Golden Opportunities 1

A/N: This is a story that spontaneously came into being after looking at just one picture. This is a Xover story that will eventually move to other franchises. DC comic/cartoon crossed with Harry Potter. 

Here's the first chapter.

PS: working on a series of chapter for Komand'r, stay tuned!

# # #

Chapter 1

I know that the expression "be careful what you wish for" totally describes my current situation. But I would never have expected that my wishes would be granted this way; I trusted that entity calling himself a God and now I had to live with my choices. He had told me that he was sending me on a "big adventure" and that I would have the power to jump universes and obtain untold power. He offered me four wishes to set up my base power. I remember how he told me to calm down and think well about my wishes and the powers that could synergise well together.

Thinking hard about it at the time, I listened to the entity and looked at myself. I didn't like how I looked, so I decided to change myself and obtain the power I always desired. I didn't want to Lord over or oppress people, I just wanted to have adventures and travel the multiverse and maybe find love.

How naive I was at that point in my life. Well, I had died and was influenced by all those fanfictions and stories I've been reading lately; then my first wish was to have the body, knowledge and power of Triss Merigold; it was granted in a shower of light and my soul being tempered with, it had been painful…

My second wish was for the power of Dimensional Manipulation. I thought about how teleportation, pocket dimension creation or portal creation was going to be really important if I intended to travel the multiverse. The wish was granted and the entity congratulated me with an "excellent choice!" comment and manipulated my soul again, it was less painful the second time.

My third wish was the most bold one, I knew that Triss Merigold was super powerful, but the multiverse was scary and unforgiving. I remember seeing on the superpower wiki the magic embodiment power; it went like this: The user acts as the physical representation or personification of some or all forms of Magic. As such, they have limitless control over magic and all its forms, becoming almost all-powerful.

So I wished to have magic embodiment powers, the entity had looked at me with a creepy smile when I asked for this. I knew why now, he had expanded and made my soul more powerful to be able to support my wish. It had been more painful, it was like a second death. I had fallen unconscious in the process; only to wake up later with the being looking at me with a satisfied expression.

He had told me how interesting my wishes have been so far and that he now was ready for my last one before he sent me on my way. My fourth wish was simpler, I wished for complete and absolute curse immunity. My wish was granted and it wasn't painful at all this time.

The entity then told me to entertain him well and that he was sending me into a composite world that I would like a lot, Harry Potter and DC New 52. I cursed at the time and asked why? But he didn't answer me and just gave me a book called Grimoire and punted me into a portal out of the dimension he had pulled my soul into.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a bed, in a big house, finding myself in a tiny body; then I discovered that I was now British, yuck! At least I had someone to take care of me, arranged by the entity, I had company with my adopted family. Fast forward, seven years later I received my hogwarts letter, went shopping with my family and friends in Diagon Alley, but I felt no magic or wonder at it; I mean I have a pocket dimension where I can create whatever I wanted, so to me what the Wizarding World had to offer paled in comparison to what I already had.

From long years of experimentation since my awakening in this world, I discovered the limits of my powers and was also informed through the Grimoire that the entity had given me that I wouldn't be able to leave this universe before I reached adulthood and that my magical embodiment power was locked until I reached a similar milestone.

September 1st, 2001; I was on the Hogwarts Express, looking at Harry Potter with my friends surrounding me and we started introducing ourselves. The poor little guy looked somewhat intimidated by us, his cheeks were red as he looked around him and at us smiling at him. But Harry looked more at me or should I say my hair?

It was normal, I think we were related in a way, I must remind him of his mother. The Evans line is a squib family descended from House Merigold. It doesn't help that Harry's mom was aware of that fact and got killed with my parents who were looking at getting her back into the family while helping to hide her.

So yeah, Voldy killed my parents in this world, joy. I would get back at him slowly.

“Hello there, I’m Triss.” I greeted him.

My blonde best friend, who was on my right side, did the same. “I am Daphne.”

Daphne Greengrass was my best friend. We met when my family and I visited Diagon when we were six, we never stopped being friends since then.

“Tracey.” Said the brunette at Harry's side.

Tracey Davis was my second friend as well, she was a gutsy little girl with a lot of humor; she was also part of our girl club that we called the fellowship of the Dragon (I know it's cheesy). Her, Raven and Daphne knew some of my secrets and decided that if I ever left for the multiverse that they'd accompany me.

The black haired and blue eyed sweetie on my left side smiled at Harry and waved at him, “And the best for last, I am Rachel, but my friends call me Raven.”

