Replacement Boy That Lived Part 7

An: I want to give an extra thank you to Dogbertcarroll for helping clean up a number of glitchy sections and make sure certain characters were as amusing as they were supposed to be.  

Myst grinned when he woke up from a weird dream about goblin bankers chasing him to pay a bunch of convoluted fees and saw Scarlet sprawled on the other half of the bed, wearing just a long white t-shirt, reading one of the text books looking a bit like a kid in a candy store with birthday money. "Having fun?"

"It's magic," Scarlet replied with a grin as she twisted her body and shifted so she didn't have to twist her neck to look at him, giving him an enticing view of her breasts, which from her grin he could tell was on purpose.

"How much did you get through?" Myst asked, trying to focus on her face.

"Most of the transfiguration book and a chapter of the history book before I crashed out, the history book is boring, they need more interesting characters," Scarlet replied as she stuck her bookmark in her book and set it on the bed in front of her. "Any idea what we're supposed to do for breakfast?"

"It would help." Myst yawned as he tried to wake up the rest of the way. "That depends, how hungry are you?"

"I've been reading for a couple of hours," Scarlet admitted.

"In other words, we should probably figure out the food situation before you start setting traps for the neighbors," Myst teased.

"Probably," Scarlet agreed. "What were you planning on doing today?"

"I was thinking about swinging by the magical bank and exchanging some galleons for normal money so we can pick up some supplies and don't have to keep eating in the alley, but I also want to track down some of my future classmates."

"Anyone interesting?" Scarlet asked.

"Neville needs a decent wand and Hermione needs some experience with the wizarding world before she sticks her foot in her mouth trying to prove that she's just as good as the people that knew about magic before receiving their letter," Myst explained, fairly sure some time exploring dungeons and fighting monsters would help both of them.

"Why does Neville need a decent wand?" Scarlet asked thoughtfully, wondering if it was just a matter of money.

"His father lost his mind ten years ago because of a curse and spends most of his time in the hospital. For reasons not remotely rational, his grandmother insists on Neville using his father's wand, it's mismatched to the point where he'd probably be better off with a stick," Myst explained, a bit annoyed that no one had connected the dots in the series.

"Let me guess, you're thinking of a complicated plan that involves tracking Neville down and stealing his wand so he has to get a replacement, aren't you?" Scarlet asked with amusement.

"Do you have a better idea?" Myst asked hopefully.

"You could always let the teachers know that his wand is badly matched once you start school or brew a magic curse breaking potion and cure his father. He can't very well use his father's wand if his father needs it," Scarlet replied thoughtfully.

Myst shook his head. "I doubt the teachers would believe me and I don't know how to brew a curse breaking potion."

"You can probably find one in a dungeon," Scarlet pointed out.

"Probably," Myst admitted, as he considered the matter.

"What are they like?" Scarlet asked, curious if they'd get along.

"I don't know," Myst admitted. "It depends on how close this world's version is to the stories I've heard of their future. Neville is usually a shy kid that's sort of brave but has a domineering grandmother so he doesn't really stand up for himself, like ever. He's not the best in school because of his wand and fears about not living up to his father's legacy, he gets better later when he has a reason to fight and he gets a better wand. Hermione on the other hand, in some she's a genius, in others she's a bossy know it all. I'm hoping that she's just a nervous kid that tries too hard, because she never quite fit in with people her age. In the book, she doesn't make any friends for almost two months for various reasons, mostly because she's socially retarded and has a near worship of anyone in a position of authority."

"Neville sounds like someone that needs to spend some time in a dungeon killing monsters and learning spells," Scarlet replied with a grin. “Hermione could probably use it as well. Nothing like a little life and death dungeon crawl to knock the starch out of someone.”

"Worst case, we can probably convince her that books lie and the teachers don't know everything which would probably help," Myst mused, fairly sure she'd look up everything the Wizarding World had on the dungeons and have 'issues' when she couldn't find enough on them in the library.

"I'm good at getting stuffy people to loosen up," Scarlet said cheerfully.

"Do you want to stay here and read or get dressed and come with me to pick up food?" Myst asked, figuring he'd give her the option in case she wanted to read her new books.

