably for the best, as far as Harry's sanity was concerned. He still really wanted to curse the bastard who had the nerve to give him a look like that. Even if that bastard was himself, and the look had been aimed at someone else entirely. (There were moments when Harry was acutely aware that he was a little bit mad, and this was definitely one of them.)

He forced himself to focus on something completely different. "That is so cool— I mean, no, I wouldn't have, but how do you make the illusion move like that?"

"You actively sustain the spell and just...visualise the image moving? Like actually visualise it, how the different lines and colours need to shift to portray the motion, not just what you know it looks like when people move, or a vague impression of the memory. I have some animated sketches I can show you, it's the same idea..."