Raven was basically my sister, we were inseparable since we were babies; we played together, ate together, did everything. What I liked was the fact that she was also my rival in mundane science and magical studies as well, we challenged each other. It didn't stop the fact that she and her mother Angela were characters from DC that I knew very well.

“Erm, I’m Harry, nice to meet you.” Poor guy was wearing second hand clothes, his glasses were broken as well.

I looked at each of the girls and Daphne gave me a nod and just like that we decided to take the young Harry under our wings. Harry scratched behind his head and averted his eyes from mine by looking down at his hands gathered in his lap.

I found myself saying, “Same, we always wanted to meet you, Harry. But did anyone tell you how famous you are? You seem a bit lost…”

He looked back at me, with his green eyes shining with questions that he wanted answered. “I'm aware that people think they know me… but I still don't know why they want to shake my hands or take pictures with me… and there's also the fact that everything I've seen so far is new to me!”

“We can and will tell you what's the score in the Wizarding World,” Harry perked up at that. “But first, do you want to see some magic? You seem a bit nervous and maybe playing a little will calm you down? We have six hours of travel until we reach Hogwarts and we have the time to tell you about this new world you've found yourself in.”

I lifted my hands, palm open and a ball of blue light with sparking white electricity manifested into my hands then rose twenty centimeters from my open palms. Harry looked transfixed by the magical phenomenon. Then I passed the ball to Tracey who caught it and the ball turned into another color.

“Sure, why not?” Harry said excitedly.