Scarlet rolled out of bed. "As nice as lounging around reading about magic sounds, I'd rather not get stuck here if you run into trouble. Besides, I'm curious about the alley and how you're going to find people."

"Unless I'm mistaken, it's the summer of 1991 which means phone books are a thing," Myst replied as he rolled out of bed and pulled his pants on.

"1991? Huh, it's only 1863 where I'm from," Scarlet mused then frowned when she realized she didn't know what Myst meant. "Phone books?"

"Picture a world where you give everyone a personal magic mirror, but there are a lot of people with similar names, so you just give all of the mirrors a number. Does that make sense so far?" Myst asked, figuring that should make sense as Scarlet wasn't stupid but figured he'd check to make sure.

"Where would you find that many witches?" Scarlet asked as she walked over and grabbed her clothes from the table where she'd moved them the night before after cleaning them.

"It's technically not magic and doesn't come with a visual display. It's sort of like a personalized telegram, only you're talking in real time," Myst explained.

"I don't suppose anyone wrote a book for travelers that got lost in time?" Scarlet asked hopefully.

"No idea but we can probably find a book that covers the inventions of the last hundred and fifty years," Myst assured her.

"Good," Scarlet replied, figuring it would make her parents really happy to get a chance to read it and steer their kingdom into the future. "Ignoring the details for a minute, can you use the book to find the person that you want to find?"

"Hopefully, I just have a last name and the profession of her parents and I don't know their first names which makes things harder. I also only have a vague idea where they live," Myst explained as he dropped his boots on his equipment page.

Scarlet gave Myst a look then tossed her clothes on her character doll, pleased that she could get dressed and undressed in an instant, thanks to this new magic. "That just means we need to find an expert right?"

"Or get lucky," Myst replied, grabbed her hand and teleported them to Knockturn alley, hoping he could use the business pages to find her parents as there shouldn't be all that many dentists named Granger in the greater London area.

The alley was dark and grimy looking, even though the sun had already risen, and the small amount of people scurrying about in the shadows you couldn’t be sure whether they were just getting up or going to bed, but looked surly enough for either.

"First stop, Gringotts to pick up some mundane money then we can go looking for a phone book."

A dark robed figure stepped out of the shadows in front of the pair with his wand pointed at them. "I've found a pair of filthy mudbloods in the wrong part of town. Looks like you need to pay a fee unless you want me telling people about your unauthorized portkey."

Myst scowled when he caught sight of the rather distinctive tattoo on the man's wrist. "How much and do you want it in charmed objects or gold?"

"All of it and both," the dark wizard replied as he stepped closer, planning on stealing their money and having some fun with the girl before obliviating them.

Myst opened the portal to the hag and goblin dungeon. "I'll have to grab the loot, can we go first or do you want the honors? I’m fine either way," he offered quickly, obviously lying.

The man glanced between Myst and Scarlet. "I think it’s best if I go first."

"Fine, just don't attack Spike, he's harmless," Myst warned him, more than a little surprised when the man actually stepped into the dungeon.

The portal winked out and Myst snickered for a moment. “So long, sucker.”

"Spike?" Scarlet asked.

"Fictional dog," Myst replied as he glanced around, relieved that no one seemed to be paying attention to them which meant people might not connect the dots if anyone wondered where the Death Eater had vanished to later. "We should probably make sure he doesn't escape, I don't want him surviving on the off chance he can apparate out," he said with a sigh, after a moment of reflection.

"Or we could just escape while we have a chance," Scarlet pointed out.

"He has a certain magical brand which means he works for the dark wizard that killed my parents. If we let him escape, he'll just cause more trouble later, since being able to open portals to dungeons at will is pretty much unheard of," Myst explained, then reopened the portal to the dungeon, stepping out into an older looking London complete with gas street lights.

"Where are we?" the dark wizard demanded as he stepped closer to threaten the kid, more than a little unnerved by the sheer number of hags he could see walking around and by the fact that some of the hags and goblins wandering around were dressed like street walkers and had far too much skin on display.

