16th July, 1538:
Harry James Potter — well, Victor — had thought long and hard about what subjects he could learn quickly by himself, and what he might need guidance in.
Because make no mistake, he can learn all magic by himself. The only variable was how fast.
For Runes, Victor already considers himself a master. There is very little he does not know yet about Runic magic. No matter what language is brought in front of him, he will decipher it within hours. Same with Arithmancy, both of these subjects he was already a master in thanks to his old life.
For Transfiguration, he has already figured out the formulas for most major transfiguration spells. And those he doesn't know yet he will learn by himself. At most he might need some guidance in animagus transformation.
But there were a few subjects which still left some open questions in his mind. Questions which only the most experienced and leading minds in that field can answer.
Potions, Charms, History, Care of Magical Creatures, and Divination.
There's still more he wants to learn from Masters, of course, but these are what he intends to begin with. And so here he is. Standing in front of the cottage of Potions Master Zygmunt Budge.
"What game are you playing, boy?" Budge asks, and his voice allows Victor to see that the man is intimidated. Whether it's the armour, the glowing green eyes, or the Cloak of Terror waving in non-existent wind, Victor does not care.
Victor tilts his head, and asks, "Game? Doom does not play games when it comes to knowledge. You are the greatest Potions Master in all of history and I have come to learn from you. What part do you have trouble understanding?"
Budge shakes his head, frowning, and says, "Look, child. You're mistaken, you must have the wrong man. I'm not the greatest Potions Master. I was just recognized as a Master barely 2 years ago." And then he starts closing the door.
Victor is annoyed, and stops the door with one hand. Budge tries to force the door close, eyes wide in both confusion and terror. Victor says, "Answer me these questions then, are you Master Zygmunt Budge, born in the winter of 1506?"
"Yes." Budge answers, still trying his very best to push the door using his body weight.
At any other given time, Victor would have been amused at seeing a wizard forget he's a wizard. Not that it would have been of any use in front of his armour. But not today.
"And are you a Potions Master?" Victor asks next.
Budge stops trying to push the door, seeing that it does not budge, and sighs, saying, "Yeah. But-"
Doom does not let him finish, and says, "Great. Then you will teach me. Not to worry, I am not unfamiliar with the art of Potions, I merely need you to impart upon me the intuition which comes with Potions Mastery. I may look like a child, but I have been crafting potions since I was 9."
"That can't have been more than 3 years of studying Potions." Budge says, still reluctant to let the armoured boy in. "And I still don't think I'm the right person to teach you. Have you tried.. Hogwarts?"
Victor stops, staring up at Budge's face. Budge might not know it, but Victor is very annoyed. He did not expect it would be this hard to convince a Master to take him on as a student. In fact, he had expected the man to fall on his knees, begging to teach Doom.
"Firstly, I'm 11 so it's actually two years." Victor says. "Secondly, Hogwarts? Really? If I wanted an ordinary education I would have gone there in my own time. I travelled 453 years in time specifically to learn from you because I thought you were the best person for me to learn from."
Budge.. freezes. He opens his mouth, closes it, and does it three more times.
"I.. ahem. Just a few things, you came from the future?" He asks, his voice shaking just a bit.
Victor nods, and says, "Yes."
Budge nods back and says, "Right, of course. Guess travelling through time is not impossible in the future then." Victor does not deign to say anything to that. "And you say that I'm known as the greatest Potions Master to ever live? Even 450 years from now?"
And he sounds ecstatic to ask that.
Victor shakes his head, and says, "Let me tell you this. Your book is being used to teach the basics of Potion brewing at Hogwarts for at least a few centuries for me. There are some other authors who have been proclaimed to be great, but your book, your name, has remained constant. You do invent a few potions in your lifetime, but your major contribution has been towards standardizing teaching Potions. And so, here I am. For you to teach."
