Chapter 86: Reassessment

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19 October 1992, Hogwarts

Harry returned to his common room feeling both disappointed and excited for some reason. He knew it was wrong, but there was just something about having a worthy opponent to spar against. He only hoped that no one would suffer because of his mistake.

The following day, Harry woke up later than usual. He didn't do his daily Occlumency exercises, nor did he read a book. He was up all night analyzing his confrontation with Riddle and trying to figure out clues that he had missed.

Tom Riddle had played him and there was no way to deny it. Harry had thought that he was victorious, that the moment he had seen the cursed diary, everything would go back to normal. Now, he needed to reassess everything he had thought before. He wasn't dealing with a single soul shard possessing a silly girl of sorts but with an actually brilliant teenager with a mind that rivalled his own. In this life, aside from magic, Harry's greatest gift was his mind. It was difficult to explain, but compared to his previous life, he was just slow. Harry could learn things faster, had a very good memory, and just could make links and correlations that he wouldn't have seen in his previous life. He could solve puzzles in seconds, that he would have struggled against in his previous life, even as an adult. Harrison Smith wasn't an idiot by any means; in fact, he was up there in terms of intelligence, but this life was just on another level.

Harry's mind was the reason he could learn magical subjects so quickly, after all. Yes, his Arcane Magic helped, and it synergized terrifying well with his mind, but things like runes and advanced arithmancy were all on him. At first, he didn't know if it was a side effect of having magic, but he hadn't seen anyone exhibit the same intelligence as him in Hogwarts. Until Riddle that is.

The older student was so different from Voldemort that it wasn't even funny. How could someone as brilliant as Tom Riddle end up as shortsighted as the fake Dark Lord who just wanted to live forever and kill his former professor? The seeds were there. Riddle had the arrogance associated with the Dark Lord, he definitely had the magical prowess, but all this planning, the tricks and misdirection were not Voldemort's usual method of operation. Where Tom Riddle was methodical and precise, Voldemort was wild and chaotic. Where he was careful, Voldemort was overconfident. There were similarities, but they were fundamentally different persons and Harry needed to treat them as such.

The wraith that was possessing Quirrell had jumped into Dumbledore's trap without a second thought. He didn't care about subtlety at all, especially considering the manner he tried to recruit Harry. Yes, the Potter scion would have seen through most attempts at manipulation, but he lost nothing by being pleasant. He was so used to terrify people into submission that he didn't even try another way, or maybe he couldn't think of any. The man just giving a private lesson or two would have enticed any student, and slowly they could convert them into an agent. This whole 'join me or die' routine was just inefficient.

But Riddle wasn't like that. His honeyed words could charm anyone. He almost had Harry convinced that his goal was to genuinely try to save Muggleborns and Muggle-raised students. But how did he know that it would strike a chord with Harry? Lily Potter being a Muggleborn is common knowledge, but his being Muggle-raised was something that he kept closely. Daphne was the only one to have noticed, but if she did, then Riddle must have seen it too. It wasn't Legilimency; Harry would have felt it and with the Diary being far away, mind magic was unlikely while the Astral Projection was technically possible.

Did the older boy tailor an argument just to suit the knowledge he gained of Harry in seconds? Because that would be terrifying. If Voldemort had acted like that in his younger years, it was understandable why he got such a large following that was so entirely devoted to him.

But that's not important. What is, is the fact that the Basilisk was going to attack soon, and Harry couldn't really do anything to stop it.

The Potter scion's thoughts were interrupted by Blaise who poked his shoulder, "It's weird to see you asleep this early, mate. You're always up, either at breakfast or with a book in your hand in the common room. Are you alright?"

Harry nodded, "I'm good. I just have something on my mind, is all."

After getting dressed, the two boys met Daphne and Tracy in the common room. The girls were also surprised but didn't voice anything. Still, they went to breakfast in silence. Honestly, Harry was happy that he had found friends that understood when he needed to think in peace.

They all walked to class afterwards, which unfortunately was with Gilderoy Lockhart. Yeah, he had seen too much of this man the previous night, but he had to stomach it even further. It enraged Harry that a fake was pretending to be a professor without any repercussions. Seriously, what are Dumbledore's credentials for hiring Defense Professors? All of the other Senior Professors were masters in their fields and have contributed to the advancement of magic in some way. Sprout had made new ways of crossbreeding plants with surprisingly effective results.

McGonagall had written a lot of theories regarding the Animagus Transformation and helped shorten a few self-transfiguration steps. Snape was the youngest potion master in history, having created over five new potions, and published altered generalized recipes that improved the potency of potions at lower ingredient costs. Flitwick needed no introduction, from Dueling to Warding, that man knew his stuff inside out. The fact that he had a mastery of charm with his heritage was proof that he was so good that bigotry just didn't apply to him anymore.