"London," Myst replied as he looked at the old fashioned stone architecture. "You're going to need to fight your way to the second doorway on the left," he lied, doing his best to sound sure of himself.

"What makes you think I'm fighting anyone?" the man demanded, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings.

"You're the one that wanted the loot. I'm just a runner, if you want the loot, steal it from the boss," Myst replied with a shrug, hoping he wasn't making a mistake.

The man reached out and grabbed Myst's shirt with his free hand. "See here you little shit!"

"Let go!" Scarlet snapped when she stepped through the portal into the dungeon and saw the wizard holding her friend, a staff appearing in her hand.

'He's a Death Eater, he made his choice,' Myst told himself as he pulled his magic stealing knife out of his inventory and stabbed the wizard in the throat when he turned to point his wand at Scarlet. He ignored the look of shocked disbelief on the man's face as he ripped the blade sideways, grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it so the wand wasn't pointed at Scarlet on the off chance he could cast silently while drowning in his own blood and distracted by the pain.

Scarlet winced as Myst stepped forward and kicked the dying villain in the nuts then started stabbing him repeatedly in the chest. “Hearts near the center of the chest,” she offered, “a little higher.”

Myst stabbed the wizard a couple more times until he was sure he was dead then picked up the wizard's wand from where he dropped it. "Sorry."

"Cultist?" Scarlet asked, thinking about the group that had tied her up and planned to sacrifice her.

"They're basically followers of an undead, deranged, and evil wizard that split his soul apart so he could try and live forever," Myst explained as he stared at the twitching wizard, bleeding out on the cobblestones, not sure if he was in shock or if he just didn't care about the idiot he'd stabbed to death.

"Let me guess, they think he's going to share his secrets?" Scarlet asked in disbelief.

"Or gold or power," Myst replied, not sure what the Death Eaters expected to get if they 'won' or if it had just been an excuse to cast aside all morality and behave like monsters. "I don't think most of them even realize that he's a half-blood and doesn't care about blood purity, he's just using and discarding them."

"He's a villain, what did they expect?" Scarlet asked, kicking the gurgling wizard in the temple and knocking him unconscious so they hopefully didn’t have to deal with any death curses.

"Hell if I know," Myst admitted, then gestured and cleaned the blood off his clothes and hands with magic. 'So much for not being able to wash the blood off after taking a life. Should I feel bad for killing him?' he asked himself, wondering if he was still in shock because he couldn't seem to care that there was one less bigoted, murdering, rapist in the world. 'You got a second chance when Voldemort fell, shame you decided to waste it.'

"Do you think the hags and goblins have loot?" Scarlet asked as she glanced at the various hags and goblins walking down the street, trying to distract Myst as killing someone from his world seemed to be upsetting him, probably because the body didn’t vanish like the ones in the dungeons usually did.

"Probably," Myst replied as he opened his character sheet and looked at his magic stat. 'Fifty one points… Is this how it starts? How many will I have to kill to reach sixty? Seventy?' he asked himself, fairly sure there was a point where he wasn't going to get anything for stabbing Death Eaters or hags. 'Will I have to swap to dragons? Can I figure out a way to boost their magic to insane heights with mad science or alchemy? Is it worth it? How far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?' he numbly asked himself, fairly sure the answer was down the hole, around the bend, and to the moon and back if it gave him enough magic to save the world.

"Does he have any money?" Scarlet asked, not seeing a reason to leave the money to vanish.

Myst pulled his mind off his musing about his sanity and searched the still warm corpse’s pockets, a bit surprised to find a mundane wallet filled with cash and a coin purse filled with galleons. "At least we can skip the bank, which is probably for the best, I don't need someone recognizing me and ratting me out to Dumbledore."

"You should probably pick up some makeup to cover up your scar," Scarlet suggested.

"It's on the list," Myst replied as he reached down and shoved the wizard's body into his inventory. He quickly stripped him down to his small clothes then dropped the nearly naked body back on the cobblestones, fairly sure the dungeon would absorb the body or the hags would eat it, on the off chance that the dungeon spit out the corpses of the people who died in them.

"How do you want to fight the hags?" Scarlet asked.