There's a thud as Budge bangs his fist at his open door and yells, "YESSS! You see Professor Black! I do amount to something! I become the greatest Potions teacher! Ha! Take that!"
"Please stop that." Victor calmly says, annoyed despite knowing that that is a completely normal reaction for someone… normal. Although it is a surprise that Budge believed him so quickly.
"Ahem.. sorry." Budge says, but still looks gleeful. Shaking his head, he says, "Ah, I never even asked your name. What's your name, child?"
Victor frowns, and answers, "Victor. My name is Victor. Don't call me a child, I may look like one but I assure you I can and will put you on your arse if need be."
Budge nods uncaringly and says, "Well, Victor. Considering that I'm the greatest Potions Teacher of all time, I'll agree to take you on as my apprentice. My.. first… apprentice."
Budge then shakes his head and then looks serious for the first time since the conversation began. He stares Victor in his eyes and says, "Look, I'm new to this teaching thing, but I will try to impart all I can to you. But for that to happen, I'll need you to listen to everything I say for the duration of the apprenticeship. You can't complain, if you do, the apprenticeship is over. You will maintain cleanliness, don't mess up my station, and most importantly, you will not touch a single potions ingredient until I tell you to. You got that?"
Victor nods, smiling inside his armour.
Budge looks hesitant, and adds, "And lose that armour. You're creeping me out; I can't teach properly if I'm creeped out. And I don't want to stare at that emotionless armoured face all the time."
Victor frowns, annoyed. But he understands. And the armour was just so he can intimidate the man into an apprenticeship anyway.
Victor raises his hand and presses an invisible button on his left forearm, causing the entire metal armour, along with the Cloak of Terror, to get sucked into a ring on his finger.
He then smiles up at Budge, who had watched it happen wide eyed, and says, "Shall we begin, Master Budge?"
Zygmunt Budge slowly nods, wondering if he should have had the boy keep the armour on anyway. If an 11 year old boy can travel through time just to learn from him, and make something like that armour, what else is he capable of?
If he only knew.
——
It did not take much for Zygmunt Budge to believe Victor. He had thought the boy to be oddly dressed, when he first came to his door. With the weird armour and the otherworldly cloak that terrified him for some reason, he had no reason to not believe that Victor is from the future.
And the days following the beginning of his apprenticeship just proved him to be true.
Just three days have passed since that day outside his cottage, the first 2 days of which Zygmunt did not allow Victor to touch anything at all. That was a time for tests. He tested Victor extensively so he can know exactly where he is in his journey towards Potions Mastery.
And Merlin did the boy surpass all his expectations.
Zygmunt had expected the boy to be a tad bit smarter than the average boy, if only the enchantments on his armour, and his time travelling had to be taken in mind. But he did not expect Victor to know more than a recent Hogwarts graduate.
Victor identified any and every ingredient placed in front of him. He correctly listed down when you need to chop, crush, slice, or chew an ingredient before you add it to the brew. Victor even has the recipes for over a hundred potions!
So then.. Why did Victor come so far to learn from him? He is not even the "greatest potions master" yet.
Zygmunt did ask him that, and the boy's answer still makes him smile.
"I have memory, I have talent. But I do not yet possess the instincts that one needs to call themselves a Master. And I refuse to call myself that until I have gained that instinct." Victor had said.
And that's why, on the third day itself, Zygmunt allowed Victor to start helping him brew.
"Anything can be a Potions ingredient." Zygmunt says, as he crushes the leaves of a simple basil plant to a paste. "Trees, animals, insects, grain, humans, even dirt." He pours the paste in the couldron and turns to Victor, who is watching him and says, "One simply needs to correctly identify what effect it can have. For example, what can you tell me about dirt from right outside this cottage?"
Victor frowns, and says, "Granite bedrock, the soil is mostly acidic but there is some saline influence because of the sea. I have also observed that the soil is home to a specific microorganism I call Thaumabacter which thrives on eating Magic. Nothing else comes to mind."
