Curiosity and the Cat! Part-1

{Dungeons, Hogwarts, Scotland}

{07:14 PM, 11th Sept 1991}

Buying or Unclocking skills through the system was a strange experience, as soon as he leveled up Harry had selected Occlumency and suddenly a stream of knowledge entered his brain like pictures flashing before his eyes. Since then he started at the very basics of Occlumency, like clearing your mind so that the intruder couldn't glean anything from you.

A buildup of mana alerted Harry of danger as he easily sidestepped the bone-breaker curse that sailed past his shoulders, Harry turned around to face the four 4th-year Slytherins. As Harry devoted to his studying for the past few weeks the unrest in the house had escalated. Malfoy returned to the house after a day of hanging in the grand hall, his Father had visited the school that day coming with several people who tried to pull the Malfoy heir down but ultimately failed. Unless they could find another Parselmouth to use 'finite' it wouldn't have mattered.

After that Lord Malfoy spent several hours talking with several students of the upper years and Harry was ready for the ensuing chaos but nothing happened, all the upper years stopped meddling in the lower years' disputes unless it was something serious.

The most curious change was from Malfoy, the heir to the Ancient and Noble house quietly gathered allies but never once tried to attack him, seemingly happy to play heir to the noble house like everyone else. Anyway back to the situation at hand, the four people had been discreetly following him since the Library, well discreetly for their standards.

Harry surveyed the four of them, Carmel Griffiths, a pureblood of some standing but mainly ostracized from the main pureblood circles because his father married a muggle-born witch when his mother died. Johnathan Bell, Half-blood, another member of a declining house, Efan Greenwood, Pureblood, the only member of the group that has some standing in the group allied with the Rosiers most probably as Harry had seen him bootlicking the youngest scion, and his girlfriend Taya Ferry, pureblood.

Deeming them as a minimum threat once Harry turned his back and leaned against the wall as he surveyed the surroundings to make sure that they weren't just the bait. Harry eyed each of them curiously, they were nervous especially when they saw how easily Harry dodged the bone breaker curse that was the limit of their spell knowledge.

"I'm expecting you didn't attack me on a whim, now what's the message," Harry asked.

Greenwood took a deep breath before he said, "Calypso Rosier, scion to the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Rosier would like you to sit beside her at supper. The seat will be empty..." After he finished delivering the message he motioned the rest of his team to leave when a bright red spell sailed and impacted Bell's hand shattering the bone completely before they could react. The rest of them got ready for a fight as Greenwood managed to produce a Protego to cover all of them.

"Hmm," Harry hummed as he was curiously looking at his wand, "That wasn't bad," Harry looked back at the scared expression on Greenwood's face, Harry's spell was too fast, it reached Bell beside him before he could even produce a shield. He was secretly glad that he had asked Bell to curse at Harry otherwise he would be the one crumpled and screaming right now.

"Tell your friend to compact the mana as much as he can when he starts saying the encantation, it increases the potency and speed of the spell," Jackson's words flew right on top of his head but Greenwood still stood on guard, "the seat will be empty you say... hmm" He watched Hector hum to himself as he casually turned his back towards them and returned on his way back to the grand hall.

Greenwood took a sigh of relief as he watched the terrifying first year casually walking away from the dungeons, "There is no way he's muggleborn..." Taya said beside him, "He is toying with the house..." Greenwood couldn't help but nod, "No one speaks a word to anyone about what happened today, if some idiot wants to decreas-e their standing by going after the seemingly muggleborn Slytherin then let them," he finished and then turned to the whimpering Bell, now he had to take this idiot to the hospital wing.

"But how did he know that it was Bell who cast the spell," Taya asked beside him.

"Merlin knows how, but I don't think anyone out of the top 5 could have dodged that spell..."

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{Great Hall, Hogwarts, Scotland}

{07:20 PM, 11th Sept 1991}

Harry arrived at the great hall along with a few other Slytherins ticklings beside him, Harry watched the great hall and the vast number of students in the hall, the four tables were full of chattering teenagers, he looked at his brother than at Susan before he walked back towards the Slytherin table. The Slytherin and Ravenclaw table were relatively full of students, Harry watched the empty seat beside Calypso Rosier before deciding why not have some fun and he walked towards it. Harry easily caught the eye of several cautious people before he easily took the empty seat and started piling food on his plate.

"Scion Rosier," he noded to the curious girl as he took a bite of the chicken. Hogwarts' food was really good, Harry figured he needed to go and meet the house-elves someday and cut a deal or something to get food outside of the grand hall, it gets annoying eating with so many people glaring at you.

"Mr. Jackson," she waited for a bit before continuing, "I wasn't sure you would join us today," there was calm confidence about the girl which Harry appreciated, and since he couldn't see into her head, it made the conversation more interesting at least, "you have been studying quite intensively the last few days, is there anything I can help you with?" Harry tilted his head at her, trying to see through her motives.

"Hmm, thanks for the offer," Harry politely declined as he took another bite to chew, the silence stretched as several people fidget in their seats with annoyed looks on their faces, "I was just exploring the Hogwarts library, quite an amazing place." Harry quipped before going back to his plate, he wasn't in a hurry to know what she wanted to talk to him about, plus no way she would proposition him on the very first day, this facade would take place multiple times before she decided to ask what she wanted.

Harry once again looked at the Slytherin table, it was the only table that had a different seating order, according to his observation almost every year was divided into two major factions that sat at the opposite ends of the table, this continued till at the very centre sat the current ruler of Slytherin students, who would most probably be the 7th year prefect or head boy/girl. So the Slytherin table made a wierd Palindrome of sorts if someone looked from the outside. Harry could see his own years already divided into two. Now as to where he would sit tomorrow... Harry's eyes flashed as he imagined how much chaos he could cause...

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AN: So several people were dissatisfied with Harry questioning the system, I see it from a different point of view, Harry Potter is a sociopath in this story, or at least as close to one as one could be, he doesn't have anyone he cares about, since 5 he had been suppressing his emotions by using gamers mind, thus lacking emotional depth yet his acting skill which is at a very high level gives him a detailed understanding of human emotions, due to gamers mind he is calm and collected all the time, all his decisions are logical, and made sense to him for survival.

Now it is the first time in half a decade he doesn't have to worry about survival, so he has stopped actively using the gamer's mind and has experienced various emotions ringing from confusion to amusement. And when he read the update and that someone controls the powers that he relies on soo much, he became paranoid that maybe one day the power is gone, and his mind would be left defenseless, Harry is very protective of his mind, and that one second when the Gamer's mind was completely off let him experience that his whole being would collapse if for some reason the system indeed was blocked for some reason.

He still trusts the gamer's mind to bail him out of scenarios, it's just he had started thinking about contingency plans for his contingency plans. He was still trained by HYDRA after all...

Anyway, the next few chapters are interesting as Harry's mood fluctuates due to his paranoia, it will be fun.

Current P.atreon Chapter-23, Today's target chapter- 26... -patreon.com/WN_Translations