155 Chapter 152

"Come in," called the voice of Professor Septima Vector.

Harry opened the door and let himself in. The Professor was hunched over her desk, looking through a bunch of papers. There were three blackboards off to the side of the room filled with equations and numbers. A large painting of a sleeping woman hung on the wall behind the Professor. Professor Vector's voice drew him away from his inspection of the room, "Mr. Potter, you do know that this is well after curfew don't you?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you Professor, but I really needed to tell you something important about a project I want to start work on very urgently. Professor Dumbledore told me that he'd talk to you about it?" he said, ending the statement with a questioning lilt. This was what he'd asked for from Dumbledore the day he'd visited his office in the summer.

She looked at Harry for a second before she put down her quill, "He did. Very well. Talk."

"Um…" Harry tried to think of something he could say that would help sway her into agreeing to help him but ultimately decided on the truth. If he was going to succeed in convincing her then he didn't want to do so through lies or manipulations. "I want to work on a project about building a game. Using Arithmancy. Something that'll be…a sort of competition to Gobstones and Quidditch"

The Professor raised one neat eyebrow.

"And why do you think Quidditch needs competition Mr Potter?" she asked, sounding incredibly bemused.

Okay. Now it was time to make his case. He wanted to play businessman when he'd first conceived this pet project. Well now it was time to make his first sales pitch.

"Because Quidditch doesn't make sense. Take the snitch for example. The game does not actually end until the snitch is caught, and catching the snitch is worth 150 points whereas each successful goal by the other players is worth 10 points. Average goal per match is 10-20, which means that everyone except the seeker is rendered useless. One team's chasers could all literally stop what they're doing and go impede the opposing Seeker, and it would actually be a smart move!"

Of course, he didn't really hate Quidditch that much.

He didn't care for it, but he didn't hate it. This was just being over-the-top and theatrical for the Professor's sake. He had heard that she wasn't that much a fan of the game either and was determined to use that fact to his advantage as much as possible.

He took a deep breath before he continued, "I believe that the wizarding world deserves better. A smarter game than just the Broom Balls Bang Bang Showdown that it has now. Something that would not only satisfy one's sense of adventure but also reawaken that spirit of curiosity and admiration that each one of us felt the first time we saw magic. And I want t-"

Professor Vector raised a single hand, and Harry stopped talking.

"That's enough of the theatrics Mr. Potter. I will help you."

Harry opened his mouth to thank her, but she interrupted him again.

"But not now. You're not the first one who has had that ambition, Mr. Potter. A few years ago, I helped one of my students create the modern game of Gobstones, and I helped another create Exploding Snap, both of which are major contenders against Quidditch. The developers were both fifth years when they started on their projects. Which is why I'd recommend focusing on your studies now. Come back to me in your later years and I will gladly help you. Besides, I doubt you will make much headway towards your goal as a second-year student."

"I'd respectfully disagree," Harry replied before he pulled out the file in which he'd compiled all his Arithmancy work, and handed them to a bemused looking Professor Vector.

That expression soon slipped off her face.

Her eyebrows kept rising and rising to her hairline as she read.

"I have to say, Mr. Potter that I was only humoring you when I was listening to your belligerent sounding rant on Quidditch, "she said, looking genuinely disbelieving," But this…you've put in some serious work. I know people twice your age who'd have issues even understanding this. These are NEWT level calculations!"

Ping!

By catching the interest of a potential investor you have gained a new skill!

Entrepreneurship, Lv-1 (20%)

This skill will reflect your mastery and acumen in the arts of entrepreneurship, including but not limited to pitching, creating, popularising and running an enterprise. This skill will eventually evolve to show the aspects of entrepreneurship you have mastered.

Branches:

Pitch: A distillation of an idea into a summary to hook an investor and make them more likely to invest their time, money, power or effort into your project.

Percentage of Success - (10+Lv of Theatrics)%

Harry waved it away, and replied to the Professor, "Thank you, ma'am. It's just some self-study. Nothing too complex really"

It was complex. He'd had to level up his Arithmancer skill thrice before he could even start working on it. Using Arithmancy to calculate the future of his hypothetical business with probability matrices was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, but he needed to prove to Vector that he was serious about this, and he was capable of it. And this was the only way of doing it.

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