"Well," Zygmunt begins even as he prepared the next ingredient, the soil, "I have no idea what a microorganism is, nor a Thaumabacter. But you are mostly right. The salty soil, the hard bedrock, and the magic rich island, it all means that it can have a variety of uses. I haven't found all of them yet, of course, but I have successfully used it to make a strengthening potion, a draught that temporarily stops a werewolf bite from getting infected if drunk quickly enough, and a salve that should theoretically fight magical scars."
As the potion in the cauldron turns turquoise, Zygmunt takes a handful of the soil and smacks it into the potion, which immediately goes from turquoise to green. "Combine that with the medicinal properties of the Basil, and you get.. this salve."
Zygmunt waves his wand, causing the fire to go out, and waits a few seconds which is all it takes for the salve to cool down. He then scoops a bit with his hand, and rubs it over his other hand. The scratch he had suffered while trying to take the eggs of his chicken close up, as if nothing ever happened.
"A simple potion, with a lot of better alternatives, but to learn how to use anything and everything around us in a potion, this is the best place to start." Zygmunt says with a smile, to which Victor simply nods.
Zygmunt nods back and says, "Now, let's make this same salve again. And as I said before, keep all your senses open."
Because that's all it is, when it comes to Potions. Learning to see, smell, taste, and feel what the Potion is going through. Not that it means taste the half made potion, of course. Taste the magic in the air, taste the fumes and hope they're not poisonous.
And sooner or later, magic tells you exactly what you need to know.
——
King's Cross Station, London,
1st September, 1991:
Harry James Potter sat in the Hogwarts Express, staring at the wand in his hand with a frown on his face.
Acacia wood, dragon heartstring, 12 and a 1/2 inch. Bendy, but durable, and very loyal to the wizard, ergo himself.
This is his wand. Not Doom's, but his. Matched to his own magic by the trial and error method that Garrick Ollivander uses.
And it is perfect, Harry liked it a lot.
But… there was a reason for the frown on his face.
Unlike what Dumbledore had made out, it did not make it any significantly easier to use magic with a matched wand than his wandless magic. It's definitely a bit easier to pass magic through this wand, of course, but nothing extraordinary.
Stowing his wand in his right sleeve, Harry turns his head to look out the window towards the platform. He has been here for a half hour now, and it's just a minute before the train leaves. He sees the families say goodbye to their children, some tearfully, some while keeping control of their emotions. He even sees Narcissa, the sister to Andromeda, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, as a man who is no doubt her husband leads her away.
Harry wondered if Sirius ever managed to talk to her. He did say he was trying to reconnect, but that her husband was definitely a Death Eater who would surely want to kill Sirius.
Ignoring the outside world, as the train lurches to a start, Harry's eyes then land on the newspaper and he immediately scowls.
The headline reads, "Peter Pettigrew dead, accidental death, or silenced?"
A week. That's it. A week of suffering in Azkaban's terrible atmosphere, and he kicked the bucket. A week for getting his parents killed.
Harry does not like this, and he does not think Doom would like it either. But he does not think it was something the Death Eaters orchestrated either. Harry made sure of it, of course, using the Chronoscope. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.
Harry shakes his head, and sighs. He wonders what Doom is doing, how his studies are progressing. The first check-in is scheduled on Christmas, so he can just ask him then but he was still curious as to what his creator was up to.
KNOCK!
The door opens after a single knock, and a nervous looking boy stands in front of Harry. He glances around, his eyes going to the bottom of the seats, and says, "Sorry, have you seen a toad at all? I've lost him. He keeps getting away from me."
Harry forgets his annoyance at the disturbance, and shakes his head. He asks, "What's his name? I know a spell that can bring you to him."
"Really?" The boy asks, eyes going wide and hopeful.
Harry nods and says, "Close the door and sit down, I'll teach it to you. You can use it to find anything you've lost."
