That night Harry was walking to dinner a little early having spent a good chunk of the day practicing his Wandless Magic. He had made some progress with his Transfiguration but still nowhere near enough to use it to help shape materials for enchanting. The control and precision required for Transfiguration was going to annoy him until he got it right. But his Charms were coming along well enough he'd gotten both the Unlocking Charm, Alohomora, and the All Purpose Counter Spell, Finite Incantatem, to work wandlessly. He was still constantly practicing all of his Magic of course. It never paid to be lazy, as both Vernon and Petunia had told him and Dudley growing up. He was slowly making his way through the First Year curriculum for spells and the library was a wealth of interesting new spells just waiting to be learned and mastered.
Harry noticed upon turning a corner that a few Professors were currently making their way towards the Great Hall as well. Seeing as they hadn't noticed him Harry simply couldn't resist. Pulling his Scouter out of his robe pocket he placed it over his right eye and scanned the first Professor.
A '10112' almost had Harry stumbling over his own feet. Who would have guessed that Professor Flitwick had so much mana? He'd heard that his Head of House used to be a professional duelist but he'd honestly expected Hagrid's '7062' to be near the top of the mana rankings.
A quick turn of the lens and Professor Vector, the Arithmancy teacher, was scanned. The '5994' on the lens seemed respectable for a witch that was loved by her students for her calm demeanor and patient instruction.
The next Professor, Sprout, came in with a '6104' and Harry didn't have much thoughts on the mana amount of the Herbology Professor. He still didn't have much aptitude for her class and honestly he doubted he ever would.
The group of Professors passed through the doorway into the Great Hall and Harry slowly walked his way towards the door. Just as he was standing in the doorway he glanced up at the head table. Seeing both Snape and Dumbledore already sitting down Harry carefully stayed out of sight and scanned them. Snape, his least favorite Professor by far, was first. Harry nearly choked on his saliva when '10848' showed up on the lens. How the bloody hell did Snape have more mana than a former professional duelist? Any fantasy of a direct confrontation with Snape was quickly tossed from Harry's mind. Until he got stronger, much stronger, magically Snape was far out of his league.
With a quick gulp Harry finally turned his Scouter onto Headmaster Dumbledore. He didn't even attempt to keep up with the rapidly growing number on the lens and simply waited for it to stop climbing. He had to grab onto the wall to steady himself when the absurd number of '41310' stopped on the lens. What in the actual hell was Dumbledore?! How could someone have such a high amount of mana? It was four times what a professional duelist like Flitwick had! What kind of outlier was the Headmaster? There were a dozen more questions already running through Harry's mind as he stowed his Scouter away in his robe pocket. He wished that a way to quantify mana had been created centuries or even a millennium ago, just so famous Magicals from the past could have had their amounts recorded. Harry wondered how Dumbledore would compare to the Four Founders of Hogwarts, or how the Headmaster and Merlin would match up. Unfortunately no one would ever know the answer. Harry wondered briefly if his lessons and extracurricular practicing had increased his mana at all. He'd have to build a self-scanner like his first clay prototype to be able to measure his own mana again.
It was Tuesday evening and Harry was in the library looking up information for his Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. There was another class that Harry disliked. Professor Quirrel's stutter made it almost impossible to follow what the man was trying to teach. Not to mention the overpowering smell of garlic that hung about the room. Harry had already taken to mostly self-study in the course just to look up spells. Grabbing a book that should give him enough information to finish his essay Harry walked towards the tables set up for students to study at. He noticed that a few tables were occupied by upper years and two were occupied by first years. The closest table of the two had the bushy haired girl from the train sitting by herself with a stack of no less than eight books next to her. The farther table had two members of his own House sitting together, Mandy Brocklehurst and Padma Patil. Deciding it couldn't hurt to learn the name of the other girl Harry made his way over to her table.
"Mind if I sit here?" Harry asked getting the Gryffindor girl to startle slightly.
"Oh, um, yes of course." The girl replied once she realized someone had addressed her.
"Thanks." Harry said before setting his book down and getting out his quill and parchment. It had taken him weeks but he could finally write with a quill up to his own standards of penmanship. He still took notes on notebook paper and used a ballpoint pen for it, but he was finally able to turn in neatly written assignments and essays done by quill now. "I'm Harry by the way, Harry Potter."
"I'm Hermione Granger, nice to meet you." Hermione introduced herself before continuing to speak. "I've read about you, you know. You're in 'Modern Magical History', 'Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century', and 'The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'."
"I wouldn't believe most of it." Harry sighed as he opened his book. "If you believe everything that's said about me then I've also ridden Dragons at age five and fought Werewolves and Vampires across Europe when I was nine."
"Oh, that's quite outlandish isn't it?" Hermione asked with a grimace.
"Yeah, I'd only just discovered my magic when I was eight. So I don't know who thought I was riding Dragons and all the other stuff." Harry shook his head in exasperation. "So what are you reading?"
"Oh just some extra books for classes." Hermione replied as she patted her stack.
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