A Legacy to Forge

"You knew her?" Harry questioned with a hopeful tint in his voice. The young Potter knew deep down that Lily Potter was dead, that he had never met her. But past life or not, he wished he had met her. Even if he had memories of his past life, Harry was still a child, and a mother's love is a very strong force.

"Oh, yeah. Lily Evans was one of my most brilliant students. A veritable charms prodigy that could have gone far. Horrible in transfiguration though. I even recommended her in the charms guild to pursue her mastery. She was a kind woman but her anger was something to be feared. I miss her dearly."

"No one said anything about her, to be honest. Thank you, professor." Harry replied.

The professor huffed, "You're very welcome, Mr Potter. My door is open to you if you wish for any questions about your mother. And I hope to see you at the duelling club in your next semester. I think you'll do well, there."

Harry nodded in understanding and left the room. He chose to trust the professors to do their jobs. Instead, he chose to focus on the scholarly side of things. He had finished the books he had taken from the library, and it was showing. Harry's practical magic was starting to get absurd by all standards. He had tried out a few transfiguration spells from his schoolbook and they all worked perfectly. Harry was honestly taking his time with them, trying to perfect them and their modifications. He wanted to figure out how they worked and map out the frequencies needed for the transfiguration in his mental symphonies, to be able to craft transfiguration spells of his own one day.

For all his achievements in practical magics, Harry discovered that arithmancy was his favourite subject. Oh, not the crap that is taught in third and fourth years, but from OWL level and above. The first two years of the elective are just a study about magical numbers and their properties, as well as their uses in primitive divination. Afterwards, it is practically a small introduction to calculus while taking into account the properties of the numbers. It was starting from the fifth year that things started to get interesting with the inclusion of arithmancy in magical theory. It was Advanced Arithmancy that Harry wanted to truly study.

Honestly, it didn't take long for him to get used to the oddity of arithmancy, which was basically maths with the inclusion of traits of certain numbers which were considered as an additional dimension of sorts. Adding in the fact that until the statute of secrecy, most mathematicians and philosophers were wizards, the arithmancy system is very close to the one from Harry's previous life.

Harry quickly returned the books and chose one on advanced arithmancy, which was actually taught by a different professor. He thought about starting with runes as well but changed his mind. Advanced Arithmancy looked to be quite complicated, and Harry didn't want to overwhelm himself with it.

The truth was that the young Potter wanted to discover everything he could about magic. He wanted to study it as no one had ever before. He was going to try out every single magical field and see how it ticked, to create a unified theory of magic and arithmancy seemed to be the best way to get about it. It combined the theory of practically every wand-based subject, but Harry had no idea how.

Magic is chaotic by nature. It was unpredictable. Harry had learnt that when he tried to use wandless magic. It was trying to grip water without scooping anything, and complex effects just weren't replicable. And yet, with a wand, a few words in Latin and moving your wrist a certain way made it very possible to replicate a spell a thousand times.

It all came back to wands, didn't it? Arithmancy couldn't be wrong; it was based entirely on fundamental magical laws. But it was also more than useless whenever rituals were involved. At least, according to the books about rituals that were allowed in the public side of the Hogwarts library. Rituals seemed more art than science and Harry wanted nothing to do with them until he was more experienced with magic at the very least.

But the point stands. Someone, probably during the rise of Rome, invented the wand and created a giant system of magic based on Latin. With it, a soldier with magic would be able to tirelessly cast a replicated spell, which probably explained how quickly they were able to expand their empire.

Curiously, the name of this inventor was nowhere to be found. He was most likely a genius with no parallel, probably surpassing even Merlin with his understanding of magic. And yet that man didn't have a legend as he should have but was lost to the sands of time. Wizards now take his gift, his magical system for granted. It was breathtaking how one man more than two thousand years ago changed the course of magical history and yet was forgotten.

That's what Harry wanted, really, to make his mark on the magical world in a very significant manner, but not be forgotten as well. He wanted to forge a legacy that would remember his existence. He wanted young wizards and witches to swear by his name long after his body withers and becomes nothing more than dust.

This was Harry's deepest wish, the reason he was sorted to Slytherin. In his previous life, he had died forgotten, alone. In this life, Harry grew up being told that he was no one, and that he would never amount to anything. He would prove them wrong. He would prove them all wrong, that he swore.

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