The boy immediately closes the door and rushes to sit in front of Harry. "I- I'm Neville."
Harry brings his wand out, holding back the smile at the sense of belonging it gives him, and says, "My name's Harry. Now, bring your wand out-"
And then the door to his cabin opens again, and a girl pokes her head in. She too glances down at the bottom of the seats and asks, "Have you seen a toad? A boy named Neville has lost one."
Harry can't help but get amused. Pointing his wand at the boy in front of him, he asks, "This Neville?"
The girl turns her head to look at the boy waving his hand, and says, "Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn't see you there Neville." Her eyes then land on Harry's wand, still pointed at Neville, and she smiles wide. "Oh, are you doing Magic? Can I see?"
Harry… is confused. Wasn't she looking for Neville's toad? Well, not his problem.
Harry nods, and tells her the same thing he told Neville. To close the door and sit down. The girl immediately rushes to do the same, and sits down without even introducing herself.
How rude.
Harry internally sighs, and raises his wand up in his right hand. He says, "The way this spell works is it draws a straight line between you, and whatever object you desire. But only you can see it. So I can't do the spell for you, you have to cast it yourself. The incantation is 'Locare' while you focus on the object you want to find and you simply wave the wand in front of your eyes from left to right like this."
And with that, he gently moves the wand in front of his eyes, and casts, "Locare ."
Immediately, a single orange line comes into existence in front of him, like an arrow, leading towards his trunk sitting in the rack above head. Not that the other two first years are able to see it. It will stay there too, until he casts the spell, "Nox." Which he does nonverbally, causing the line to disappear.
"Is that a real spell? I don't remember reading it in the Standard Book of Spells Vol 1, 2, or 3." The unnamed girl says, looking disbelieving.
Harry stares at her, and simply says, "It's not in any book, because I made it myself. Besides, there are countless spells not written in those three books, miss. Have you considered that?"
As the girl frowns, somehow feeling insulted, Harry turns back to Neville, and says, "Now, you do it. Remember, keep your toad in your mind, say the spell, and move your wand left to right like I showed you. It's okay if you don't get it immediately."
"My name is not miss, it's Hermione, Hermione Granger. And I still don't believe this is a real spell. You're just wasting Neville's time." The girl interrupts, right as Neville is about to make his first attempt. Harry can just see his confidence whittle down as his excitement drops down with it and the nervousness returns.
Harry.. is annoyed. He takes a deep breath, telling himself, 'She's a child, Harry. Do not harm children. It goes against your code.'
He did have to wonder why exactly Doom thought of putting in this directive. Do not harm children? Why did he think a Doombot would harm children?
He then sighs, and says, "Look, I get curiosity, I get doubt. But can you really say something is not true if you haven't tried it yourself or if you haven't read it somewhere? Try the spell a few times, consider it an experiment, and then if you still fail then simply walk out. No one is forcing you to stay in this carriage. I am not even a real teacher."
Hermione scowls, and stands up. She says, "Why I never! I'm leaving. Neville, I'll try to look for Trevor in the back, you can try in the front of the train."
And then she stomps out, slamming the door on her way out. Harry can only shake his head to that. He turns back to Neville, and smiles in a way he hopes is reassuring. He tilts his head towards Neville's wand, and says, "Go on, then. Give it a go."
Neville nods with a soft smile, and raises his wand. "Locare," he casts.
The first time Neville's reaction shows Harry that nothing has happened. On Harry's encouragement, Neville resolutely closes his eyes, and casts again. And again. And again. And finally, on the fifth try, Harry just sees Neville's eyes light up, as they follow an invisible line towards the front of the train.
"I.. I see it!" He says, smiling excitedly. Neville then stands up and shakes Harry's hand with both of his, and says, "Thanks, Harry! I'll go find him now!"
And then he runs out before Harry can tell him how to shut the spell down. Well, he will either come back once the line does not disappear, or it will disappear after a few hours anyway.