Then we introduced Harry to magic ball, a game I invented to teach my friends wandless magic.

~~~ G.O ~~~

The door to our compartment opened while we explained how the Wizarding World worked to Harry and his place in it. He has been right upset about why people somewhat worshiped him. Being celebrated for a deed that his parents did, didn't sound at all right to him. Before the door could open, I placed an illusion that turned Harry into a blonde haired girl.

Then a red haired boy opened the door and said, “Excuse me, is there anyone sitting over there? Most of the compartments are full and-”

I cut him and said with a confrontational and blunt tone, “Sorry, Mister Weasley, but we are full.”

“Ah sorry.” Then he closed the sliding compartment door.

Rolling my eyes, I snorted at the obvious ploy; the compartments were self expanding with spatial enchantments carved delicately everywhere. I canceled the illusion spell on Harry who looked at me askance.

"That was Ron Weasley, his family support Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the man who placed you with those horrible mundane people you told me you didn't like." I explained to Harry.

When Harry had told us how his relatives treated him, Tracey had pulled him into a firm hug and refused to let him go. Daphne showed an increasingly scary face the more she heard about his life in the mundane world. Though the rest of my friends were floored when they heard Harry's next question.

"Wait, who is that?" Harry asked as he raised an eyebrow.

Daphne took my hand and tightened her hold on it, clearly now broiling with a quiet fury. I sent a bit of Healing energy into her to calm her down and then answered to the boy. "Albus Dumbledore, your magical guardian?"

Harry shook his head, frowning. "I’ve never met or heard of this man in my life."

It was as if a bomb went off in the compartment, Raven looked at Harry as if he had told her the sky was green, Daphne's mood went cold; she was the biggest fan of Harry amongst us because of the silly little book series her parents had bought for her, now she met her hero and was shocked to see a dark picture of what had been happening to him. My best friend looked at Harry and saw how short and emaciated he looked, the second hand clothes clearly too big for him and the broken glasses. Tracey's anger almost exploded, she knew what it meant that Dumbledore had never explained shit to the little boy or never been present. He was either extremely negligent or something nefarious was going on in the background.

"Okay girls, secure the room, we need to speak frankly with Harry." I commanded.

Daphne snapped a privacy spell in place with her wand, Raven placed a detection enchantment on the door, closed the windows of the compartment with her telekinesis and Tracey began looking over Harry with the diagnostic spell I taught her. We discovered that the boy was severely malnourished, hadn't received any vaccine -mundane or magical- his body was riddled with scars and his bones had a lot of bad breaks. And there was the famous phylactery in his scar siphoning eighty percent of his mana. I don't know how Harry was still alive or sane.

We then began to tell Harry what Tracey was doing and he admitted that he got beaten by his uncle and cousin a lot. He didn't want to tell us at first but we told him that he could trust us. I obviously used a bit of mental suggestion there, but it was important that I knew everything about him to be able to help him.

"So Harry, the man who placed you with your clearly abusive relatives and who is responsible for your well being and is charged to teach you about your inheritance and duties as the Heir of House Potter, a member of the sacred twenty-eight, has never communicated with you?"

Harry rubbed his neck with his free hand while Tracey held onto the other one. Harry was a bit shy and it seemed that this was the first time that he had affectionate physical contact. This boy pulled on my heartstrings.

"I only discovered that I was a Wizard this summer, though I had a suspicion because of odd things happening to me over the years." He said with honesty.

I knew his story from the books and the tons of fanfic I've read about him in my previous life, but hearing about him and seeing him was different. The little guy deserved better, the fact that he was hated by his relatives for being able to use magic was strange to us who have lived in the magical world. Turning to my friends and associates I asked them, "Girls, what do you think?"

"I think Dumbledore wants a pliable and easily manipulated pawn." Daphne answered and this made Harry flinch. Hard truths were being said there.

Tracey put an arm around his shoulders. "Harry is going to need help."

The black haired boy turned his head to Tracey and looked a bit surprised that she suggested that.

"This smells like line theft, the Weasley from earlier who was looking for Harry wasn't a coincidence." Raven said in turn.

Line Theft has been (and is in some nations) a law against the hijacking of a noble line (and therefore its power, lands and wealth) by whatever means. I didn’t know the exact wording of the law in the British Wizarding World about it but the closest offense resembling this I know of is fraud in combination with theft of inheritance.

Daphne put a hand on mine and looked into my eyes, pleading for me to help the little guy; I intended to do that already…

Turning to Harry, I spoke with a reasonable tone, "Harry, I think we need to tell you about the house system in Hogwarts, us four plan to go to house Ravenclaw. You should follow us, this is the house of the wise. We wish to help you and we could protect you and teach you about this world if you are with us. You don't want to be an ignorant little lamb in this dangerous world with a man trying to manipulate you, do you?"

"Knowledge is power." Daphne quoted.

The poor boy seemed overwhelmed by what we were telling him; I think he needed a break. Proving to me that he wasn’t just a pretty face, Harry said, "Let me think about it?"

"Okay, we will always be available if you want to know about the magic world." I offered.

Raven looked at the little guy, her empathy telling her that the guy wasn’t used to being helped at all. We needed to break down the defenses around his heart first to help him.

"Thanks…" He looked gratefully at me.

Tracey hugged him again; he didn’t say anything but I think he really liked her hugs. To change the atmosphere I took some balls of paper from my belt pouch and made them float around me with magic. "Want to play another game? This time with telekinesis and paper balls?"

As I said that, Raven took paper from her utility belt as well and used her TK to turn her little sticky notes into balls and made them float around her head at high speed. "This is easy stuff!"

“Sure.” Harry tried to be nonchalant about it, but he sure seemed to love magic. At least the boy had some joys to look forward to. Soon he would have a whole new world of knowledge and magic available to him.

It took two tries for Harry to get the trick. After some coaching from Raven, that the game was about imagination and willpower, she told him to visualize what he wanted to happen, that most magic worked this way. We played with levitating paper balls in the air for thirty minutes until another person knocked on the compartment door, and this time it was a bushy haired little girl. She watched as we played with wandless magic with wide eyes.

Turning to her, I asked, “Yes, what can we do for you?”

The bushy haired girl stuttered a bit as she spoke, “E-excuse me, have either of you noticed a toad around here? It’s Neville’s pet, er, one of my compartment mates, and it has.. uh, it has escaped.”