"Another day, from range, with a gun," Myst replied as he turned back to the exit portal, figuring clearing the street with a couple dozen tranquilizer darts before stabbing the hags with his magical dagger would increase their chances of actually surviving the dungeon. "Let's get something to eat."

"Works for me," Scarlet replied as she followed Myst, not seeing a problem with playing things safe.

0o0o0

Scarlet smiled as Myst walked back from the hallway near the toilets with a scrap of paper and a smile on his face. "Did you find her?"

"I have an address," Myst replied as he sat down across from Scarlet, glad that people still used pay phones in ‘91. He glanced at his suspiciously depleted pile of fries then grabbed one and dipped it in the paper cup of ketchup that was almost empty. "It wasn't as hard as I was expecting, I just looked up their dental practice in the yellow pages then their names in the white. They live in the Hampstead Garden area."

"Which is where?" Scarlet asked as she stole another one of Myst's fries, not particularly familiar with the England of her time, much less this one.

"North of London proper," Myst replied as he gave her a look for stealing his fries. "We can probably catch a bus or a streetcar and get there in about twenty minutes."

"How much time do you have before school?" Scarlet asked in a whisper after finishing half of the fry and stealing another one, leaving him with one single solitary fry remaining.

Myst quickly finished his fry then grabbed the last one before she could steal it. "I saw the newspaper, it's the 25th or 26th of July, which means we have about five weeks until school starts. We can afford to spend the rest of the morning getting there."

"Sounds fun," Scarlet replied with a grin then finished eating her stolen fry.

Myst felt a bit stuffed between the burger, fries and the milkshake and wondered how Scarlet had picked up a modern woman’s habit of eating half their date’s food. "At least the food is decent."

Scarlet glanced at the attractive waitress that was busy wiping down tables near the old folks then dropped her voice to a whisper. "Have you figured out which dungeon we're exploring first?"

"I was thinking about the madness dungeon, I didn't get a chance to really explore it last time," Myst explained as the old folks stood up and headed for the door.

"What are you hoping to find?" Scarlet asked.

"No clue," Myst admitted, not actually sure what they'd end up with beyond more rituals or some magic items that might be useful. "I'm sure we'll find something interesting."

"If you don't, you need to find a better DM," the waitress suggested once the old people left.

Myst turned to look at the brown haired waitress that looked in her late teens. "Would be nice, I haven't had a decent game in a while. Do you play much?"

"Every Saturday," the girl replied with a grin. "What's your favorite class?"

"Generally some type of magic user," Myst replied with a smile, thinking about the various characters he'd played over the years.

The girl shook her head. "A bit too squishy for me."

Myst laughed. "You just need to use the rest of the party as meat shields and make sure you're behind cover or pick up singing and pretend to be a bard the first round or two so that the enemies are already committed."

"Hiding behind guards is a time honored tradition," Scarlet added, thinking about the frost golems that her aunt used when they went anywhere dangerous.

The waitress shook her head. "My party tends to complain when the mages don't break out their best spells at the drop of a hat, they also complain when you don't have enough spells to deal with dangerous monsters because you used all your spells at the drop of a hat."

"Have you considered hiring guards?" Myst asked, knowing that some dungeon masters discouraged their groups from hiring people.

"They'd probably betray the party," the waitress complained.

"Bad DM?" Myst asked.

"And one of the party members likes bribing hirelings to cause chaos," the waitress grumbled.

"Have the hireling sign a 'magical' contract that kills them if they betray you. It doesn't have to be real, they just have to believe it's real," Myst suggested.

Scarlet nodded. "Never sell out your boss if they can turn you into something small and squishy."

The waitress laughed as she thought about what Jeremy's face would look like if the hireling ratted him out. "It's worth a try."

"Do you know the best place to pick up some books and dice?" Myst asked, knowing he needed something to blow off some steam once they got to Hogwarts and he wasn't interested in chess or most of the magical world's games.

The girl laughed. "The Orcs Nest, 6 Earlham Street, London. It has just about everything you'll need. I try to avoid spending too much; I'm trying to save up for college."

"What are you studying?" Myst asked, familiar with how easy it was to sink money into gaming.