Either way, the good deed for the day is done. He might have even made a friend along the way.
——
"Hmm.. difficult, very difficult." The Sorting Hat says from its position on his head, making Harry frown. "Not the sorting, no. That part's easy. Seeing your thoughts to sort you correctly, now that's difficult."
Harry smirks, although he does feel annoyed that the Hat sorts via telepathy and is trying to do the same with him. He whispers back, "Yeah, well my mind is a sacred temple and I am its only priest."
"That is one way to put it." The sorting hat sighs. He can feel the Hat retreat from its attempts, as it then says, "Well then, we are at a stalemate. I cannot sort you until I understand what qualities define you best. And you will not let me inside your mind. How shall we proceed, child?"
Harry thinks for a few seconds, but letting the suspiciously enchanted Hat in his mind doesn't even occur to him as an option. Making up his mind, Harry says, "Slytherin or Ravenclaw. You can decide."
The sorting hat hums, and asks, "Can you elaborate? How did you narrow the choice down to these two?"
Harry shrugs, and looks around at all the children staring up at him, children still whispering his name in reverence. He says, "Something tells me if I go to Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, I'll have people lining up to greet me in the morning. I have come here to learn, not to make friends, nor to pander to children's wishes that I dance to their tunes. And Slytherin and Ravenclaw are places where I can get the solitude I'll need at any given time."
"Hmm.. better be.. RAVENCLAW!" The sorting Hat yells, to an immediate burst of applause from the Ravenclaw table.
The Hat is lifted from his head by Professor Minerva McGonnagal, who smiles at him, and Harry walks down to the Ravenclaw table, choosing to sit at the very beginning of the table.
"Congrats, Potter. Welcome to Ravenclaw!" A 12 or 13 year old boy yells from down the table, to which Harry nods politely.
As the sorting continues, his eyes turn towards the professors seated up on the stage. There's Dumbledore, in an eye-bleeding purple robe. Then the half-goblin who has to be Professor Flitwick. And then he makes eye contact with the scowling Professor Severus Snape sitting beside a turbaned man facing away from Harry.
Snape.
The man who cried for his dead mother despite fighting on opposite sides of the war. The man who stole her necklace, and her picture. The man who looks like he wants to kill Harry.
Harry raises his eyebrow, and waves his fingers at the man, making him scowl harder, before he turns away from Harry.
'Keep scowling, Batman. You'll get your due soon enough. Doom has plans for you.'
But till then..
"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
He is going to enjoy this feast.
——
A/N: Before people say I forgot that Harry had Pettigrew killed, I didn't forget it. There is a secret there, which is not that much of a secret, because I've already given a hint.
Wink, wink!
A short chapter, and a bit more light hearted than the last few. A bit of a boring chapter, tbh. But not every chapter can be exciting.
I do not want to make this to be a Hermione bashing fic so I'm sorry if this chapter came out like it. I promise it will be better. She's just like that during the first chapter she is in, in Sorcerer's stone.
As for Harry's sorting, remember this is Doombot. He is not that ambitious. He is here to read all the books in the Library, and that's it. Everything else is secondary. So the Hat made a guess based on what Harry said to it.
Why Ravenclaw and not Slytherin? Mainly because of what I said above, but also because I don't think I can write a Slytherin Harry without going into childish politics.
The hat not seeing inside his head, this is going to be a recurring theme with Doom and I think people would agree when I say Doom lets no one inside his mind. NO-ONE.
Also, sorry for the rushed sorting. As much as you would love to read everything, I have gotten bored with reading the same retelling of canon in fanfics, especially during the first couple years when nothing really happens.
I'll try to keep it short, with max 5 chapters per year for Doombot, and max 2-3 chapters per subject mastery for Victor/Harry. Anything more and I'm stretching it out for no good reason.
Anyway, keep reading, and thank you!
Tata!