“No.” Harry said with a shake of his head. “Have you tried asking any of the upper years? They might have a spell to help search.”

“No, we haven’t but that’s a good idea. Oh, are you using a spell?” She switched subjects rather fast as she saw us play with magic.

Smiling at her I said, “No, just some wandless magic to use TK.” Then I made the balls circle her head twice before retrieving them and making them do figures in the air.

“Interesting, it’s the first time I’ve heard about Wandless Magic; I’ve tried some of the simpler ones with my wand myself already, and haven’t had any issues at all. Come on, show me how you do it.” The girl plopped down on the seat next to Tracey and stared at me.

I really liked how pushy she was, Hermione didn’t know how to make friends at all. So I decided to show her some entertaining magic. I put on a show by creating tiny balls of light and made them hover between us, then explode like fireworks. Red, blue, yellow, flashed around the compartment, I even started to make little constructs in the form of unicorns, dragons and other creatures. Hermione looked transfixed by the magic.

“It was fantastic, can I learn to do that too?” It was cute to hear her giggle childishly.

As an adult in the body of a child, I took great pleasure in taking care of the kids around me. I didn’t crush her expectation, Magic was a matter of imagination and willpower, giving Hermione a goal to aspire to was cool with me. “Sure you can, but we had prior instruction in our younger years, so you’ll have to use your wand at first; learn some languages as well. I would recommend Latin or Gaelic to start with.”

I could already see the brown haired girl’s neurons firing as she took in my comment. “Mhm, from my own research I discovered that most incantations seem to be in latin, though I’ve read other countries use spells in different base languages… which implies there is quite a bit more to spells than simple motions and words, which I assume isn’t true as you can do wandless magic. Hmm let me try and show you…” She turned to Harry. “Your glasses are broken, yes? Sit still!” The girl brought her wand out and pointed it between Harry's eyes.

Harry froze but before he could say anything, Hermione uttered a short phrase. "Oculus Reparo.”

And the tape that held the bridge of his glasses together spun off while the plastic stitched itself back into one full piece. Harry took his glasses off and stared at his brand new pair with his mouth slightly agape.

Harry looked delighted. “Wow, thanks! The tape was getting a little annoying. I haven’t read most of the spells yet in our school book, I’ve been looking at other things.”

“You’re welcome.” The girl said, sitting up straighter as a wide grin spilled across her face. “I’m Hermione by the way. Hermione Granger.”

Hermione finally realized that she hadn’t introduced herself yet, there was a bit red on her cheeks as she realized this. We did the same and introduced ourselves in turn.

“I’m Harry. Nice to meet you.” The only boy with us said, we all noticed he didn’t tell Hermione his family name.

It was my turn, I waved at her. “Triss. Triss Merigold.”

“Daphne Greengrass.”

“Tracey Davis.”

“Rachel Roth, but my friends call me Raven.”

Before Hermione bolted after showing us how talented and intelligent she was, I cupped my hands before me and incanted, “Hmm, Summon Neville’s Toad.”

In a shower of white light, Trevor the toad appeared; he was a brown toad covered in wart-like bumps. I handed him to Hermione who had her eyes open in surprise. “Here, Hermione, come talk with us when you’re done. You are fun to talk with.”

“O-okay…” She said before leaving with the pet toad.

Ten minutes later, Hermione came back with Neville who thanked us for finding his pet toad and they moved their trunks into our compartment which became really lively. We skipped the entire meeting with Malfoy and his toadies, Raven had locked the compartment shut when she noticed the blonde ponce called Draco approaching; we had met the guy before at a party and we didn't like him at all, nor his family. We marked him in Diagon Alley with a spell to always know when he was in the vicinity.

The child was told by his father to become acquainted with me, because I was from a really old pureblood family and a heiress with more money than House Malfoy. Like Malfoy senior, he was a greedy and entitled little git! As a matter of course, Daphne and my other friends mimicked me in my decision to snub Draco since then; we really don't like the ponce.

As the hours passed, we switched subjects to magic and I saw an occasion to right a wrong when we spoke about our Wands, Neville told us how his wand barely worked. I took out my wand, eleven inches, Ancient Cherry wood and True Dragon heartstring, not like those wyverns that Wizards call Dragons.

Neville showed me his wand and I held onto it; there was a lot of resistance when I tried to run my mana through it. "That’s strange, Ollivander wouldn't sell a faulty wand."

The others nodded at my comment, Ollivander was skilled for general wand making or the custom ones. Neville looked a bit sheepish as he revealed that he didn’t buy his wands at Ollivanders like the cool kids. "Huh, I didn't buy mine at his shop. This was my father's wand…"

Daphne and I looked at each other and sighed in sync. So many problems, no one has any common sense in this community? I gave Neville his wand back.

I looked into Neville’s eyes. "Well that's the problem then, Neville. Legacy Wands often don't work for the descendants who have them, only in rare cases. The wand in your hand didn't recognize you as worthy of it. You need to be fitted with another, the wand chooses the wizard. House Merigold has wandmakers in their midst, so I can tell you that much."

Neville looked at his father’s wand with apprehension. "Oh, I have to write to Gran."

I decided to throw the guy a bone and said, "I will help you later, we will go see your head of house after your sorting."

The cute little boy looked at me with wet eyes. "You'd do that for me?"

I flipped my hair, and made some more light creatures with my wand in hand."You're an adorable bloke, so yeah."

"Thank you." Neville smiled with a bit of confidence in his voice.

After that cute interaction, we passed on the subject of Houses in Hogwarts; we all said that we didn't want to end up in Slytherin as it was full of bullies and the head of house was a horrible person. Neville hoped to be in Hufflepuff, Harry wanted Ravenclaw to follow my friends and I; Hermione wanted to go to Gryffindor.

Daphne told her that it was a bad idea and that they were almost all as bad as Slytherin and spoke about their house rivalry thing they had going on. But Hermione was stubborn. For the better part of the time spent on the train we tried to convince Hermione to come with us to Ravenclaw; but she kept telling us how she wanted to be like Dumbledore, the greatest wizard ever and go to Gryffindor. I used my trump card by telling her that Ravenclaw has individual rooms for each student and that they also possess a private library in their tower.

Hermione perked up at that and told us that she would think about it when a prefect came to warn us that the train had almost reached Hogsmead station. We needed to get changed, we put the boys outside the compartment to change, then when we were done, we exited the compartment to give a chance for the boys to change as well.

I laughed with my friends as we commandeered candies from the trolley lady. We got back into the compartment when the boys were done and I waited until it was time to disembark.