"Art," the waitress replied.

"The world needs more artists," Myst replied as he reached into his inventory and pulled out three gold coins then flourished his hand as if he'd conjured them with a magic trick, thinking about some of the girls he'd known in college that were art majors.

"Nice trick, fake coins?" the girl asked, not sure when he'd palmed the coins.

"Leprechaun gold, you never know when it's going to vanish," Myst replied with a grin as he flipped one of the coins to her, obviously lying.

"Heavier than I was expecting," the waitress admitted.

"If it wasn't, no one would mistake them for gold," Myst replied as he handed her the other two coins. "Best of luck in your studies, if you're going to sell them, talk to a coin collector."

"Sure," the girl replied, figuring they might be worth a few bucks and the kid's sister wasn't objecting, so it was probably fine to accept them.

"Now if you'll excuse me, we have a witch to find and monsters to slay," Myst said cheerfully as he stood up.

"Have fun," the waitress replied. "Maybe I'll see you at the shop."

"There's always a chance," Myst replied with a grin as he headed for the door, fairly sure she'd have some questions when she realized the coins were actually gold.

Scarlet followed Myst outside. "Any reason you're giving random girls gold coins?"

"She's a gamer and she's going to college, I literally picked them up off the ground in the dungeon and they'll probably buy her a couple of semesters at the community college if she sells them," Myst replied as he started walking down the street. "If you can't help people along the way, what's the point?"

"Mom says that we're not supposed to give people gold coins," Scarlet admitted.

"That's because you're a princess, they'd start expecting it." Myst grinned. "I'm just a random kid, which means I can get away with it."

"Fair enough," Scarlet agreed as she watched the street filled with strange horseless carriages, marveling at the intricate metal work and smooth pavement despite the loud noises and harsh chemical smells. "Do we have a direction?"

"That way," Myst replied as he pointed down the street. "If we get tired of walking, we'll just summon the night bus but it's probably easier to just catch a normal bus or streetcar."

"You're the expert," Scarlet replied.

'Hardly,' Myst thought as they headed down the street, taking in the sights and trying to avoid having people run into them.

0o0o0

Sarah Granger opened the door and looked at the children on the walkway. "Can I help you?"

"That depends, is Hermione Granger here?" Myst asked, hoping they hadn't made a mistake with the address.

"Are you friends of hers?" Sarah asked, fairly sure that Hermione didn't have any friends at her school or at least none that were male or would show up at her house.

Myst shook his head. "More like future classmates at Hogwarts."

Sarah glanced between Myst and Scarlet, surprised that they were magic users as they looked normal enough. "Oh, McGonagall didn't mention anything about fellow classmates stopping by."

Hermione set her book down and walked over, curious about the magic school she'd be going to. "Are you magic users?" she asked excitedly, a bright and happy smile on her face, lighting up the room… which might have been accidental magic.

'This is looking more like the movies, despite Tonks looking younger,' Myst mused when he noticed that Hermione looked like her actress from the movies, except her hair was a fair bit wilder. He pulled a gold coin out of his inventory and used telekinesis to float it over his hand, having already checked to make sure none of the neighbors would be able to see them. "Probably because she wasn't sure we could make it and yes, we can use magic."

Hermione glanced between Myst and Scarlet. "I thought you needed to use a wand," she said, almost bouncing on her heels in excitement.

"Wands aren't technically required for certain tricks and showing up with your wand out is generally frowned upon unless you have a good reason, especially outside magical areas of society," Myst explained, figuring that was common sense, which meant it probably wasn't in any of the books.

"Oh, none of the books mentioned that," Hermione admitted, chewing on her bottom lip as she considered it. “That does make a lot of sense, it’d hardly be a secret if everyone walked around London with wands in hand… and that just sounds wrong and I really didn’t mean it the way it sounds.”

Myst chuckled. "There are a lot of things about the wizarding world the books don't cover and some that just sound weird if you don’t know about magic. Just think about what we call a sack of pennies."

“A knut sack?” Hermione asked before realizing what she’d said and covering her mouth and giggling along with Scarlet who found the entire thing amusing as well.