The other professors were mostly the same, but Lockhart was honestly a joke. All he had were his books, and Harry had checked.

Speaking of the blonde ponce, he entered the room with that disgustingly bright smile on his face, "Hello, my dear students. Now, I have the results of your previous assignments and I am happy to see that most of you have a good grasp on common magical pests and how to get rid of them. So, that means, we're ready for this section of the curriculum that focuses on actual defensive and offensive spells."

The entire classroom muttered excitedly. Harry wasn't one of them. Sure, the pest section was annoying and boring, but Harry didn't really stand out in them, at least not as much as students like Hermione Granger who seemed to study very hard for every single one of them.

As far as Lockhart was concerned Harry just already knew how to deal with magical pests, probably from his presumed guardians. The other students caught up pretty fast since dealing with the pests wasn't that difficult. They weren't dangerous and Harry actually approved of having them in the curriculum just in case students ran into them by accident at home or in the castle. Things like Billywigs, Gnomes, Bundimuns, and Ghouls could just show up in a magical household and having children prepared to deal with them is generally a good idea.

Harry was curious as to what the man was going to do next. Defensive and Offensive spells could be classified in many ways.

Of course, the professor waved his hand to calm the class, "Now, don't get too enthusiastic. Before we can start casting spells at targets, you need to understand a bit about the theory. Don't worry, we'll be blasting each other pretty soon. Now, for the rest of the semester, we'll be focusing on what I like to call elemental spells. Now, for those of you who don't know what elemental magic is. It's the control of certain elements using magic. A master of the water element could sink cities with a thought. A master of the wind element could create tornadoes with a simple wave of their wand. You get the picture, and I know you're excited and everything, but you're not going to learn that."

Harry heard a few disappointed sounds around the room and stifled a giggle. These people were barely able to cast stinging hexes, and they wanted to be master elementals? But yeah, this wasn't a bad introduction and the young Slytherin could see where this was coming.

The professor continued, "Yes, I know, it's a bummer. But I never said that you were learning elemental magic, which takes decades to become proficient at it, let alone master it. I said we will be working on elemental spells, which are spells infused with a simple element. Spells like 'Incendio' which you learnt the previous year, are such spells. There are five main elements. There are other elements other of course, but you'll rarely see them, so for the time being, we'll pretend they don't exist.

"Back to the five main elements. There is fire, water, earth, wind, and lightning. Each element has an attribute, of sorts, and its own strength and weaknesses. If we just take these elements and make them fight, we see that some of them have advantages over others. Water is weak against Earth but strong against fire. Fire is weak against water and strong against wind, which is strong against lightning. Earth is strong against water but weak to lightning. So, if I send a fireball spell at you, it's better to counter with a water spell, which will actually not only cancel the element but will actually counter the very spell. It's also why you could counter large elemental attacks with less extensive spells if the elemental superiority is in your favour."

The class continued and Harry had to admit that even if he hated Riddle's guts on principle, he was shaping Lockhart to be an adequate teacher. Yeah, it irked him that the professor was under some sort of mind control, or possession, but the man was a fraud who could have sabotaged the education of hundreds of students, so Harry didn't feel that bad about it. The only issue is the level of access this gave Riddle. Like it or not, professors had a lot of perks in Hogwarts, and it allowed Riddle to move in the castle unrestrained and that was dangerous.

As horrible as having an incompetent professor might be, having one controlled by a younger version of the Dark Lord was just wrong. Harry had tried to see if he could find the enchantment the previous day when he used Legilimency on Lockhart. He could feel the sudden urges to do a few things, or sudden bursts of knowledge, but not their source. There had to be an anchor of sorts to allow these compulsions to work on the blonde ponce, and that anchor needed to be connected to the diary.

Getting the diary would get everything sorted out, but the person who had it remained a mystery. With an opponent as competent as Riddle, plots within plots were possible. He could have been invisible and camouflaged somehow in the train. If the diary could hide itself from Harry, there was no reason its user couldn't as well. Maybe his list of suspects was wrong in the first place? Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, even if improbable, must be the truth. But everything was possible with magic, thus what could he trust to make his conclusions?

His encounter with Riddle had really rattled him, but he needed to steel himself and continue his investigation. After all, the man had thrown the gauntlet, and Harry hadn't had a challenge in a long time. For all his reservations, the Potter knew one thing for certain. This year is definitely not going to be boring.

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Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.