~~~ G.O ~~~

Hogwarts was certainly majestic from the exterior, but the no electricity and entertainment thing was a bother. Fortunately, I had my own workaround for that problem. I won't bother you with the details but we got to Hogwarts and Minerva McGonagall received us and gave a load of shite about our house becoming our family and we passed to the important part of tonight's events.

The sorting. It was fun to see how my friends all went to Ravenclaw, even Hermione who was finally in her rightful place. Meeting us changed her fate somehow. Neville went to Hufflepuff, that’s good for him! I just hoped that we wouldn't have to have class with Gryffindor like in the book for charm class.

"Triss Merigold!" McGonagall called out my name, causing me to walk briskly toward the stool and the sorting hat.

I sat on the stool and McGonagall put the hat on my head. I let go of some of my mental defense and let the Hat see some of my memories.

"Interesting. A reincarnator, a lot of you have been passing through these halls." The hat spoke in my mind with a fabulous Saruman like voice.

I wasn't terribly surprised that some reincarnators or maybe jumpers had been allowed into Hogwarts. Some things were different in this world, just like the fact that Bellatrix Black was married to some homo magi guy called Kent Nelson Jr. who apparently saved her from her family turning her into a sex slave for the Lestrange family. She was not disowned when she eloped, strangely.

*Hey Hat, thanks for placing my friends in Ravenclaw.* I thought at the hat.

The construct laughed. "That is where they would be best placed, you have inspired a thirst for knowledge in them that is rarely seen."

"Aww, thank you."

"You already know where you want to go, and it would be pointless to try to change your mind. Your thirst for knowledge and magical experimentation is perfectly in line with dear Rowena's legacy. So you'd better be in… Ravenclaw!"

I laughed, stood up and put the hat on the stool and ran to Ravenclaw table. The sorting continued until we reached Malfoy who obviously went to Slytherin, then I waited until Harry's name was called. The entire Great Hall went silent as he walked toward the stool and McGonagall put the hat on his head. It took only thirty seconds for the Hat to shout, "Ravenclaw!" Surprising everyone, Dumbledore in particular. Seeing his shocked face was a treat beyond comparison.

The Weasley Twins at the Gryffindor table shouted in unison "We don't have Potter?!" And began to whine about it. Ravenclaw obviously clapped and hollered as Harry walked toward our table and the little guy sat at my side. I passed my arm around his shoulders and kissed his cheek, making him blush, then I mussed his hair and the sorting continued but my friends and I ignored it.