"Is that why you're here?" Sarah asked, trying to hide her own amusement and figuring it was some sort of unofficial welcoming party to cover everything that McGonagall was too busy to mention or wasn't supposed to 'officially' mention.

"Basically. We have some books that she should take a look at and we figured we can answer some questions that Hermione wouldn't want to waste a teacher's time with," Scarlet offered.

"We can also show you around Hogsmeade if you want an advanced look at the castle," Myst offered.

"Just like that?" Sarah asked, thinking a trip all the way to Scotland would be a bit of a bother to put it mildly.

"Magical transportation is useful," Myst replied with a grin. "Mostly we're just here to share some tricks and get to know prospective classmates."

"Do you want some lemonade? You're welcome to come in," Sarah offered, happy to see Hermione socializing with people her own age.

"Thanks, lemonade sounds good," Myst replied as he pulled the telekinesis book out of his inventory.

"How are you doing that?" Hermione asked in wonder as her mother left to grab some lemonade.

"One of my personal magic tricks that I don't really know how to duplicate. I basically have a pocket dimension that I can store things in," Myst explained as they stepped into Hermione's house.

"Bloodline ability?" Hermione guessed as Scarlet closed the door, thinking about the bits of questionable lore she'd been told when she'd asked a witch at the bookstore about magical families.

"No clue," Myst admitted as he handed her the telekinesis book, not actually sure how it worked. "If it's a bloodline ability it's rare or new. It's probably just wandless magic or something I set up subconsciously when I was a kid. Open the magic book and you'll be able to use telekinesis."

"Magic book?" Hermione echoed reflexively, as she opened the book then blinked when she realized she could use telekinesis and it was much easier than her bouts of ‘accidental’ magic as McGonagall had called them when she moved things without touching them. "How?"

"Would you believe me if I said family magic?" Myst asked as he pulled his alchemy book out of his inventory. "Trade you. This one is alchemy."

Hermione handed the telekinesis book back and opened the alchemy book, blinking when a strange almost game-like window appeared floating in front of her. "Am I supposed to get an alchemy window?"

"Basically, it helps you organize your recipes and speeds up crafting," Myst explained as he stuck the telekinesis book back in his inventory and pulled out his healing book. "One more book and we’re good. To get more we’ll have to go on a trip and we’d need help."

"What type of help?" Hermione asked as she handed him the alchemy book back, wondering if they needed help looking through a library or sorting things, because this was much easier than the spells she read in her schoolbooks, which often took over a dozen tries before she could even begin to get a spell to function correctly and required a wand, which these obviously did not.

"Adventuring and exploring," Myst replied as he handed her the healing book and stuck the alchemy book back in his inventory.

"I'm not sure how much help I'd be," Hermione admitted sadly, as she opened the healing book and learned a healing spell. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Myst assured her. "It's always nice to have extra healers and the wizarding way takes a while to learn and isn't particularly safe if you don't know what you're doing."

Scarlet smiled when Sarah walked back with a tray of drinks. "Before we forget, I'm Scarlet and this is Myst. I'm guessing you have a bunch of questions, feel free to ask. if Myst can't answer them, he can probably tell you who you should ask."

"I have a list!" Hermione exclaimed as she handed Myst his healing book back then ran over to grab a notebook from her stack of textbooks.

'Yeah, that's about what I was expecting, at least she seems nice,' Myst mused, glad he wasn't stuck in a world where she was a two dimensional bookworm and sycophant like she was in some fanfics. "Sure."

Sarah walked over and set the tray down on the coffee table. "Thanks for helping."

"You're welcome," Myst assured her. "My Mom was in the same boat when she was a kid."

Sarah smiled, guessing he would know what her baby was facing, entering an entirely new world. "What's the government like?"

"Stuck in the 1800’s in a lot of ways. For instance, they generally hire people based on family connections or exceptional test scores and usually in that order, which is why we're trying to stack the deck a bit and give Hermione a heads up," Myst explained.

"Is that going to cause a problem?" Sarah asked, a bit annoyed that McGonagall hadn't mentioned the issues with the government, not particularly worried as there were tons of uses for magic just from some of the things the professor had mentioned.