Once the sorting was done twenty minutes later, Dumbledore started his show and started the feast, finally.

~~~ G.O ~~~

"You were not lying, we do have a library in the common room!" Hermione was really happy with her choice of house.

My friends and I were touring the Ravenclaw tower, we'd been shown by Penelope Clearwater where everything was located, she even gave us advice on how to avoid certain corridors and to not trust anyone who is a Slytherin if they were in group as they often bullied people when they were in a pack.

Harry was with us and I lent him a book called 'An Introduction To The Wizarding World by Joseph Robinson' which explained everything going on in magical Britain. Hermione was slated to read it next. We were sitting before the fire in the common room and discussing everything that had happened today.

I was looking at my reflection in the mirror, checking if my braids were still intact; at the same time I answered to my new friend's comment. "Why would I lie to you, Mione? You're new and you need help."

*Mhm, I don't like this uniform.* I thought. Plain robes with a large emblem with plain white buttoned shirt with a house themed tie in thick stripes. It was really not appealing to my fashion sense; I was more of a magical girl outfit kinda gal; I recognize the fact that I went native with the Wizarding World, but it was like cosplay everyday. I ordered my hooded cloak outfit with my dresses from France and Japan since most seamstresses moved away from Great Britain because of my book. Only Madam Malkin's Robes stayed obviously but her daughters migrated to Place Cachée in Paris to do business. When the woman eventually passes on, I doubt anyone would want to replace her.

Hermione continued to speak enthused by everything Ravenclaw had to offer. "This is still the best, I feel like I belong here. The hat was right."

Daphne piped up and poked Hermione in the side. "Fortunately, you listened to him. I don't think there's anything like resorting someone into another house."

In some HP fanfics I've read they do that resorting thing often though, but it seemed that in my reality such a resort didn't exist.

"Thanks for looking out for me." Hermione said low, but we all heard it.

Tracey patted Hermione's shoulder, showing a warm smile to the bushy haired girl. Raven made the expression she always did when sickly sweet situations made her gag because of her empathic ability. The poor dear.

"You're welcome." Daphne answered back.

We sipped on our hot chocolates, Harry continued to read the book I lent him and the other firsties introduced themselves to us; like Su Li, Michael Corner who was a right prick, Mandy Brocklehurst, Lisa Turpin and Padma Patil. The rest ignored us, but those who did pay us attention, we told them that we were going to organize a study group to support each other. I didn't say more, we were going to wait to see if any of them would join us.

When it was almost time to go to sleep, Harry asked me, "Triss, what do you think we're going to have to do for Potions?"

*I reckon that he finally reached the part in the book about Professor Snape.* The book goes into extensive details about the failings of the British magical world.

The simple fact that Wizards needed obliviators was a major red flag; Harry, who wasn't too trusting already, was seeing the big picture now. There was a reason Joseph Robinson’s books were illegal in Britain. The man cut through the bullshit and told everyone bluntly and in flowery prose that Britain was doomed because of the botched civil war, the rich Death Eaters bought their way out of prison and how New blood (colloquially called muggleborn) were treated.

When the book was first released, Britain had seen its first massive exodus of Muggleborns to France where they were received with open arms, the French Minister of Magic had even sent a letter of thanks to his British peer, thanking him for the injection of new blood, the economic boost and that he should continue their dumb blood purity dogma and send more people their way. From what the Daily Prophet reported after he received it, Fudge went purple with rage.

Joseph Robinson was one of my Aliases to publish magical papers concerning Britain; one of my favorite past times had been to introduce solutions to their problems to see what they would do with it; I started with familiarizing the Wizarding World to genetics when I was ten years old and explained why the Blood Purity movement was foolhardy and destroyed families and made magical lines squib out. I had even included a spell that I had come up with, that I even introduced to the MACUSA and Japanese magical world that made it easy for healers to see genetic disorders in Wizards and showed how some family lines were about to squib out if they didn't inject new blood, or were already dead when their heir was completely sterile or unable to produce descendants. As a result I was accredited for the spell by the ICW and even received a prize for it that I never bothered to fetch as I didn't do this for the fame, that's what I wrote in a letter to the department responsible.

And what did the Wizengamot of Britain do? They outlawed the spell and any books Joseph Robinson would publish in the UK. Incidentally, the British Ministry was now a joke in the International Confederation of Wizards or at least even more so. This caused Dumbledore to be ejected from his post in the ICW though, because no one wanted an inbred moron in a prestigious role such as the Supreme Mugwump. One less position that he couldn’t abuse.

I looked at Harry and answered, “We -and I mean Raven, Tracey, Daphne and I- already hired Mrs. Tonks to be our potions tutor, there’s no way I am going to Snape's class. There’s a rule in the charter of the school explaining that we can do that if the professor teaching a class is being difficult.”

"Why don't you want to? I read that he is a potion master of renown in Britain." Hermione asked.

I looked at Daphne, pleading with my eyes for her to explain in my place but the icy blonde put on a smug smile and told me to tough it out. We could speak without words like that, I rolled my eyes at her and then decided to answer Hermione.

“Okay, let me explain.” I sat up straighter, ignoring the fact that other firsties were listening to us.

“Professor Severus Snape is the reason for like ninety percent of the non-slytherin students in Hogwarts failing their potions OWL and NEWT; and incidentally lower access to critically needed professions in Britain. Healers, Aurors (our version of cops) and other fields like Alchemy need a minimum of NEWT level potions expertise to be accepted in those jobs. Daphne and I did our research and questioned ex-students before coming to this school. As a result, our families pooled resources to hire tutors who have a vested interest in teaching us."

Some of the students reacted to this, even older ones who suddenly got interested by the fact that there’s a rule in the charter allowing for private tutoring at school.

"Not just potions?" Harry asked.

This time Daphne spoke. "History of magic, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions; we have already completed the OWL level of Arithmancy and Ancient Runes classes when we were ten years old."

“Whoa cool.” One of the First, Goldstein-something said out loud.

Harry started to think, Hermione was vibrating with  questions. The green eyed boy was the first to ask, "Huh, is there a way for me to join you?"

Raven and I looked at each other, then we looked at Tracey and Daphne; they nodded and I said, "I will ask at least the potions tutor for Hermione and you, Harry."

"Thanks!" Hermione jumped up and glomped me to embrace me with one of her bone crushing hugs. "This is going to be great! I just made so many friends today!" The brunette said all happy.

After this, Penelope came to the common room and told us to go to sleep. All the firsties and older students listened and we moved to the dorms part of the tower.