Myst shook his head. "Not at all, it just means she'll have to work hard and keep her head down a bit for the first couple of years and score really well on the tests."

"Keep my head down? Why?" Hermione asked, not understanding why she shouldn't try to stand out to prove that she was exceptional.

"There are plenty of exceptions, but the wizarding world runs on family connections and talent, generally in that order if they can find it. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, most wizards and witches are lazy. Generally speaking, lazy people don't like people pointing out that they're lazy or that they should have put in more effort," Myst explained.

"So, I should be lazy?" Hermione asked dubiously.

"No, I'm just saying that there is a proper way to raise your hand and a way that will get you in trouble with your fellow classmates," Myst replied.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

Myst gestured at the chair next to the coffee table. "Can I sit down for a second so I can show you?"

"Go ahead," Sarah replied.

Myst walked over and sat down and stuck his elbow on the table and sort of half heartedly raised his hand in the air. "If I was sitting at a desk, the teacher can call on me or not, I'm showing that I know the answer and that I don't care if they call on me, but I'm not slouching or being disrespectful."

"How does that help?" Hermione asked. "Professor McGonagall mentioned earning house points for correct answers."

Myst sighed. "Ah right, the points that only sort of matter. There isn't an award for gaining the most points, it's strictly house based, which means that it doesn't matter if your classmates answer the question or if you answer it. Not only that, the only 'reward' and I use the term loosely for winning the house cup is that the banner in the great hall changes for the next year to match the house colors of the team that won and one of the heads of house gets to keep the trophy in their office. It’s just a way to keep the students working against one another. Really, the entire house system creates friction that isn’t conducive to a healthy learning environment."

"No party or special privileges?" Sarah asked, not particularly impressed with a system that didn't offer any real benefits to the students, especially since McGonagall had tried to paint it as important. 'Just because you're using it to control the students, doesn't mean it shouldn't come with a party.'

"Nope," Myst replied dryly. "It's basically useless beyond bragging rights. Getting back to the classroom point, if I have my hand like this it means the teachers can ignore me. If they want to know how Mr. Smith is doing, they can ask him a question. If they need to know how Sally is doing they can ask her without feeling guilty. Once they're done asking people to make sure they understand, they can ask me and be assured they’ll get the right answer or in your case, they can ask you and get a text book answer."

"Aren't you supposed to give a textbook answer?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"It depends, if I had an annoying potion teacher that asked me where I'd find a bezoar, I'd probably reply something like, 'In an alchemy cupboard or in an alchemy shop.' If he was less annoying, I'd probably say the stomach of a goat, leaving off the bit about it being the hard mass of tissue unless asked, because if I know the first bit, I probably read the text. I'd probably lose points for the first one, but sometimes it's worth it."

"Isn't more detail better?" Hermione asked.

"Not always," Myst replied as he turned to look at Sarah. "Did you ever TA for a class in college?"

"Yes," Sarah replied with amusement, seeing where he was going with this.

"Let's assume you're the TA or teacher and you had to read a couple of hundred essays, are you going to gleefully toss the ones that are over the length if you can get away with it?" Myst asked.

"In a heartbeat," Sarah replied without hesitation. "Especially if it's dry and straight out of the book."

"If you can't toss the essay, are you going to mark them down for wasting your time?" Myst asked.

"If I can, I'm also going to be really picky," Sarah agreed with an evil grin as she remembered her time in college.

"That's not fair," Hermione complained.

"If I have to read a hundred and twenty or thirty of the same essays, I'm going to do my best to get them to stop wasting my time," Sarah warned her daughter. "It's usually better to go with just over the minimum as long as you can cover all of the essential details. Something to consider, McGonagall mentioned having office hours. You could always ask your teachers how they want the essays written, it might not be the worst thing to ask the first time they assign an essay if you have extra time," she suggested.

"I'll be sure to bring it up," Myst replied, figuring it would help some of the students, since some of the purebloods seemed a bit shaky on the basics. "Any other questions?"

Hermione handed him her rather extensive list.

'This might have been a mistake, ah well, it's a decent way to get to know her,' Myst mused as he looked over the list filled with questions.