~~~ G.O ~~~

My first month in Hogwarts wasn't special at all. We had to live with a really tight regimented schedule, on Monday from nine to eleven we had double Transfiguration class, followed by a break, the D.A.D.A class and after that it was lunch break and double Charms class right after that.

In Transfiguration class we had found only a cat in place of the teacher in the classroom; it was a cute cat and Raven and I went to hug and pet it. I obviously knew that this cat wasn’t normal at all, but being in a child’s body had its advantages. Once everyone was in the class, the cat jumped from Raven’s arms and lo and behold, it was Minerva McGonagall.

The Transfiguration Professor was a tall, rather severe-looking, and "sprightly" seventy-year-old woman. She had black hair combed back into a tight bun. She always had a very prim expression. She also was known for her mouth becoming very thin whenever she was angry. The woman almost constantly exuded magnanimity and sternness, being held in great respect; Despite her stern demeanor, Minerva did exhibit a dry sense of humor.

And let me tell you what I discovered in just one class… Minerva McGonagall is a really good teacher, she did her animagus cat routine to impress us firsties to show dominance and to stress how Transfiguration was one of the most important classes in Hogwarts; Transfiguration was a very systematic, exact magical discipline, working best for the scientifically-inclined mind and as such it was deemed "very hard work". A lot of students didn’t listen when she told us: "when transfiguring, it is important to make firm and decisive wand movements. Do not wiggle or twirl your wand unnecessarily, or the Transfiguration will certainly be unsuccessful."

I agreed with her on all the points she made in the class, reality warping and turning things into others was awesome but could be incredibly dangerous or end up in failure. But I hadn’t anticipated that the professor would make me an assistant to teach the other Hufflepuff (with whom we have the class with) and Ravenclaw students when I showed her how effortlessly I could turn a matchstick into a needle.

For the next class, my friends and I didn't have Professor Quirrell as the girls and I had our personal tutor, a retired Auror named Dean Colt teaching us. And from what the rest of the Ravenclaw told us after going through the possessed and stuttering fool’s class, his lessons were a disaster as no one understood what he said. I decided that this would not do and that I would soon eliminate him. Charms class became my favorite one, professor Flitwick was an awesome and fun teacher, he started everyone on the levitation charm. The fact that I could do it without a wand had impressed him and just like McGonagall he made me and Raven assist him.

Tuesday: That day we have Herbology, History of Magic, Potions and something I found utterly useless, Astronomy! We had to wake up at midnight to have that class, it pissed me off. Only Raven and Tracey appreciated it; Harry, Daphne and Hermione were hard to wake up for those classes.

Well at least in my group we had more powerful mundane telescopes that Aurora Sinestra, the astronomy teacher, gushed about. She had explained how she had tried to get them accepted in Hogwarts but the Hogwarts board of governors simply refused anything labeled "a muggle artifact" in the school. I blatantly said to the teacher how stupidly putting limitations on technology was because blood bigots wanted to stay stuck in the eighteenth century. The woman acquiesced silently to that.

Moving on… We just didn’t take the History classes offered by the school; instead we had our tutor,  Mrs Elizabeth Harpis, a rather strict blonde haired woman who knew her way around the history of magical and mundane Britain, she even had a doctorate in history from Oxford; yes she was a new blood as well, barely scrounging because of the Blood War, the Death Eaters had killed her family and burned her house. She was working in the Three Broomsticks before my Solicitor, Mister Tonks found her and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse with how much Galleons we paid her per year. Mrs Harpis was also paid to educate herself to teach us later until we finished our magical education.

In history class, we were taught about the statute of secrecy, the founding families of the Wizengamot, the wars with the Goblins and some of the laws pertaining to our rights as witches and wizards in our society. I doubted that the others had the same engaging teacher in the person of Binns. I still don’t know how it was okay that a ghost taught children; proof that Dumbledore was crazy and senile or he didn't want people to learn from the past.

Potions was really engaging as a class; I was happy that we didn’t have Snape, Harry and Hermione were readily accepted by Mrs Andromeda Tonks in her class who had been looking wistfully at him for our first session. Aware that they were related, I decided to not meddle and let Andromeda do her thing and get in contact with Harry at her own pace.

A lot of our fellow Ravenclaw firsties told us how lucky we were to not have Snape; the man was rude and killed any enthusiasm for Potions that they had. One day, soon I will get the man fired. It was during our free time on Tuesday that I did my one good deed of the year.

I went to Hufflepuff and took Neville to professor Pomona Sprout. We had entered the professor’s office, she was working on a plant and she surprised us by having a microscope, looking at something. While we watched her work, I looked at the woman; Madam Sprout could be described as being a squat witch with short, wavy gray hair. She usually wore a patched and battered hat. Sprout also almost always had a smile on her face, she was noted to be very cheerful, positive, and loyal, but was also very professional and just and would chide her students if necessary; this made her really approachable even by other students of different houses.

The professor looked up from her microscope and finally saw us. Sprout put a hand on her big chest as she was surprised to see us there. “Oh, dear me, what are you two here for?”

I didn’t laugh at her, but gracefully walked up to her desk with Neville’s hand in mine and greeted her again, despite having seen her this morning. “Good afternoon, Ma’am; we’ve come to fix one of your puff’s problems.”

With her gaze shifting to Neville's, the professor asked, “Mister Longbottom, is something the matter?”

Neville took out his wand and showed it to the professor who raised an eyebrow at it. “Th-this is about my wand, Professor.”

“What’s the problem with it?” Professor Sprout asked with a patient expression etched on her face.

The woman must be used to kids a lot as she didn't hurry Neville up; the little guy gulped visibly and said, “It’s a legacy wand, it belonged to my father.”

Professor Sprout’s eyes became big as saucers; Frank Longbottom and his wife Alice were interned in St Mungo, on the fourth floor, in the Janus Thickey Ward, which was for treatment of spell damage.

“But isn’t Frank Longbottom still alive?” Professor Sprout asked Neville.

Neville didn’t see the point of the question, but he still answered it. “Yes he is.”

“Then this Wand doesn’t have your allegiance as your father is still alive, young Neville. Who gave this to you? They are deliberately stunting your magical education.”

Neville seemed surprised at that and looked at the professor then at me in turn; then his shoulders slumped as he said, “My Gran, she said that it will make me like my father.”

Professor Sprout’s gaze sharpened as she heard him; I felt that she was really angry with Madam Longbottom right now. “I see the problem… why you’ve been struggling in your classes.”

The squat woman turned to me and with a genial smile thanked me. “Thank you for bringing Mister Longbottom to me, Miss Merigold.”

I mock-saluted her like a soldier would. “My friend needed help.”

The woman smiled. “You would have made a good puff.”

“Too bad my thirst for books and science won out, huh?” I quipped.

The professor and Neville laughed at my joke, then I was dismissed as Madam Sprout needed to tend to young Neville. It was on wednesday, a day later in flying class that I saw that Neville had a brand new wand; it was made of cherry and unicorn hair, bought from Ollivander. The little guy needed some help to adjust his magic to it as he had a tendency to overpower any spell cast with it.

The rest of the first week passed without any problems; Thursday and Friday were all about juggling between Charms, D.A.D.A, Transfiguration and Herbology. Saturday was the start of the creation of our study group. We quickly identified the subjects that would be on the final exam at the end of the year thanks to a seventh year student named Elias Otters who was good at explaining and teaching. The older boy knew the curriculum like the back of his hand.

One of my tasks beside organizing the room for the study group was to prepare my friends with the spells we’re supposed to be taught; there were at least seventy or so that we needed to memorize. This was how we spent the first month of school.